When monitoring multiple sites, how do you handle the collection of data...
This is tied in to my last post "Do you prefer agentless or agent-based monitoring? Are there situations where you prefer one over the other?" I prefer agent-based solutions for monitoring to get...
View ArticleDo you prefer agentless or agent-based monitoring? Are there situations where...
When I’m evaluating a monitoring system, one of the first things I check for is if it is agent-based or agentless. The use of one method over another doesn’t necessarily spell disaster for the project...
View ArticleOutlook 2010 Shared Calendar Search Not Working: Fixed
Issue Description: Manager A has shared their calendar with Employee B. Employee B can view and edit the shared calendar, but is no longer able to search the contents.Key Designation: When only the...
View ArticleWhy Didn't We Know About This?
Those six words can make you shudder. When they are the only text in an email below a link leading to a story about a zero-day exploit or a news flash on CNN talking about stolen personal information...
View ArticleDo you monitor your systems bidirectionally? Ingress and egress traffic to...
This question is a near kinsman to my last question "When monitoring service uptime and availability, do you use geographically diverse monitoring stations? Can you have too many?" The reason is that,...
View ArticleNo One Expects The Java Patch!
It seems the operating system patches take the brunt of the blame when it comes to problematic behavior. It used to be a common occurrence to have multiple days of Windows patches or a never-ending...
View ArticleSAM Override Template
Today I was showing someone how to override template settings for components for a node and they asked me a question. "What if you use the Override Template button for a component for a specific node...
View ArticlePrivate Clouds and Patch Management Strategies
The cloud model is present in a large amount of companies within these days, and if it’s not they are already thinking about it. Even though there are still a lot of organizations which are not ready...
View ArticleI love the sound of breaking update windows in the morning
I fear patching. It is one of my biggest professional terrors, second only to managing backup and restore operations. Interestingly, patching is often intimately related to your backup and restore...
View ArticleDo you gather evidence on a service provider to keep them accountable?
Last week I bought a new virtual server to be able to hold clients that rapidly expand or have sudden bursts of traffic (CloudFlare FTW!). While reviewing the service provider, I started thinking...
View ArticleIs it possible to have too much monitoring?
Hello, everybody. I'm Bob Plankers, and I'm one of the thwack Ambassadors for the month of March. I'm a system administrator, virtualization architect, ex-programmer, network aficionado, and recovering...
View ArticleWhat's the thing you hate the most about the tools you use? And what would...
When it comes right down to it, many of the tools that we use in the IT world don't actually save us much time. Sometimes they require as much maintenance as a full application, with databases and...
View ArticleWhat makes a good sysadmin?
I've been helping some friends with their resumes lately, and it's caused me to think a lot about how I became a sysadmin. I don't have any formal training (beyond some vendor-specific stuff), and I...
View ArticleHow do you keep track of servers, applications, IP addresses?
Where I work we have a configuration management database, or CMDB. The term CMDB comes from the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL. ITIL to some is a true four-letter word, but the...
View ArticleRemote network access: Commercial Solution or Roll your own ?
Remote management of workstations and remote networks has been something that IT staff have dealt with for a long time. Some IT staff simply need to management workstations from inside of their...
View ArticleRemote Workers how are you enabling and managing them ?
I guess I'm pretty lucky; I work from home and have only been to the corporate office about six times since I started over a year ago. The company I work for uses Citrix XenApp for publishing...
View ArticleBYOD, how does your company handle it ?
Everywhere you look it seems as though people are seeing two things... "Cloud" and "BYOD". So lets talk about BYOD... or Buy Your Own Device or Bring Your Own Dollars... however you look at it my...
View ArticleWhen monitoring multiple sites, how do you handle the collection of data...
This is tied in to my last post "Do you prefer agentless or agent-based monitoring? Are there situations where you prefer one over the other?" I prefer agent-based solutions for monitoring to get...
View ArticleDo You Trust Vendor Patches?
Microsoft had a bit of an issue with the latest round of patches last week. Nothing major blew up other than an Outlook folder pane view, but the implications were legion. Do you actually test these...
View ArticleCan You Bring Your Own Patches?
I've got several devices that I use frequently. Smartphone, tablet, and laptop are all frequently used devices. When I spent my time working at a VAR, I saw examples of all these devices being...
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