Originally posted by: Goosemaster
Originally posted by: SketchMaster
Originally posted by: Goosemaster
All that a user needs on their laptop is offline files, archived PSTs (with copies on the network) and their OST file, and that's being generous.
If there is anything else important on their machine you aren't doing it correctly*.
There are always dreadful exceptions but that's the ideal one should strive for anyways.
THAT right there is our problem.
The higher ups don't like the big business attitude and so we pretty much have no control over our client systems. We set the user as box admin and can?t do anything to control what is put on the machines, people take home their laptops for personal use (games, taxes, web, P2P, etc?) and now that lack of control is starting to show with small outbreaks of viruses and systems that are so bogged down with bloatware it?s unreal. Don't get me wrong. I highly respect my co. and my collegaues, but the fact was that there was no DR champion to fight this fight before I got here.
And I don?t even need to go into the security risks! One guy used tweak UI to have his laptop auto logon so he didn?t need to type in his domain password, there is VPN software on that laptop so a hacker would wet his pants if he found that laptop sitting out.
They are starting to see that small business IT thinking in a large business setting is not a good idea but there is a LONG way to go before my boss can sleep easy at night.
That's when you have to restort to:
this
When I started at my current job I was presented issues that mirror what you are describing. What did I do? I raised ALL HELL and made it absolutely clear as to how fucked they would be if an emergency ever took place, and more importantly told them that I could fix it, and how I would go about doing it.
Needless to say, I fixed it. I now am humming along with GFS, snapshots, archiving, D2D2D,D2D2T,DeDupe (on the way), DR, etc. all way above what is required.
I really like my co., coworkers, and my job so I am quite happy to have increased my job security and their as well exponentially.
If you ever want to get them to to anything, here is how I did it:
I optimzed the backups by 700% before I ever said a word. Even if you have to do backups on your own time, at least initially, if possible, DO IT. I then told them how epic the disaster would be if anything happened at that time (after the 700% improvement). THEN I notified them about the 700% improvement I had made and illustrated what would have happened had disaster struck without the improvements in place. It took an eternity, and it will remain an ongoing process, but I convinced them to respect the DR concept, and have to fight to maintain it a priority.
Most of our backups (with exception) take 1% of the time that they used to take when I started and we are backing up at least 200% more data. It took a LONG time and a lot of work, but it CAN be done.
*crosses fingers that his robots don't eventually replace him*
Now you know.
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