petergwilson · Monitoring Specialist · ✭✭✭✭✭

Shadow IT. We have just now had a request come in for a restore of a supposedly mission critical SQL database. We have never heard of it. After some digging we have discovered that one of the developers has 'lent' some storage space on one of the dev servers to someone he knows in another part of the business. That person…

The worrying thing is I could have made a purchasing decision based on this incorrect information. We have just spent a fortune on several Solarwinds products and this wasn't but could have been the deciding factor of whether we went with Solarwinds or another vendor. The response has been very underwhelming and is leaving…

That's bullying in the workplace. You should report them to HR

This really strikes a chord with me as I see myself as the 'force multiplier' (hopefully others do too). I don't close many tickets but do get involved with a great many where I am able to get the correct people to talk to each other and get ideas bouncing around. Sometimes it's just a nudge in the right direction,…

Last year was my first (OK not actually present, just watching on-line) but learned loads so have this one marked down as busy in my calendar.

We run several and I suspect most people do. I guess any answer would work.

Shame about your "Music Festival" Hopefully Download will be better attended. Only going on the Sunday though.

Facebook won't tell me anything. I'm not on it.

We are just turning on 2FA for e-mail and some web based apps. Users are really confused even though they have been given plenty of notice and documentation.

Get out and about. As a 20 year contractor I am always amazed when I join a new client and find their 3rd line support staff never see users. They have no appreciation of the issues users face and no idea of what the users want. They then make decisions about what technology to foist onto users and specify how it should be…

It's also about managing the management's expectations. If you do that then exceed their expectations you will do well.

Yeah, Top banana. Have a great weekend.

Yes. A good DR plan should be modified as part of the service commissioning / decommissioning process. Most people forget this (or don't even follow a com / decom process). Also a very good point to have an up to date copy of the plan off site. No point having all the information in the office you can't access.

So $9Bn isn't a big deal for Google but a few quid in tax is.

So the LHC scientists are using a really big hammer to crack a very very small nut. What could possibly go wrong.

Maybe if they just made phones with user replaceable batteries and responsible users (more likely than responsible Apple) disposed of them correctly.

E-mails for teams of people who need to know and Solarwinds integrated with Service Now to create tickets. Service Now set up to pick up on new P1 tickets out of hours, select the correct on-call engineer and then phone their mobile via Twillio to wake them up and let them know of the P1.

Not really helpful as three of them could be correct if it was just a little typo.

Quantum Computing. It's nowhere near ready yet. It probably will get there but maybe in 20 years or so.

Used to work for a Fire Brigade and they were still using XP for certain applications and they wouldn't run on Win7. It would have cost £5M to replace all the kit it talked to to get a Win10 version.

Surely some buses could be replaced in the short term and, when the electric battery tech improves, the longer routes can be looked at later. Now we just have to find some way of producing all the extra electricity it will require. If only there was some way of generating it from fossil fuel.

Elon Musk is / was in a position of responsibility and should have been careful every time he made comment whether spoken or written. This time he made a really bad mistake. Most people in his position who do this get penalised. Part of his vast pay should have been for his ability to think before doing something stupid /…

I received some interesting feedback from my manager recently. She said I shouldn't point out to people why their solution to a problem was wrong. I politely disagreed and told her why her feedback was wrong. She didn't get the irony.

I have tried to write some general rules to help people work through log files, alerts etc. to diagnose issues but it is impossible. There are too many variables. What you really need is a warm body with years of experience and something resembling a brain (sadly lacking in a lot of IT folk these days).

The "Smart Lock" appears to be neither smart nor a lock. How can you take something that already exists (a lock) and make it worse. Oh yeah, I know. Add technology.

Glad I made you smile. I must be old though. I still think in feet, inches, miles, pints etc. (especially pints - usually of good english warm beer). Although, to be fair, I'm just back from Bordeaux where I was drinking lots of red wine. Still in pints though .

Outsourcing by another name.

It would be difficult to remove Zukerberg given he is the majority shareholder with 60% of the company. 

In my last place someone decided that VMWare NSX was the answer so we got it. Eventually it was installed and configured. The only thing it couldn't do was the one thing it was brought in to do. All that happened was that an extra layer of complexity was created. I can see where it would be great but it isn't the great…

Not sure if I would trust a Firefighter I used to work for the London Fire Brigade. Most of them couldn't be trusted to tie their own shoelaces. Still, I wouldn't trade places with any of them. Bloody heroes.