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question to all you network admins out there....
leapinlew:
I just thought of some examples of things I've done that you could also pursue -
Learn other peoples jobs. I learned what our accounting clerks do on a day to day/week to week basis. I found I could purchase some software for $1,500 per year that would allow the direct importing of data from one program to another. It removed a lot of redundant work. Because of this change, we didn't hire an additional 2 AP clerks and errors due to multiple entry of the same data was eliminated.
Tackle jobs that you may not currently do, but your more suited. Our internet connection was part of our phone bill. The contract was out of date and way out of current market pricing. I was able to save over $17,000 a year by renegotiating our phone/internet connection and taking advantage of current VoIP promotion was able to provide more bandwidth for less money.
I did the same thing with our cell phone contract.
Do not be too aggressive in areas which may be important but are hard to justify ROI. Such as UPS systems, disaster recovery and backup strategy. Those are items you make do with until you've developed a reputation of being shrewd with the company money.
Also:
Keep your work area neat and clean
Dress for success
Chads right - as a network administrator you have to build up trust. You hold all the keys to a companys data and a company without data isn't a company at all.
ChadTower:
--- Quote from: leapinlew on May 03, 2007, 02:23:26 pm ---Such as UPS systems, disaster recovery and backup strategy. Those are items you make due with until you've developed a reputation of being shrewd with the company money.
--- End quote ---
Oh holy hell - if you're going to cut financial corners there you'd better do it right. One screw up there, just one, underminds your standing in the company and destroys that trust level we're talking about. You can make it work with older hardware properly mirroring critical servers and ready to flip on if you are good at it, and you can do stuff like keep your offsite disaster in your house or something, but damn you'd better get it right. Part of that trust level is that you have everything critical so covered that the CEO is free to come up with new ways to use your skills.
I once saw a small company IT guy get literally thrown from the back door, nearly right off the loading dock, because he half assed some critical backups and it was only discovered when a failure occurred and his single cheeked work made it unrecoverable.
leapinlew:
--- Quote from: ChadTower on May 03, 2007, 02:29:03 pm ---
--- Quote from: leapinlew on May 03, 2007, 02:23:26 pm ---Such as UPS systems, disaster recovery and backup strategy. Those are items you make due with until you've developed a reputation of being shrewd with the company money.
--- End quote ---
Oh holy hell - if you're going to cut financial corners there you'd better do it right. One screw up there, just one, underminds your standing in the company and destroys that trust level we're talking about. You can make it work with older hardware properly mirroring critical servers and ready to flip on if you are good at it, and you can do stuff like keep your offsite disaster in your house or something, but damn you'd better get it right. Part of that trust level is that you have everything critical so covered that the CEO is free to come up with new ways to use your skills.
I once saw a small company IT guy get literally thrown from the back door, nearly right off the loading dock, because he half assed some critical backups and it was only discovered when a failure occurred and his single cheeked work made it unrecoverable.
--- End quote ---
You need to balance it properly. If your a new guy and you walk in and want 250k to implement a good strategy - it's probably not going to work since you don't have the trust in place yet. Initially I did backups to a personal external hard drive until enough trust was developed that I could suggest the proper equipment be in place.
I'm not suggesting take risks that could cost you your job. I'm merely saying that large purchases with no real benefit should be balanced with value adding measures until your own value has been established as a trustful person.
ChadTower:
Yeah, that's along the same lines as my thoughts. I would do - and have done - something in between. Usually I will spend a bit of time analyzing the situation and then come up with three plans. One is the cheapest - "these are your problems/risks and this is how much I can improve it with hardware on hand or minimum capital". Next is a medium approach - "give me a budget and I'll return a plan that maximizes the improvements within the budget". The third is "these are the best solutions, both in terms of improvements and ROI".
Almost always, the response is "do #1, we'll come back shortly with #2, and we'll come up with a longer term plan to truly accomplish #3." Critical to that approach is that you lay out the risks clearly - that way if you have medium importance data backed up on USB IDE drives when a customer wants to look at your infrastructure, your CEO isn't going to be blindsided by them pointing out that your practices could be better.
leapinlew:
--- Quote from: ChadTower on May 03, 2007, 02:38:09 pm ---
Yeah, that's along the same lines as my thoughts. I would do - and have done - something in between. Usually I will spend a bit of time analyzing the situation and then come up with three plans. One is the cheapest - "these are your problems/risks and this is how much I can improve it with hardware on hand or minimum capital". Next is a medium approach - "give me a budget and I'll return a plan that maximizes the improvements within the budget". The third is "these are the best solutions, both in terms of improvements and ROI".
Almost always, the response is "do #1, we'll come back shortly with #2, and we'll come up with a longer term plan to truly accomplish #3." Critical to that approach is that you lay out the risks clearly - that way if you have medium importance data backed up on USB IDE drives when a customer wants to look at your infrastructure, your CEO isn't going to be blindsided by them pointing out that your practices could be better.
--- End quote ---
yes! This is good advice. What Chad just demonstrated was the ability to be flexible, concern for the data/employer and a good dose of CYA. When possible, these kinds of transactions need to be done via email to provide a paper trail.
Don't be penny wise and pound foolish.
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