petergwilson · Monitoring Specialist · ✭✭✭✭✭

You could just ignore it and collect your P45 (get fired for our non UK readers).when it all goes wrong. I know some people who are doing this.

Yes. I never patch immediately. Given Microsoft's past performance I will always wait until others have done so and hit problems. Once those have been fixed I will look at patching. The risk associated with the reason for the patch has always been there. The patch itself poses a much greater potential risk.

The other problem I have is, just when I am getting up to speed with something, management will throw something else at me and make it the most important task. I have to drop what I was doing, focus on the new and make that work. This keeps repeating and nothing ever gets done. If I do manage to get something done and go…

Agree. We moved 50,000 student accounts from on prem exchange to O365 and are now looking to move 5000 staff accounts. Fortunately it is all free (Higher Education pricing) but I am just waiting for them to start charging. I will need to start monitoring the performance and have watched the Solarwinds Webinar.…

Oh this is so true and the bane of my life. I've just been landed a new project. Circa 30 people on a new site around the corner. They need two server racks full of stuff to support the 30 users, three radio studios and 1 TV studio. They want a minimum of two hours on battery in the event of a power failure. I worked out…

Mine does as well. It sends an e-mail to the ticketing system which automatically generates a ticket. However I don't think that is what they mean. I think they mean does it cut a ticket natively.

A customer DBA who doesn't understand databases and keeps "fixing" things that we then need to revert.

I did have one instance where the technical discussion about a change would happen on Tuesday with a project manager present. He would then attend the change advisory board meeting to present the change (I know, very odd). We weren't getting any changes approved and all sorts of odd stuff was happening until one day when…

Done

Hopefully there isn't a 'correct' answer for Q19

I remember years ago when I was a mainframe engineer I was on site where I looked after one mainframe and someone from another company looked after the other one. Overnight an error was reported on one of the tape to tape reel devices (you know the big ones you always see in old movies) during a backup. The client wanted…

Done

Ahhh Minneapolis. I spent a couple of weeks in Plymouth in 1994 on a training course. Hit many bars and, of course, the Mall of America.

Don't tell them, they'll just make it harder.

The Book is sooooo much better.

That's always the problem with regulatory fines. Big companies get off lightly and small companies get crucified because people don't really understand big numbers. $35M sounds like a lot until you really understand what $4.5Bn really means.

@"superfly" Yep, going from two large monitors and the laptop screen to just the laptop screen really sucks but I guess the reason is somewhat justified. Pity I now have to pay for my own coffee.

Relaxing degree requirements. Oh dear. This has gone full circle so many times. When I was recruited from University the company had decided that any degree would do, not just a computer science degree, for their technical roles. There were several two day interview / testing sessions with about 12 people on each.…

We don't have a choice. We have to get out of two data centres by next Feb. Only about 500 servers to migrate. To do that we need to completely refurb the other two data centres one at a time and keep everything working.

Just an FYI for the powers that be. Correctly answer all 10 questions by April 28, 2019 and get entered to win the Grand Prize!

But that's not in the hint. To answer the question correctly you would have to look up the ACT AND bypass the table showing the retention periods AND eventually find something that contradicts the table. This seems to me to be unreasonable and is a major diversion from what has been required in all the questions I have…

Yes but that is utterly meaningless. I learned loads but very little about the products.

Seems to be fixed now but the answer is on page 16. Thanks for sorting this out.

I don't believe it. Apple bring out something that no one really needs and isn't fit for purpose.

Good article but it is really just common sense (something that is sadly lacking these days). Management pay me to be the technical expert because they aren't. I therefore need to look at the technical stuff then convert all that jargon and technobabble into something they will understand. That's what they expect and I…

The only problem with your approach is if you work in an environment where everyone else looks to blame someone for any issues. As soon as you take responsibility you are castigated and every other issue is blamed on you as well. In an ideal world we should all take responsibility and always strive to do better.…

You should drive in the UK. Plenty of drivers driving cars that actually need to be driven and they are texting etc. whilst driving. Almost every day there is a story on the news about a crash involving an HGV on the motorway with the driver far too busy on his mobile (or watching TV) to actually drive.

The biggest problem I face is that I'm the SysAdmin for a company that has evolved and grown rapidly over the years. There's about 130 companies in the group. I have a mixture of old, not quite so old, middle aged, youngish, young and new systems. They are all required. I'm trying to create a new infrastructure which will…

How come we didn't have bacon at the London SWUGs. I'm upset now.

The internet isn't for newbies. They rushed out Video Recorders and the public had no idea how to set them up to record. They rushed PCs out and the public had no idea how to set them up or use them. They gave internet access to the public and look how well that worked. No lessons have been learned. The public can't be…