On Wednesday, November 09, 2005, at 01:57PM, Marc Ray <email@hidden> wrote:
>Eric,
>
>I am in about the same situation as you backing up mostly student
>data. But I think what Dan is stating is to have a comprehensive
>backup plan. For me this is about a page of notes describing when I
>backup, where the backup data goes, and how often you backup. Also
>there should be some information on a restore plan including the down
>time you expect to see.
Taking the risk of sounding like an old codger here, SOPs and documented policies are a must in "structured IT". Which that is to say, any IT organization at all in my book. It's even more critical in the lower budgeted shops like small schools where you might have voulenteer help and such. The only thing better feeling than having good help, is having a big book that they can look at the index in to fix a problem. I can go away from the office and feel fairly confident that other admins can take care of most Mac stuff while I am away.
Notes are a good start, but really for a data backup plan you need to think all of that, plus things like data retention times and such. It's really important with something as critical as backup that you get _management_ _to_ _sign_ _off_ _on_ _the_ _plan_. Otherwise it's your butt out on the street when it goes bad. There is no worse feeling that having a user loose data that they thought they could get back.
Because of Apple's main target audience for the server products I often find that people without IT experience/training are pushed into IT roles. Apple makes this pretty easy. I've been to school systems with 1500 home folders per school that some teachers got drafted into tossing together. And such fast and loose deployments work, but when soemthing goes wrong, it goes really wrong (Which is why I was there.). It's not the fault of the staff that was dedicated enough to see it through, they go above and beyond the call in most cases, but of managenment who either:
a) Won't hire full time IT staff.
or
b) Won't train the people who were pressed into service.
Most of the time I went to these places it was becasue they needed some outside help, which is a good call most of the time, but really if they just trained their own staff they would be in better shape. (And the old, "We can't afford it." thing is mostly bull. I have one friend with a Ferrari, and he's the only plumber I know.)
When it comes to running your shop, or customer's shops, document everything. Write things like backup and storage policies in the begining. Get the management to sign off on them. And I don't mean they say, "OK" to you when you talk to them. I mean have them actually sign the document and date it.
Things like storage quotas might not win friends in the user community, but they are essential to controlling the environment. Take it from me first hand, you do NOT want unlimited storage for your users. The environment I'm currently in wastes STAGGERING sums of money on storage, all becasue no one has the guts to put a storage policy in place.
In short:
1. Make policies. (Get them signed)
2. Document. (SOPs and such)
3. Profit! (Sorry, too much /.)
Wow, that was long and grumpy. Have mercy Conrad... :)
josh
www.afp548.com
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