SNMP, 360 Gigabytes, Ras…Blackberrys and a Laptop

Sounds like a real mixed bag of goodies doesn’t it?

This week I have mostly been investigating SNMP. As of right now I have a general understanding and high level overview, unfortunately my time seems a little short at the moment what with having to write up a department definition (I’m the IT department so let’s call this a role definition shall we) for my long overdue “review”.
Funny how I’m the one writing the department, sorry, role definition rather than my employers – I have a funny feeling it’s so I can be stitched up doing things I would otherwise not have had to do. I’m still amazed as to how thick or naive people seem to think I am. I’m obviously too polite (or too much of a pushover) to throw it back and tell them to do it. Who ever heard of someone defining their own role? I mean please, it’s pathetic.

The department (role) definition task has had to be put on hold though as this week has been what one might call a smidge hectic. Monday morning arrives and one of the developer’s PCs went tits up. A quick shufty at it, a full reseat of all hardware and I diagnosed a duff motherboard so on the phone to Dell Support I went. A prompt response and an engineer was booked to attend Tuesday and swap out the motherboard, all this while having to manage a 360GB two copy backup which spans over four Ultrium cartridges and I’ve only got three slots in my 8-tape Dell LTO Autoloader. It’s always nice when you’re asked to insert a new cartridge only to find that you get no chance to give it a label after running an Inventory on that slot. Cheers Backup Exec, now when I do a restore from this archive I’ll be asked to Please insert LTO00004 – A really descriptive name that I can associate with the millions of other LTO cartridges I have! Note to self: Label all media before doing next copy.

Tuesday I’m readjusting the weekly full backup to happen in the evening, the Dell engineer arrives, diagnoses the motherboard, promptly swaps it out and…. same thing! Despite the solid amber light on the motherboard and power button it turns out to have been the power supply?! Both myself and the self-proclaimed Dell Master were a little stumped. I’ve given up trying to work PCs out these days.

We also had a visit from AdRem on Tuesday, demo’ing their Netcrunch application – admittedly I’m pretty impressed. Investing in it would be a good idea but before we do that I really need to have a more in-depth understanding of SNMP. *cough* TRAINING *cough*
In the mean time I’ve been installing the SNMP agent on as many systems as I can get my hands on and departmentalising them. I’ve only got another 20 days to trial the software so I really need to get my thumb out and learn SNMP sharpish.

Lastly we have just received our trial from Orange of some Blackberry handhelds, oh joy. Unsurprisingly it was a member of senior management that suggested Blackberry as a solution to external mail access rather than the Sales staff’s current method of phoning the company administrator and asking her to check their mail. It’s not like they can’t have Outlook Web Access, no no, that requires them to have a Laptop or PDA, oh and a brain. It’s not like we can’t expand our (sorry, my) current roll-out of RSA SecurID to increase the security of Outlook Web Access. It would be lovely to get Exchange Server 2003 but *cough* TRAINING *cough* I need to know about it first.
However, much like the article I read in January 2005’s Information Age titled “The curse of the Blackberry” I have the funny feeling it’s not just so they can check their email while on the road, and not just so they can pose in the pub after work or infront of clients. “Look at me, I’ve just got ten emails, aren’t I good/popular/connected/established/important” etc. Poncing about with their Raspberry, sorry, Blackberry.
I can just see it now – of the six or so people from the company that end up with one, at least four are going to be the least technologically competent out of the entire company, which means even more of my time being spent answering their questions about why they haven’t had an email, or, more likely, why they can’t open the 46MB Excel File that their uninformed client sent them. Will I end up with one? Nah, I’m not important/connected/popular enough but those that do get one will still want me to tell them how to send a reply to an urgent email or set their Out Of Office on won’t they?
(L)User: “Lewis, is there something wrong with the email? I haven’t had any delivered for at least half an hour!”
Me: “No, you just haven’t been sent any.”