THWACK Monthly Mission - December 2017

I was doing some routine monitoring when I saw... I saw systems in the cloud! Before I could drill down and get a closer look, the administrator issued an alert that the evil Empire of End-Users was threatening the health of the whole system.

THWACKsters, we have no choice but to go on an emergency mission to rescue as many applications, servers, and VMs that we can. We’ll take our upgraded ship, the SolarWinds

S.A.M., that will allow us to have visibility across cloud environments, so we won’t be flying blind.

I am no SysAdmin, but I know IT. It moves through and surrounds every living thing. Close your eyes... feel it... the light... IT has always been there... IT will guide you.

It’s THE LAST MISSION of the year. Use your new abilities and battle beyond your data center!

DECEMBER MONTHLY MISSION

Use the mission’s resources to complete the tasks and answer the questions for a chance to win!

Correctly answer each question during the week and you'll be entered for a chance to win the weekly prize.

Correctly answer all 20 questions over the course of the month and you'll be entered for a chance to win the grand prize: Star Wars Jedi Challenges!

Want to join the mission, but not a member? Sign up FREE now!

PRIZES

Weekly Prizes & Drawing Dates:

December 11: R2D2 Charging Hub
December 18: Storm Trooper Bluetooth Speaker
December 25: X-Wing vs. Death Star Rebel Assault Drones
January 1: Sphero BB-9W App-Enabled Droid

Grand Prize

January 1: Star Wars Jedi Challenges

150 points are being awarded for each correctly answered question. There are 20 questions, which means you can earn a maximum of 3,000 points for this mission.

MISSION SHORTCUT

Complete the mission shortcut to earn an additional 1,000 THWACK

points & enter to win Death Star Legos!
The shortcut is simple:

1. Download Server & Application Monitor
2. Take a screenshot of the cloud summary page populated by either AWS or Azure instances/VMs
3. Submit your screenshot below

MISSION RULES

A new question will open every day (Monday - Friday) starting on December 4, 2017. Once a question has opened, it will remain open until December 31, 2017 at 11:59 p.m. CST. Check the schedule below for exact open/close times.

Weekly Prizes	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Winners
Week 1: Complete questions 1-5 by December 10 to be entered to win: R2D2 Charging Hub
Week 2: Complete questions 6-10 by December 17 to be entered to win: Storm Trooper Bluetooth Speaker
Week 3: Complete questions 11-15 by December 24 to be entered to win:X-Wing vs. Death Star Rebel Assault Drones
Week 4: Complete questions 16-20 by December 31 to be entered to win: Sphero BB-9E App-Enabled Droid
Correctly answer all 20 questions by December 31 to be entered to win the Grand Prize! Star Wars Jedi Challenges

Monthly Mission Terms and Conditions: US, UK, and Canada | Germany | Australia

Mission Shortcut Terms and Conditions: US, UK, and Canada | Germany | Australia

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Comments

Radioteacher

This is the mission for you. (Waves hand) Answer all the questions correctly.....

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Trailer (Official) - YouTube

dodo123

may the force be with you!!

mprobus

One green checkmark. 19 more to go. The force is strong within me.

smoked_angus

Best. Prizes. Ever.

jeremymayfield

Hey wabbott, What if we do not have any cloud instances as part of our IT infrastructure. I can not take screen shots of what i dont have. I am not sure that is a fair mission shortcut. I want to participate but it leaved me in the cold and dark out planet with no life to speak of.

knucklebusted

In the same boat with no ability to participate.

magicpercy

I too can not take a shortcut. As we are not strong with the Public Cloud, and remain on the dark side for now.

gundamunit1

Same here, our company does not like the cloud except for O365.

atrepes

These prizes!!!

rschroeder

I think this month's Mission Photograph is missing something . . .

cahunt

It all depends on what you have, so eventually there may be a mission where the shortcut is 'not an option'...sad, but true.

magicpercy

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smoked_angus

lando calrissian sells colt 45 - Bing video

mcam

I've had the same deal for a number of missions - that's the way it falls. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't

kenglover

Perhaps see if you can sign up for a free trial with the vendor of your choice (not sure if either offers any free trials) on your own and then complete the shortcut

wabbott

Hey guys, I hear your complaints about the shortcut and I am sorry that not all of you are able to participate because of your infrastructure. Since the shortcut is a bonus/ optional activity I suggest you focus on the mission this month and revisit the shortcut next month. I try to keep missions broad enough that everyone can participate, but there may be times when it's not possible to accommodate everyone because of the focus of the mission. Apologies for the inconvenience this month, thanks for understanding.

petergwilson

This is only my 4th monthly mission and, as yet, I haven't been able to enter any of the bonus missions.

jeremymayfield

Thanks wabbott breaking my heart at the holidays, I see how it is....

shuckyshark

Yes, lets all whine and complain to @wabbott about the hard work she puts in to get us free prizes, thwack points, and most importantly, free knowledge sharing, support and training.

I'd like to see Thwack boycott everyone and have 3 months of no missions and prizes to quell those individuals.

petergwilson

I'm guessing you ARE able to enter this competition then.

sparda963

Hey now, no need to get crazy here now!!!! I would go into major withdrawls.

I don't really bother with the shortcuts as I only have LEM. I am also not able to install any of the other systems even on a trial basis to do the shortcuts as we have no space for it

shuckyshark

Actually, no, I don't believe government data belongs in the public cloud, so we block and ban all public cloud services. This is the second mission in a row where I can't participate...nor have I won any monthly mission...I did win a really cool RC car once for a story contest (thank you Thwack!)...

smoked_angus

Life is not always fair.

Repeat.

I can see a time soon where the angst and complaints exceed the tolerance levels of the admins of this community to take the time and effort to create these fun contests and give away cool gifts.

jeremymayfield

We all love wabbott and all the other staffer's that make Thwack and SolarWinds great. But We have to raz them a little, I mean come on. We also should note that it gives us an opportunity to play and explore. I installed some free AWS services yesterday and added it to SAM and guess what, entered the shortcut after all. Are they production servers, no, do that need to be, no, is there any real data there, but then again it says download a trial of SAM, so if i am quote unquote trying SAM (even though I own it) why wouldn't i try the cloud. Next up is Azure. I want to try my hand at that. Never hurt to expand knowledge, and I feel they do a good job. I didn't know AWS had free services until i looked.

Whether life is fair or not isn't really the issue, its more about being a good community and rolling with the punches. Sometimes we win some times we lose, and in the end, we learn, we grow, we make friends, and we get point anyway....

jolley71717

I'm very excited for these prizes. Even if I don't win, I know that someone else will be enjoying their Star Wars gear.

phill_brown

Watch out for today's question (7th). I got it wrong because of terminology differences between one of the answer choices and the actual info in the hint. A bit of a sneaky trick when the others are worded exactly the same

petergwilson

Today's question has a problem. The 2nd answer "Node - Peak CPU used" isn't listed in the table so I didn't tick the box and got the question wrong. Seems a bit unfair.

levans59

prizes are amazing for this month!!! Love star wars!!

sierra1011

Me too I'm afraid. Seemed like very specific wording and then to have *used as other metrics and Peak CPU used not being listed... Overthought it perhaps

chinmaychavan

Yeah

wabbott can you confirm this