Starting new job as network manager.

[Shadow_Walker]

Hi all

 

Just wondering if anyone has any advise on what i should look at when i move jobs in a couple of weeks. At my current school we are a CC4 school and i am moving to a vanilla network which could do with a lot of work judging by what i have been told. I have not managed a vanilla network only in my training as my last two schools have both been CC4 schools.

 

The school i am going too could do with a lot of work and apparently has no documentation so just wondering what you would look at first and what differences there are between CC4 and Vanilla networks.

[Davit2005]

Documentation would be my first priority when not firefighting :-( . Pull the resources of the existing team if there is one.

 

Get used to working with ADUC and Group Policy management.

 

Other things you'd need to get used to are:

User provisioning including home drives, profiles and emails

OS deployment and Update deployment

Software deployment

Printer Deployment

[pete]

Documentation and poking around for hidden minefields such as scheduled tasks running under the credentials of the outgoing employee.

 

Speak to people to see where different groups (IT, SLT, teaching, support staff) think work needs to be done. Identify correlations and prioritise from there.

 

If you change anything (and ideally you shouldn't in the first couple of weeks), document it thoroughly in case the answer to "Oh dear FSM, why is it like that?" is "'cos that's the only way a terrible, yet mission-critical thingy works".

Edited March 21, 2017 by pete

[Shadow_Walker]

Documentation would be my first priority when not firefighting :-( . Pull the resources of the existing team if there is one.

 

Unfortunately they upped and left. I am going in a couple of weeks then got a tech starting after that. At the moment there is no support.

[pcstru]

Depends, but perhaps in abstract for a sort of technical management role :

 

1. Fight any fires, basically stuff not working / extremely unhappy people at your door or popping into your inbox.

2. Figure out what you have.

3. Figure out what people want, need (and to some extent expect).

4. Create a plan to deliver 3 given 2 and possibly some additional spend.

 

Apart from 1, take your time and try not to rush to judgement. Avoid any temptation to dis the setup or work of previous employees. Find the up-sides, the silver linings and build on any positives but mostly try to just do a lot more listening than talking.

 

...

 

Maybe.

[Davit2005]

Unfortunately they upped and left. I am going in a couple of weeks then got a tech starting after that. At the moment there is no support.

 

Being there and got the t-shirt but as a sole tech in a large (1200 student) secondary school for 3 weeks on my own, my first role in education. It was real hard 7am till 7pm work, no help desk and just jotted down jobs on A4 sheets of paper and self prioritized. No documentation but I did have the fortune of someone who new the basics of the network to start me off but he no longer worked in the IT department (complicated story).

 

Was a good learning experience and when a new the IT manager started we got on really well, I knuckled down into the jobs and when I wasn't doing that I was working on some real nice projects. In 9 months we had a network to be proud of and more reliable.

[hardtailstar]

things I would do first

 

- find out where the servers are and username/password

- know what each server does

- document!

- setup a help desk even if its just used by you so you can track jobs coming in whilst you are settling in.

- walk round the school to find wireless APs and any cabinets

- document!

[simonw]

All the above and...

 

Find out about what licensing you have for OS etc, talk to the Finance Manager/Bursar.

[rad]

I'd make sure the backups are working.

 

As best as you can, introduce yourself to the Admin staff, get a tour of the school and try and settle in.

[Snoochieboochies]

Be prepared for a steep learning curve in the first year.

 

There's a big jump from managing a CC4 network to a Vanilla one plus you'll have to deal with whatever legacy problems there are from how the network has been set up. It could be a potential minefield if the previous two staff members jumped ship.

 

Also, consider getting a company in to do a network audit. Some companies will do it for free because they want to sell you stuff but the upside is that you can draw a line under any potential disasters that are highlighted in case management try to blame you for it. It will also give you an indication of where the network may need improving.

 

I'd also recommend brushing up on your MCSA even if you don't sit the exam.

[ThatBoringBloke]

Introduce yourself to the Caretaker, and keep them on side.

 

You'll be surprised by how much Caretakers know about what is where and will help you out. They may not know what things do, but I'll guarantee you they know that there's a cabinet hidden away in some cupboard you'd never find on your own.

[AlanD]

Get a complete backup (in fact get two backups) - possibly just using windows backup onto USB/SATA drives. Get someone to verify you doing this. Then if something "goes missing" you can show that it wasn't there at the start of your tenure ship. You may need to shut down services to do this backup - because if there are running databases - your backup for them will be un-useable. (Of course if you have virtualised servers you might take and keep complete snapshots instead)

Change Passwords for any "administrator" - local or domain.....especially if there are local administrator accounts on workstations.

(But doing this can cause problems for tasks and operations that required administrator privileges to work - so be prepared for backups to stop - for example - until you change their credentials).

Try to manage expectations....and start by putting those expectations really low. You might want to start with supporting "administration" computers only for a week - or two. Be prepared to find that every Tom, Dick and Harry (not to mention Jane) may have been given complete autonomy over several workstations - if not the whole network. Licencing won't be in place - and there will be no budget for it. Web Filtering might be so open that any attempts to close the doors on it will be met by a torrent of derision.

 

Take some time to survey everything (even if you are getting shouted at for not getting this or that running). Once you have sketched out what you have identify weaknesses. Send an email to all staff (you might need to get permission for this) Ask them to list what doesn't work, what doesn't work well, or indeed what does work and they would be unhappy if you took it away. Insist on "detail". Its not much help having a response that says "IT stuff is rubbish" - when in fact their problem is the monitor has a cracked screen or the CPU fan is noisy). You might like to offer some external companies a chance to look the network over and help you with these. Most are usually willing to give you a day or half a day when there is a prospect of business. Get them to document their responses, and use them to put together a report. Do this earlier rather than later - because SLT will be thinking that hiring you has solved all their ills and the network (which will still have 100Mb unmanaged switches, no space disk capacity, slow internet, no anti virus, and a load of other shortcomings) is now going to fine. You need to show SLT Windows 7 support will be coming to an end, and that their workstations will not run Windows 10 or whatever. There will need to be a clear spending plan. You are used to RM. Get RM in. They will certainly come up with a spending plan that will give SLT something to think about!!

 

Whatever they have offered to pay you - you will soon discover that it is not enough to compensate for the time and stress this is going to give you.

Edited March 26, 2017 by AlanD