http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/list/59.page JForum - http://www.jforum.net
I like this idea...
Will stop us IT support from firefighting. The problem is when we start buying parts instead of unit. I no longer can firmly said THIS MACHINE IS TOO OLD ! Cause the memory was purchased 3 weeks ago, or the HD is replaced a month ago... etc.
Scheduled maintenance won't do much because hardware failures are like stroke on people - Shit happens.

What is your take on this ?
]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1147.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1147.page GMT
General Office machines have a 4 year replacement cycle.
Usually we have pretty good luck (knock on wood) that nothing major blows up after the warranty period and before it gets replaced.
Once the replacement computer is implemented we then sell the older computers to help offset the cost even if only a little bit.

This way we can maintain standardized computers, which we all know help keep the cost of support down when we are not supporting multiple types of computers.
]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1177.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1177.page GMT http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1185.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1185.page GMT If something is broken down, we can replace the part for free. After the warranty time, it is up to our customers if they buy a new one.
If they want support from us , they will need to buy a new asset.
We never have had any problems with our customers on this.

Kind regards,
René ]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1186.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1186.page GMT So none of you ever replaced the parts after buying ? Cause that's where the tricky part is... I can logged the purchase date of the unit... but the parts invalidate it cause old unit with new parts is neither old nor new...

Rene...
Most refreshing to have perspective from the other side of the fence !
*Widened delighted eyes*
Suppliers are notoriously very good in estimating warranty time... most of the hardware we got dies like weeks after warranty period expires. How do you guys do that ?
*Try very hard not to smile*]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1195.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1195.page GMT So none of you ever replaced the parts after buying ? Cause that's where the tricky part is... I can logged the purchase date of the unit... but the parts invalidate it cause old unit with new parts is neither old nor new...

An old Computer with new parts, is simply refered to as an upgraded system. If you buy from a large vendor such as hp, Dell etc, you can purchase hardware upgrades from the vendor without voiding the warranty. It would be advisable in the future to build your own PCs if you have the experience, if not contact somone you know with experience to help you. Keep in mind most vendors offer a three year warranty on parts (Read the fine print) and one year support on the OS.

Rene...
Most refreshing to have perspective from the other side of the fence !
*Widened delighted eyes*
Suppliers are notoriously very good in estimating warranty time... most of the hardware we got dies like weeks after warranty period expires. How do you guys do that ?
*Try very hard not to smile*[/quote]]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1198.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1198.page GMT
[b]Do an incremental back-up: [/b]making a copy of files that have changed since your last full backup is quik and easy.
[b]Reboot when programs crash: [/b]Failed applications can cause other programs to falter. Restart you system after every crash to clear it out.

I'll have moore on Preventative Maintenance next time.]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1199.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1199.page GMT *smile*
Greetings... *slight bow smile*

Antimalware management is pretty much solved when you deployed centralized one. Everything is practically running by itself. Even at endpoint.

Backup is not preventive... it's damage control. And yess... incremental backup is easy... but incremental restore is going to be tricky. I prefer full backup whenever possible.

Sadly yesss... even at present day maintaining a windows box sometimes require reboot.
]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1200.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1200.page GMT
Have you tried our reoccurring events for this ? you can schedule for anything on a monthly basis (or any other for that matter).]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1221.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1221.page GMT
Good idea had not thought of that in fact i might just do that to handle my renewals for the time being as well!!]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1223.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1223.page GMT So none of you ever replaced the parts after buying ? Cause that's where the tricky part is... I can logged the purchase date of the unit... but the parts invalidate it cause old unit with new parts is neither old nor new...
[/quote]

Hi obelix

We do buy from vendor with 3 to 4 year warranty, on servers we get 4 hour support so it goes bang i ring vendor. Now to make matters better at least at the moment the companies that are subcontractor for the vendor are based in the same business park as us so we tend to get them in very quickly. Then once it reaches the end of warranty after 1 break we replace!]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1224.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1224.page GMT
Good idea had not thought of that in fact i might just do that to handle my renewals for the time being as well!![/quote]

YEss... been toying with this idea myself. But never quite work out the details yet.
I do have a feeling this reocurring thing will play major role in SysAid as a network management suite.
Cause like the integration thing... this can be apply in so many things... license control, vendor contracts, our own maintenance cycle, supplies... so many... so many.]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1226.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1226.page GMT http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1232.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1232.page GMT you know what this is a good idea for a Feature request auto emails once a month of kit X days since new!


Have you tried our reoccurring events for this ? you can schedule for anything on a monthly basis (or any other for that matter). [/quote]

How do you setup reoccuring events? I would like to in order to carry out maintance services on our machines every 6months..... ]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1242.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1242.page GMT
[b]Do an incremental back-up: [/b]making a copy of files that have changed since your last full backup is quik and easy.
[b]Reboot when programs crash: [/b]Failed applications can cause other programs to falter. Restart you system after every crash to clear it out.[/quote]

I agree that this is all crucial on the software side, but what about the hardware side. Smoke signals should not be the only way we know that a piece of hardware went bad. I know there is some software built in that gives you a general idea of how things are running, but they don't give you enough information. But that is simply my opinion.

]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1248.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1248.page GMT [/quote]

You need the task project section

go in to this and create notifications ie an email, sms or open a SR. Once you have set these up. You go in to tasks and you can make it

A. Reoccur and B insert a notification]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1252.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1252.page GMT
Since we don't buy from a vendor anymore, I usually build all the New PCs that come in. This kind of helps as far as our cycle goes >> depending on the parts I buy it will depend on the life of the machine >> Seagates HDDs last extremely long so costs are relatively low in HDD replacement. In the event they do go out the Warranty lasts for a very long time. Warranties on Memory are usually lifetime warranties as well.

Having incremental backups is a must. One way to setup incremental backups (depending on the size of your organization and size of user profiles) Would be to setup a Roamin Profile for their Windows Accounts. This will save all documents automatically to the server when they log out. Its a simple safeguard on user profiles just in case users aren't already saving their most important files to the server.



]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1396.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/1396.page GMT
[b]Do an incremental back-up: [/b]making a copy of files that have changed since your last full backup is quik and easy.
[b]Reboot when programs crash: [/b]Failed applications can cause other programs to falter. Restart you system after every crash to clear it out.[/quote]

I agree that this is all crucial on the software side, but what about the hardware side. Smoke signals should not be the only way we know that a piece of hardware went bad. I know there is some software built in that gives you a general idea of how things are running, but they don't give you enough information. But that is simply my opinion.

[/quote]
The Hardware Side. Sometimes you get suttle warnings of hardware failure and sometime it just goes all at once. In the event of a hardware failure resulting in a system disaster as you all allready know that is why a full back up is crucial, The main thing is to have a disaster recovery plan. Now I have found a nice program that I run at least once per week that will test all of your hardware devices you can even stress your hardware (Burn IN) and at most times you can find faulty hardware before it fails resulting in a non recoverable system failure. the Program is Tuff Test Pro a good investment at $30.00. Here is the web address; http://tufftest.com/ttp01.htm ]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/2028.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/2028.page GMT
We are a 3 man IT shop responsible for just under 200 physical locations, internet connections, equipment etc. There are between 1-5 workstations at each physical location, except at our corporate office, where we have approximately 40 workstations.

Since we are distributed over a wide geographic area, we have found vendors that guarantee Next Business Day onsite warranty repair/replacement for all of our equipment. We purchase enough warranty to last us 1 year shy of the expected lifecycle. (For example, printers are bought with a 4-5 year warranty and we expect to get 5-6 years lifecycle.) We also carry accidental damage coverage on our laptops and other high ticket items.

If we have a hardware issue, it is covered by warranty during the warranty period. Any equipment that is no longer under warranty is evaluated on a depreciation schedule. If it cost $3000, and it is 5 years through its 6 year lifecycle, we value it at worth $500. If the estimated repairs are more than $500, we retire and don't repair.

Every two years, we revisit all sites for preventative maintenance. We make sure that all surge protection and cabling/physical connections are secure and adhere to our policies & procedures. We update the software on the machines with any firmware updates and with a clean, new standardized image. We use compressed air and wipes to physically clean the equipment, we check for any hardware issues, and we update and verify all inventory details.

During the normal life of a machine, it runs a standard protected image. If there is a problem that can't be resolved remotely with SysAidRC, the users can be walked through a simple procedure to reimage their system volume. Their data is stored on a separate D: drive so that it remains and is available after a reboot. Warranty service is completed onsite, but in some cases, equipment is cross-shipped or delivered onsite for replacement. Printers are all network attached and standardized, so that the IP address for a replacement printer simply needs to be set and they are back up and running.

We probably pay more than most do for each individual machine and warranty, but we quickly make up for that with the savings in reduced labor costs, travel, and IT staffing.

I'd be interested in hearing how others run their departments? It's always great to share and learn along side colleagues.]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/2098.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/2098.page GMT
In our case we have a few things in our favour. We lease all desktop/laptop machines with a 2 year schedule with the option to buy out. Now the VP of finance assures me this works well from a finance perspective (which i'll take his word on!). But from an IT perspective its also really good. It means that our fleet gets replaced every two years pretty much with out fail. Our warranty's are purchased with the 2 year option to ensure we're covered in the event of hardware issues. We also have a standard SOE for all machines so if it's a software issue we just re-image the machine and send it on its way.

Some might say this is alot of work, however we only have about 70 nodes and they're purchased sporadically, so one month we might have 5-6 machines to replace. Next month might be none, following month 10. Being a smallish sized business means we rarely go out and purchase 50-100 machines at once. That said i've seen a similar practive in a large firm of over 1000 nodes. In which all were leased in batches of 100. They usually got a work experience kid/couple of temps in to do the simple launch from network, and image. Then they did staged rollouts of 10 PC's a day over a two week period.

For our server infrastructure we ususally purchase outright, with a 3 year 24/7 4hr onsite response time. Works very well the few times i've had to call for service. After the 3 year period once the warranty has expired we purchase a replacement machine, and the old machine is either used to replace an older piece of hardware/a desktop doing a server role (the idea being, a newer server is less likely to fail than a 5 year server, and a out of warranty server is better than a desktop). Or we rebuild and used as a hot spare or even add it to our test environment.

For general network infrastructure (routers, switches etc) its generally a replace as needed or as an upgrade is needed. IE We are currently in the process of replacing our core router as we upgraded our link to 20MB fibre and the router only has a 10MB WAN port. Funnily enough a couple of days after we purchased the new one (and were awaiting delivery) the old one started to play up, randomly going down etc. So timing couldn't have been much better if we tried...

The only other advice i can offer, is to stick with well known brand named products. Whilst alot of smaller businesses tend to go for a cheaper less known product, pretty much every time without fail there will be problems. We stick with solid names such as HP server, desktop and notebook equipment, and Cisco networking infrastructure.

Actually i lied. One other peice of advice. When purchasing equipment in another country, make sure you check what the warranty is like for the specific location, and also the companies presence. In Australia (where im from) HP has a solid presence. If they give you a 4 hour onsite guarentee they will always meet it. When we did work for a client in the south of Vietnam, we've found that A) they don't offer 4 hour onsite warranty's or anything like it. B) the location the office is in (Vung Tau) doesn't have a HP tech. Thus if there is a hardware failure a courier has to be dispatched from Ho Chi Minh nearly 3 hours away to pickup the equipment and take it to the service centre.

I guess at least it doesn't go by donkey like i was expecting though it did go balanced on the back of a motorbike! ]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/2437.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/2437.page GMT ) a computer "bounce" off of asphalt and still work with out a single hitch. The other guys haven't found out about that one yet. lol ]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/2449.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/2449.page GMT I wasn't too concerned about the desktop, more a problem with the 45k worth of cisco switches/routers that rocked up like that. But they all worked ok and have been working fine for over a year now.. so guess the equipment is pretty hardy! ]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/2458.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/2458.page GMT http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/3623.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/3623.page GMT
Only pain about preventive maintenance is reminders and keeping tab on things. Which both could be automated with ...
*'side-tshirt-and-mug-whatelse-d'you-got kinda pause and glance @ Saar*
SysAid.]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/3639.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/3639.page GMT http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/3662.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/3662.page GMT Grab a smiley in a mechanic suit and shake it out from him...
*Orb out of saar's slapping range*
]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/3670.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/3670.page GMT
As far as the workstations go we have 3 year warranty's on all. We keep them for a maximum of 4 years, knowing that we will lose some of the systems do to failures. The failed systems are replaced with new one and the usable parts from the dead systems are pulled. We ghost all system at least once a year to keep the installs fresh.

We run a WSUS server to ensure that MS patches are push out after they a tested.]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/10511.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/10511.page GMT So instead of firefighting we try to just replace earlier, but in these times with crisis, its not always this wish copes with what the guys on the company money coffin thinks..... Also this give some extra problems with old software sometimes.]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/10565.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/10565.page GMT Printers are the one asset that needs a scheduled maintenance plan. Especially if it's a mission critical printer.

just my 2 cents...]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/12372.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/12372.page GMT
I find that it is more time consuming to maintain an old computer then it is to just buy a new one these days. Especially when you have to pay a tech $20/hour to work on an old machine all day. A hard drive will usually last 3 years, sometimes less then one. Thats why a three year warenty is well worth the cost. After that it plain makes sense to deprieciate the machine over 3 years and be ready to buy a new one at the onset of the 4th or 5th year.
]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/15675.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/15675.page GMT That $20/hour is because you outsource support or it's an estimate for in-house support espenses ?

If it is in-house would you share the method in estimating it ? Study like that is most helpful when talking to people who only answer to numbers. But since your parameter might be different than mine I need something generic.

Thanks in advance.
Oh and greetings by the way...
*slight nod smile*

]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/15681.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/15681.page GMT That $20/hour is because you outsource support or it's an estimate for in-house support espenses ?

If it is in-house would you share the method in estimating it ? Study like that is most helpful when talking to people who only answer to numbers.
[/quote]

Hi Obelix,

$20 an hour is just a nice round number to calculate the human resource it may take for a single in house tech to bring a computer back online plus parts. This is modest, if we outsourced I have seen this cost being around $65 - 150 and hour depending on the location. Older machines seem to take longer to repair and to troubleshoot. Sometimes we end up with the same conclusion in the end to replace the defective legacy hardware and end up paying 4 hours of resources and buying a new machine and spending another hour or 2 setting up the new computer.

Also in 3 to 5 years software is probably going to require better hardware to run. Many companies are imaging documents daily, and processing larger calculations. Virtual desktops might consolidate this some much like you would in the server room.

The Server room is another issue all together, if you have 50 plus physcial servers, it is time to virtualize. We did, over the last year and cut down from about 70 servers in our datacenter to about 16 physical machines. We now host about 80 Virtual Machines on just a few VMware hosts, and only leave a few servers on physical machines that need special hardware to run.

It is much cheaper to upgrade and manage only a few hosts then it is to schedule maintenance on over 70 physical servers.]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/15683.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/15683.page GMT Most enlightening.]]> http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/15689.page http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/posts/preList/348/15689.page GMT