Best Training to Help Coworker Replace me as Network Admin?

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BoxMaker

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We're a small company, about 25 users with a Windows network that hums along on 7 year old servers. I'm no guru, but I've learned enough to install the network and keep things going.

Two things are about to happen. 1. I'm going to transition out of my job. 2. We'll be installing new servers and software.

This is a great opportunity for my coworker/network admin replacement to dig in as we rebuild the network. I've asked him to search for an instructor led online course that would give him a good understanding prior to the new install. He's having trouble finding such a thing.

The goal is for him to be able to handle real world network stuff. He's found boot camps that would have him drinking from the fire hose with certification in mind. Do you guys think this is a practical path to achieve our goal?

What other resources would you suggest?

I'm guessing a ton of you have gone through this very same process. I'm eager to mine wisdom from Hard BTDTs.
 
Training courses with the goal of certification would be a good idea. You've said yourself, you aren't a guru. While I don't doubt things are working fine, getting your replacement some "official" training combine with your experience would go a long way in making sure he's ready to handle the work.
 
Thanks, XOR != OR. What do you think of the boot camps? Do you have a preferred source for official training?
 
Basic knowledge is good, demonstrated knowledge and experience is best. Give the guy as much experience as possible.
 
If you haven't already ordered/purchased the new stuff, have the new guy research, specify, get bids etc. It will be a good exercise for him and will allow him to sign up for training to match the new stuff. Plus it sets the tone of it is now HIS network. Don't overlook the possibility the vendor(s) may have some type of training available to customers. Perhaps include his training as part of the hardware/software purchase.
 
Documentation, documentation, documentation.

Have enough for him to go on where you could throw a server or router out in the parking lot and he can set up a replacement. Also have the # of a local consultant ready for the times he gets in over his head.
 
With new stuff coming in, have him do as much of the setting up as possible. It's always much easier to fix the problems and be aware of the quirks on things that you've set up than the things someone else has done. And what robvas said -- documentation! Where I work we have lots of people, but have found that a searchable, editable wiki is something we actually end up using quite a bit, and makes it easier to share information with other people.
 
RocketTech, he'll be able to use the new servers to set up a little lab before we switch from old stuff to new. Experience is also a confidence builder. What you wrote makes so much sense - I don't think it is possible to have too much experience.

Dead Parrot, this is brilliant. Digging into all of that - understanding the non-intuitive nature of how CALs work, seats vs. users, sussing all of that out will be a gift that keeps on giving when he's running the show. Your point about ownership makes a ton of sense. I'll ask our software/hardware vendor if there is something available for training. Didn't even think of asking them.

robvas, because we are a tiny outfit and there are bazillion details to keep straight, documentation on our systems is really important. That said, I need to make sure my notes are tight in order to set my comrade up in the best way I can. I'll still be around. I want to be the safety net without being the crutch - if that makes sense.

I really appreciate the comments. My colleague is a sharp, conscious, detail oriented guy but he is understandably a bit intimidated and can use all of the confidence he can get. Your responses have really put a spotlight on how important it is for him to own the work and know in his bones he can handle things.
 
Instead of going to bootcamp which will probably cost ~$5k. Have the company invest in more new server sor and start rebuilding your aging network/servers. Have him do the rebuilding with you there available to answer questions. Not only does he get the direct hands on experience with the servers at your business, but you also to get to rebuild (the right way) and possibly upgrade your aging servers.

Training can be done after you're gone. Right now, he needs to use your time while he still has you.
 
Madnes5 said:
Instead of going to bootcamp which will probably cost ~$5k. Have the company invest in more new server sor and start rebuilding your aging network/servers. Have him do the rebuilding with you there available to answer questions. Not only does he get the direct hands on experience with the servers at your business, but you also to get to rebuild (the right way) and possibly upgrade your aging servers.
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Agreed, no company should be running on 7-year old servers.

Call up Dell/HP and get some new machines (with on-site warranty) ordered right away.
 
First AD network I did myself years ago I used Mark Minasi's "Mastering Windows Server 2003". Followed it chapter by chapter. Ran great and never a problem. I recommend his books for whatever network you're going to upgrade to.
 
Jesus people don't read.

Re-read the original post. He did state the company is going to upgrade the "7yr old servers".
 
BoxMaker said:
We're a small company, about 25 users with a Windows network that hums along on 7 year old servers. I'm no guru, but I've learned enough to install the network and keep things going.

Two things are about to happen. 1. I'm going to transition out of my job. 2. We'll be installing new servers and software.

This is a great opportunity for my coworker/network admin replacement to dig in as we rebuild the network. I've asked him to search for an instructor led online course that would give him a good understanding prior to the new install. He's having trouble finding such a thing.

The goal is for him to be able to handle real world network stuff. He's found boot camps that would have him drinking from the fire hose with certification in mind. Do you guys think this is a practical path to achieve our goal?

What other resources would you suggest?

I'm guessing a ton of you have gone through this very same process. I'm eager to mine wisdom from Hard BTDTs.
Click to expand...

Have you already bought new networking equipment? if it's in the plans, see if you can get some learning credits, maybe enough for icnd1 or something. A lot of times they will throw it in to sweeten the deal if it helps you make your decision.

Same thing with Microsoft, if you are buying stuff from them you can try to get credits for their training as well.

Personally I'd have him avoid the bootcamp style classes, they are geared more for certification test prep than actual theory/use of equipment.
 
Have him download a copy of GNS3 and use it as he does his study. Book knowledge is alright but it will never prepare you for that moment where you actually have to start typing commands that will impact the network.
 
I'm confused. I can't imagine what a Windows network admin would do with all of their time with 25 users. That's small business server territory, but maybe you are planning lots of growth, or this is a part-time thing.

As long as they keep it simple and don't overbuild, basic knowledge along with occasional help in forums or searching should be fine.
 
Well, they're getting new equipment and the goal is for the new guy to know "real world network equipment stuff" so my guess would be expansion or at least modernization.

/shrug

More knowledge is always a good thing.
 
jimh425 said:
I'm confused. I can't imagine what a Windows network admin would do with all of their time with 25 users. That's small business server territory, but maybe you are planning lots of growth, or this is a part-time thing.

As long as they keep it simple and don't overbuild, basic knowledge along with occasional help in forums or searching should be fine.
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No kidding. I wish I only had 25 users :p. We have one guy per 500 users/200 workstations.

I agree with others here. Have him do the work. Check his work and clearly explain any mistakes gently and not all snooty or anything. Making mistakes is the best way to learn.
 
trainsignal $50 a month.

set up the entire new network in a virtual environment for testing, ESXi is free for the 32G memory version.
 
/usr/home said:
No kidding. I wish I only had 25 users :p. We have one guy per 500 users/200 workstations.

I agree with others here. Have him do the work. Check his work and clearly explain any mistakes gently and not all snooty or anything. Making mistakes is the best way to learn.
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seriously, when I was working at the school board there were two of us for 2000 users 800 workstations... :eek:

I have clients with 25 users that I visit twice a week for 2 hours or so... can't imagine a 25 person company having a full-time IT guy unless they are in the IT sector or something
 
I would add, if the documentation is not already existing, have the new guy do it. Great way to learn the existing infrastructure. Will also allow you to impress on him the importance of doing the documentation for the new network.
 
FLECOM said:
seriously, when I was working at the school board there were two of us for 2000 users 800 workstations... :eek:
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my environment is me (the engineer) with 2 techs with 2800 users and 3000 workstations across 5 campuses. :D
You're lucky!
 
cyr0n_k0r said:
my environment is me (the engineer) with 2 techs with 2800 users and 3000 workstations across 5 campuses. :D
You're lucky!
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I was the team lead of 12 desktop support reps for 44,000 users and approximately 11,000 cpus (not counting servers) across 54 departments of municipal government for one of the largest cities in the world.

In a good month we'd clear over 600 support tickets apiece. Thank goodness the bulk of those were password resets and the like.

Now I'm a senior tech of about 6, we manage all of the CE (customer edge) routers for a nationwide ISP. I forget our equipment count but it's in the many thousands... our cisco contract alone holds over 50 million dollars in deployed assets, and about 3/4 of our routers are ADTRANs.

To say that I've been kept busy the last several years is an understatement.
 
Why do you guys work for companies like these? Just curious. Sounds like they run too thin and don't care about their employees....
 
Electrofreak said:
I was the team lead of 12 desktop support reps for 44,000 users and approximately 11,000 cpus (not counting servers) across 54 departments of municipal government for one of the largest cities in the world.

In a good month we'd clear over 600 support tickets apiece. Thank goodness the bulk of those were password resets and the like.

Now I'm a senior tech of about 6, we manage all of the CE (customer edge) routers for a nationwide ISP. I forget our equipment count but it's in the many thousands... our cisco contract alone holds over 50 million dollars in deployed assets, and about 3/4 of our routers are ADTRANs.

To say that I've been kept busy the last several years is an understatement.
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Well, we are currently going through migrating everything to Sharepoint so that keeps the one guy busy an I'm replacing every computer with Windows 7 so that keeps me busy. The other two guys aren't that busy.
 
For 25 users the network really should not be complex at all unless you are hosting a bunch of custom apps, etc.

I run a couple clients of that size with nothing more than a basic firewall/router, switch, and AP for wireless.
 
Eickst said:
Why do you guys work for companies like these? Just curious. Sounds like they run too thin and don't care about their employees....
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Good question, TBH. However they're full of people who don't really care about their jobs so it's very easy for someone who is passionate about what they do to climb through the ranks.

Though, my job as the municipal tech support lead had to end when I had 5 managers and a regional executive asking corporate to give me a promotion, and it was rejected because the extra 10 grand they'd have to pay me a year was "an unnecessary expense" and because most of the positions with the same title were filled by (incompetent) people overseas which were paid a fraction of what we were, it would "set a precedent" they didn't want to have to deal with.

My current job paid me less than the industry standard at its base (still paid more than the previous job), but after a year and a half, I've been promoted twice (and am now making what I would consider reasonable), and I'm now in a fairly well respected position with a fairly certain future on one of the significantly-higher paid Engineering teams.

It's sad to admit, but when you work for a company that hires people for cheap, you work with a lot of people who are just working to make a buck, and it's easy to stand out if you are really passionate about what you do. My resume looks awesome, with promotions every six months or so in the last couple jobs I've worked. That said, I'm still not making as much as I should be given what I know. I just have a hard time quitting what I do to go somewhere and be a sysadmin / network admin when I keep getting a new title and a pay bump so often. When I hit another ceiling I'll work on the resume I guess...

EDIT - I may come across as arrogant or egotistic here which I apologize for. I just have a realistic understanding that whenever Data Engineering can't figure something out and quietly approaches me for a solution, I should probably be getting paid what they are.
 
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Grentz said:
For 25 users the network really should not be complex at all unless you are hosting a bunch of custom apps, etc.

I run a couple clients of that size with nothing more than a basic firewall/router, switch, and AP for wireless.
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And some companies with 25 employees are subjected to compliance laws and require all sorts of controls and monitoring.

I'd say the complexity/design of the network is more dependant on its purpose rather than size, although with size comes inherently more need for those types of controls.
 
Eickst said:
And some companies with 25 employees are subjected to compliance laws and require all sorts of controls and monitoring.

I'd say the complexity/design of the network is more dependant on its purpose rather than size, although with size comes inherently more need for those types of controls.
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^ I'm working with a small regional bank right now which has, (partially per FDIC), a redundant BGP failover for each branch using HSRP and VPN tunnel failovers via a VPN concentrator triggered using WAN-tolerant IP SLA tracking across an MPLS which gateways through a network based-firewall out to an internet tunnel endpoint.

Interestingly enough, the bank happens to be less a mile from my house and has one of the more sophisticated failovers I've ever seen nationwide. Makes me want to open an account with them... :p
 
I've been in IT far longer then I'd like to admin to be honest with you I would recommend this job to my worse enemy. Its bad enough to be in the field its worse when you are self employed.
 
Electrofreak said:
To each his own, I love my job...
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Its not a terrible job. I like the job I hate the people.

I rather work for someone else then for myself although I make good money, I just don't care for the, paying taxes, worrying about receivables, etc..

I would give my right nut to be locked up in a Datacenter 23 out of 24 hours a day.
 
Wrench00 said:
Its not a terrible job. I like the job I hate the people.

I rather work for someone else then for myself although I make good money, I just don't care for the, paying taxes, worrying about receivables, etc..

I would give my right nut to be locked up in a Datacenter 23 out of 24 hours a day.
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I tried my hand at running my own biz for a while. I'm a better tech than I am a businessman. I gave away too much free work and ended up practically in the poor house with more work than I could handle.

That wasn't even the reason I ended up getting a job working for someone else though; you can be the nicest guy on the planet and customers will still find ways to take advantage of you. People always talk about businesses trying to screw other people, but once people realized I had a giving nature they did their best to screw ME. And then everyone they knew was calling me expecting the same thing, and when I started to buckle down and quote my rates when I was supposed to, people got angry.

So yeah, it sucks. I wouldn't go back.
 
Both myself and my replacement are blessed to work for a small business that doesn't suck. It's not perfect, but it is more like a family than it is a corporation. Another upside is that we get to do a lot of different things.

There are only 25 users but the job also includes photography, product design, development and support of industry-specific custom systems, maintaining ecommerce store, and all of the other time-sucking duties like resetting passwords, unjamming printers etc.

Our network was designed by the book(s) and is as conventional as I could make it. We are a tiny company but the business software we use requires servers for a medium size company.

I am definitely going to task him with planning the new network. I'll be here to help him. I'm not going anywhere, just shifting responsibilities.

Thank you so much for the replies. My partner and my small company is going to be better because of the wisdom you've shared.
 
Eickst said:
And some companies with 25 employees are subjected to compliance laws and require all sorts of controls and monitoring.

I'd say the complexity/design of the network is more dependant on its purpose rather than size, although with size comes inherently more need for those types of controls.
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Agreed, and I was speaking to the majority of instances and with what little info the OP provided.
 
BoxMaker said:
Both myself and my replacement are blessed to work for a small business that doesn't suck. It's not perfect, but it is more like a family than it is a corporation. Another upside is that we get to do a lot of different things.

There are only 25 users but the job also includes photography, product design, development and support of industry-specific custom systems, maintaining ecommerce store, and all of the other time-sucking duties like resetting passwords, unjamming printers etc.

Our network was designed by the book(s) and is as conventional as I could make it. We are a tiny company but the business software we use requires servers for a medium size company.

I am definitely going to task him with planning the new network. I'll be here to help him. I'm not going anywhere, just shifting responsibilities.

Thank you so much for the replies. My partner and my small company is going to be better because of the wisdom you've shared.
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You hiring? :p

Seriously though, sounds like an interesting gig. Be sure to have your successor come here and share with us any challenges he may face. We love to help, it keeps us all learning.
 
can i ask what you're upgrading your servers too? is it a fail over cluster? virtualization? VMware? hyper-v? standalone servers? SAN/NAS? what type of network upgrades are in place? firewall? switches? wireless?

people are referencing ICND/CCNA studying but if you're not using cisco at all then it's kind of a waste to head that route for training(as much as the knowledge is worth it, not using it day in and day out, you'll lose it quickly)

getting more details for what you're upgrading to would help guidance/advice for what to learn/teach. it's all in the details for whether you look at a broad learning approach or a more focused for only the tech that you will be using daily.
 
Electrofreak, it is the best job I've ever had. I've already turned him on to these forums as a resource.

R3d, the future setup will mirror the one we currently have. Windows active directory with an Exchange server, SQL server, Terminal Services server, and a file server that works as the primary domain controller, file server and application server. If we are going to step away from convention, there has to be a documented and heavily evaluated reason to do so. I've worked for places that have systems that cost tens of thousands of dollars in order to replace a perfectly elegant process that consisted of one pad of paper and a bic pen on a string.

When we have visitors, they are shocked that our humble little business uses technology the way we do. That said, we have no romantic view of IT. A lot of our business systems manifest themselves as conversations (not meetings). Every single day I think about how fortunate I am to have a job, let alone one that I love.

We have some Cisco stuff. With our small network, it isn't anything crazy. I configured it with a couple of books, got help with Cisco support, sent the config file to a buddy who does it for a living and aside from updates, it doesn't require a lot of fuss. You are right. Without using that knowledge more than once every 3 years, it goes away. So I agree that a focus on the Cisco stuff is not priority.

I'd like him to zero in on learning the concepts that are applicable to our environment. With that foundation, he can begin to evaluate how we do things with new information in mind - tell us how we might improve things. We are constantly evaluating our systems - not just tech, but how we do things. I'm sure there are solutions out there we don't know about.

Thanks again for all of the brain bones to gnaw on.
 
sounds good... basically if you're keeping it simple then you're not going to be dumping a ton of cash into the project and thus most vendors probably won't be throwing in training for their products.

How long has the new guy been with the company? has he gone through the whole process that the company does? When i first started at my position i took care of the quick fires that needed to be done and then started with the front line staff and worked my way through the whole process in our office from start to finish. From there I then started to look at what I can do to benefit the whole process from an IT standpoint. Within the year i have literally gutted the whole network and replaced everything from the ground up (firewall, switches, server cluster, san's, wifi, cisco voip). Overall our systems needed a ton of TLC and we're now starting to utilize IT solutions (wifi/tablets/GB switches) and the staff are very happy now. I can say its been a long year with everything and the time that i put in at the beginning to find out where the company issues were with the processes and getting those resolved.

hope the ramble makes sense.. just what happened in my case, take it for what you will. Learn the company then learn the tech that will suit the company.. there's thousands of IT solutions out there to choose from, start with what the company needs and work from there, will make justifying the costs that much easier as well.
 
R3d, I doubt our vendor is going to throw us some free training, but they are beating the bushes to find a good training solution. I would not have even considered asking them if not for the help in this thread.

He's been with us for ~3 years. He's learned a lot through osmosis but I know some stuff doesn't make much sense because he doesn't have the networking framework on which to hang information.

What you describe is pretty much what I did when I worked for a school district. Thankfully, our company isn't very old and the systems that are in place were planned and implemented by me. Recent IT solutions were really headed up by my comrade and he is the go-to guy. He knows more about them than I do which is why I am constantly hammering on the importance of documentation. He's got the right stuff. Just needs some missing chunks; just a few new synapses.

I know there is more that can be done to help our business. There always is.
 
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