Out of hours ICT Support

[ITGURU]

All systems are monitored and get email alerts on phone should anything go wrong. Usually I would fix remotely if possible, or if a major issue would either go in early the next morning to sort.

 

Usually the only issues are switches not coming back online after a power surge, everything else seems to run smoothly from day to day.

[ITGURU]

What happens with physical access ? (surely site manager needs to un-alarm/unlock school?)

 

I've got 24 hour access to site, told them it was silly not having master keys as during holidays you sometimes can't even get into classrooms without asking caretakers to unlock, so if was a real emergency could go in at the weekend.

[AJWhite1970]

At my site, I have 24 hour access, all the keys and alarm codes and can get in if my servers have issues. The LT know I work long hours and are happy for me to claim it back when I need to. They also encouraged me to help with the football teams (I'm a coach and referee) so am often working up the sports field on a Wednesday afternoon or travelling with the 1st team.

 

I'm really lucky to work in a place that appreciates what we do.

[psydii]

 

I'm really lucky to work in a place that appreciates what we do.

 

Very much this.

 

Here nobody wants to be working over the weekend, and generally we don't get paid for it.

 

That said I have the expectation of myself that if it is going to interrupt teaching and learning or critical operations (e.g. communication) then we work until it is fixed. We have 24/7 support contracts with 3rd party suppliers to make sure we have access to system experts at 1am.

 

However properly built and managed systems generally don't stop suddenly, and when they do it is usually the unexpected consequence of a recent change - which ought to have been picked up in testing, and for which their usually is a documented roll-back plan. Any time it goes wrong we take the opportunity to look at how we can avoid that error next time, and learn from the experience.

[pete]

I get paged about serious* problems with core systems by Icinga and depending on the issue I either go in there and then or go in a bit earlier in the morning. Like most sensible sysadmins who value their free time I've made things sufficiently robust that this is an infrequent occurrence.

 

I'm about 10 minutes walk away from the school and have keys and alarm codes because (as someone else said upthread), I can't do my job without them and it's inconsiderate to wake someone else up if there's no need. I'm on the emergency** contact list, but sufficiently low down that I've never been called.

 

I don't respond to end-user problems out-of-hours.

 

*Defined as: "If I don't fix this RightNow is it going to affect the ability to run the school in the morning?".

**"Help, the school's on fire/been broken into/invaded by hippos"

Edited August 19, 2015 by pete

[psydii]

 

This was me pre-BSF. Since then I've gone the whole Jason Bourne.