Calling all Network Admins...

B

bealzz

Gawd
Joined
Jun 4, 2003
Messages
545
Hey everyone,
I finally got a job with the school board here as a network admin and was hoping to get a few contacts in the field.
Im only 21 so im no seasoned vertern yet, and would like people I can email back and forth. see what other people are doing in terms of central managment, deployment, group policies, etc.

Just pm me your email your address or some way to contact you!
Already appreciate it,
Thanks guys (gals),
Bryan.
 
Congrats, I'm 4 tests away from my MCSE. I work for the Govt, so it will take me a little longer to become an admin, but they will pay for my Cisco training should I decide to do it.
 
Hey, I'm a network admin for a high school and, as you, I'm 21. Been on the job for a year now. Fell free to email me, I'll drop you a PM with my email here.
 
Opps, forgot to mention:
BOFH should now become your role model, and you need to crush at least 1 user's hopes everyday. :)
 
ambit said:
Read here daily. Almost everything you will ever encounter has been covered there.
Click to expand...

Just been looking at it over the last hour, theres some really great stuff in there, alot more focused than the threads here on specific network activities.
thanks
 
I'd wager that rather than PM someone, just post in this forum and you'll get people who know answering.
 
Fint said:
I'd wager that rather than PM someone, just post in this forum and you'll get people who know answering.
Click to expand...

while the forum is great it isnt a great tool for shooting ideas back and forth.
i find with email you get to know the person, and shooting back and forth is quite a bit easier than posting, hope for a reply etc.
 
Somtimes you just need to figure out stuff on your own. Going to people for advice is always welcome. But when it comes to troublehsooting, after banging your head on your desk for hours and then finally solving the problem, the feeling you get is undescribeable. Subscripe to as many IT journals as you can (networking magazine, network computing, eweek, etc) there are chockfull of information. Joining tech forums such as this will also help you throughout the your career. Im 21 and am a Systems Manager for a game company. Its been great so far and you have to keep on top of everything if you want to succeed in this field.
 
Welcome to my world.
Get a premium Service account at http://www.experts-exchange.com/ for those hard questions and hard to find answers. It's the best IT Pro community on the net Hands Down. Nothing can compete with the level of professionalism, people involved and intelligence contained at EE.
Keep a list of all technical support numbers close.
Get the configuration of every router and managed switch.
Visio the topology of your entire network.
Break down the security of your network. Who does what, access/security rights, Password rights, Password schema.
Run scans on your network daily to check for problems. GFI Network Security Scanner is a fantastic visual reference.www.gfi.com.

You've got a lot of area to cover. For now get a good idea of how everything in your network communicates to each other. Develop a solid easy to understand topology and then start cracking down from there. Make friends with all the employees. Don't be a hermit. Don't be a power hungry jerk. I'd fire your ass is second if you acted like that.
Replace all hubs with switches. Etc,etc,etc... Increase IT budget ;-)

Managed Virus software, MS SMS 200x, ISA Server 2005 unless you use a hardware appliance for web access security. If your not on XP Pro then plan on a major upgrade. Do not allow XP Home on your network. Push very hard to go to Server 2003. Prepare for Gov Compliance.....

While your at it take a couple finance classes.

Here are some links for ya now......I visit all these daily.
www.dnsstuff.com
http://www.experts-exchange.com/
www.hardocp.com
http://www.anandtech.com/
http://www.engadget.com/
http://arstechnica.com/index.ars
http://channel9.msdn.com/
http://www.dramexchange.com/default.asp
http://www.theregister.co.uk/
http://searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156181
http://searchwin2000.techtarget.com/home/0,289692,sid1,00.html
http://www.toptenreviews.com/
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/default.mspx
http://www.eventid.net/
http://www.research.deakin.edu.au/jace/every_file_format_in_the_world.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/default.mspx
www.gfi.com
http://packetstormsecurity.net/
http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/casa/martin/atlas/geographic.html
http://www.infosyssec.com/index.html
www.grc.com
http://www.iss.net/
http://www.securitynewsportal.com/index.shtml
http://www.windowsecurity.com/
http://www.isaserver.org/
http://www.msexchange.org/
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/home/0,289692,sid14,00.html
http://stealthtests.lockdowncorp.com/
http://www.virusbtn.com/
and on and on and on........................................
 
solotech said:
Welcome to my world.
Get a premium Service account at http://www.experts-exchange.com/ for those hard questions and hard to find answers. It's the best IT Pro community on the net Hands
Down
Click to expand...

Yes....experts-exchange is an awesome forum for the seasoned IT person. Now that i have an income, i might as well pay for it.
 
LOL I just had them add it to the IT budget. hehe..
Make your company pay for it.
Puts mor money in your pocket.
All our out IT staff use it, at home or at work.
Works out nicely!!!! ;-)
 
Admining (is that even a real word?) is great fun. Where I work I have to admin Win, Mac and *nix machines. Makes for a great jumbled mess at times.

This next year is going to fun, I'm planning a major network upgrade, creating a VPN, testing VoIP and switch if it works out, some major hardware upgrades, develping an internal company management software suite, creating some automation software, etc. I'm at a fairly small company so I do all of the work myself, but I'm trying to over extend myself so I can create a business case to hire a Jr. Admin to handle some of the small tasks and assist with the larger ones.

My biggest recommendation is to document, document, document. It CYA and gives you past material to reference. If you do not have trouble ticket logging software, create your own simple one or even just use Excel. (I used excel for a big, but now I created a simple HTML page that writes and reads to it in a more organized manner. I'm working on a new one in Visual Studio .NET 2003 that will tie into the rest of the company management software.

Create an handbook that contains all the information you need; charts made in visio of your network topology, policies, AD, user rights, ip addresses, hardware info, software inventory and licences.

Self audit your software periodically. It will come in handy if the BSA ever wants to audit your software.

Do not be a recluse. Go out and ask users if everything is working to their liking, find problems before they find you, provide training on applications and policies. I even send out antivirus notes to the company. If you educate your users on proper usage and passwords they will be less likely to get them. Since I've worked here we have had 0 virus infections and 0 security breaches.

Network with people. I am building a reasonable list of contacts I can IM if I need to get a second opinion or another angle on a problem.

Also analyze your butt off. Do not be afraid to spend money, sometimes you just have to do it to keep things running right.

Anyhow if anyone ever wants to IM me ans discuss admin stuff, you can reach me:
msn: [email protected]
AIM: seancasey92
 
I too will lend a hand. I'm a net admin with Novell Netware and Mac OS9/X experience. Currently, best way to keep in touch is aim: Knuckles30. Feel free to drop me a buzz anytime. I work in k-8 schools for 3.5 years. Be aware that I'm often up and about during work hours but if you send me a message I will respond whenever I return to my workstation :cool:
 
Why don't all of us admin's create a list of IM's and e-mail addresses and create an admin supoprt group ;) I think we might have had this brought up in the past but hey I like the idea of networking.

Admin's Anonymous? j/k
 
A lot of times you can find some good listservs, ask your fellow admins where you work to see what they subscribe to.

I know its no help to you, but there is a pretty huge ResNet listserv hosted from U of ND. Its great since its comprised of most of the tech people from a majority of colleges on the east coast. Since we have such a group of colleges, we are as close to the bleeding edge of info as possible!
 
im not an admin and probably couldnt be of 2 much help, but what about making a yahoo group? WIT (women in information technology), a group at my school, has a yahoo group page thingy-bob....err...ummm...yea. anyways, it would be easy to keep everything centralized and you'd be able to always have a list of member and shit.

just a thought.
 
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