[BUGS] IT Support Business with FreeBSD servers

[Brad Rushworth]

Dean Hamstead wrote on 22/05/2008 6:42 PM:
> You will inevitably need to support Linux in many forms, especially 
> fedora, centos etc. suse maybe. Havent seen much of that in Australia 
> really.

I realise Linux is nearly everywhere. I'm willing to get more involved 
in this area if need be. As, many potential employees are likely to have 
this knowledge. Many more than FreeBSD anyway.

> 
> If you're serious about business not making a philosophical statement, 
> you will also need to support windows. You will find yourself setting up 
>   a firewall and some mail, web, app, file servers etc. Then having to 
> go around and configure workstations running... windows! This will 
> include email, VPN clients, and all sorts of random stuff.

Yes, most workstations are windows. I'm not focusing on workstations 
though, but I suppose I will support standard Windows installs.

> Likely you may also have to do things you never wanted like setting up 
> exchange (people love outlook and they *really* love its calendaring). 
> You can make things better by keeping exchange from actually being on 
> the internet by putting your favorite MTA in front of it. You will 
> likely have to configure squid to talk to an Active Directory for users, 
> and probably hook Samba in also.

I've experienced the pain of integrating calendaring from open-source 
tools into Firefox or Outlook, it ain't pretty. Nothing seems to be any 
good. Exchange is worlds ahead in that department. The best alternative 
is web-based calendars?

> Dont forget to learn some cisco fundamentals. CCNA is not really needed 
> but might be helpfull (its not like many businesses are using ATM, Frame 
> Relay or ISDN... although i dont doubt there are and they will pay you 
> top dollar to get things fixed), but just some idea how to play with 
> vlans in IOS and get snmp running, then set up some reasonable ACLS to 
> keep things from getting messy.
> 

I'm targeting small business (5-50 employees), do they really need Cisco 
routers? I see what your getting at though, but I'm not sure such work 
is available in Newcastle (in any substantial amount).