Your first day as System Administrator

[albertwt]

Hi Everyone,

 

Suppose you are the newly hired System Administrator, what sort of task that you'd do to make yourself familiar with the environment ?

 

Please share it here.

 

Thanks.

[jamesreedersmith]

A full audit of all systems/servers etc to make sure i know what does what, what is where, what relies on what, whats going to need work soon etc.

[featured_spectre]

Visual audit of the equipment, followed by a physical audit (noting machines, OS etc).

Then work out the infrastructure, cabling, wireless et all.

Then find out what helpdesk system is in place (if any)

Ask staff what they would like to see.

 

Take it from there.

[Mr.Ben]

I did the following during my first week

 

Quick Inventory of Equipment

Full Inventory of Licensing

Aquired all useful passwords and changed them all

Put a help book into the Staffroom (this later became the helpdesk when I had time)

 

Annoyed SMT and the Governors by finding out that they had never licensed Microsoft Office.....

[localzuk]

Read through the reams of documentation left behind by the predecessor, as they will of course have been following standard ITIL or FITS processes...

 

On a more serious note, just sit and look at what is what and where. See if any of the documentation that does exist (snippets left lying here and there) matches up to reality.

[GREED]

Not sure what is going on here today, but totally agree with Localzuk. There is always something been left over as a good starting point, and the better the previous chap/chappette the better/more documentation will be available to help you. Then an audit of what is there, starting slowly with physically, and what does what. Perhaps a recy of things like AD structure, Exchange etc.

[Hightower]

I'd request a school map (if not handed one by standard), and ask someone to show me where the nearest kettle was to my office.

[albertwt]

that sounds great mate, i was thinking to study the network diagram and study what is the network topology including its network enabled devices.

Thanks for the reply and suggestion mate.

[bio]

Well i inhireted an chaotic environment back then..so i started out by:

* Drawing building plans with all wall outlets. renumbering everything with standard coding.

* Made drawing of all LAN , WAN equipement.

* Made recommendations to management how to restructure LAN-WAN infrastructure and implement.

* Made documentation of current server infrastructure

* Made recommendations to management how to restructure server infrastructure and implement.

* Made documentation of current server infrastructure

* Made documentation to create standardized client image, talked to management and implement.

 

tooks some years .... keypoint is : STANDARDIZE !!

 

bio..

[Dos_Box]

The first day? New network? Simple. DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!u

[albertwt]

Hm.. if it works, don't touch it :-)

since I'm working with the second largest banking network in my country I guess I shouldn't do some changes (-_-)"

[pete]

That wierd thing? That can't possibly work like that? Or shouldn't be configured like that? Yeah - there's a reason and it's probably mission-critical. Don't touch until you work out what Heath Robinson contraption depends on it.

[howartp]

Personally, I'd be getting a current map of the school, then walking round learning the physical building first before starting to look at the network. (A short copper cable look like it will suffice on that not-to-scale copy of your 10-year-old network map, when by seeing the buildings and distances you realise that's why people are already moaning about the network performance in that building, and that maybe it needs upgrading.)

 

Once i've got an idea of the physical layout, then I'd start looking at server room / core infrastructure diagrams and understanding what sort of network you have inherited (beyond that which you already knew prior to / from interview). Then go from there.

 

As I said, that's what I'd do, but each person will have a different approach in different circumstances.

 

Peter

[albertwt]

Thanks Howart, physical surveillant is good idea too :-)

[elsiegee40]

Visual audit of the equipment, followed by a physical audit (noting machines, OS etc).

Then work out the infrastructure, cabling, wireless et all.

Then find out what helpdesk system is in place (if any)

Ask staff what they would like to see.

 

Take it from there.

 

I did the following during my first week

 

Quick Inventory of Equipment

Full Inventory of Licensing

Aquired all useful passwords and changed them all

Put a help book into the Staffroom (this later became the helpdesk when I had time)

 

The first day? New network? Simple. DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!

 

A mixture of those three with heavy emphasis on introducing myself to the staff and being the new friendly face of IT (while desperately hoping that a smile will over-ride any bad experiences the staff have had previously of someone who lives in a dark corner with the server)

 

Significant non-urgent changes can wait for a while until you've got to feel comfortable with beastie you've inherited!

[albertwt]

yes, that'd be great, thanks for all of the input guys.

[albertwt]

ok, here it is for a summary from various sources:

 

1. Understand where the overall business plans as well as where it wants to go.

2. I would speak with my manager (and the business managers) to discover his or her top priorities and then work up a plan to address these.

3. what needs improvement from not only the existing IT team, but from every department that you come in contact with in your first few weeks. Spend an extra 5 minutes when working on a user issue, and have a conversation with them about how IT plays a role in their work. What works great, what doesn't.

4. Understand companies BCP see that everything is in place and fool proof. what's your backup plan and tape rotation schedule and how far back is your recovery window.

5. The way things are configured, policies and customs in place, Reasons for things that may seem odd and Network topology map

6. physical walkround/inventory of equipment and Full Inventory of Licensing.

7. a floor plan with people and equipment on it. Find your "expert users" in each department so you have a good, reliable source when you need someone to help explain operations, procedures, or just need someone to help you test something out

8. Get to know some of the key people (not necessarily managers) to get an understanding of their jobs .

9. Find any contact information for vendor and reps and give them a call and get the relationship going.

10. Review all server logs - look for problems and fix them

11. I'd be learning all the established processes and schedules that kept their system running.

12. I'll dig around for what apps I'm aware of and try to at least familiarize myself with what software packages are being used and figure out how many of them I already know and which ones I'll need to learn, and make a special note of which one is their "main" app.