[BUGS] IT Support Business with FreeBSD servers

[yance@EXEMAIL]

---------- Original Message ----------
To: BUGS - Generic chat (bugs at bugs.au.freebsd.org)
From: Dean Hamstead (dean at fragfest.com.au)
Subject: Re: [BUGS] IT Support Business with FreeBSD servers
Date: 22/5/2008 11:04:33p

>> 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.

Managers may have heard of 'linux', so they want to use it. Doesnt have 
to make sense because for 98% of the time there is really very little 
difference between running apache on bsd vs linux.

But if people want to pay you to do something, cheer!

>> 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.

if you are doing 1-50 pcs, they will expect desktop support as well.
Or rope you into it ie "while youre here, could you please look at..."
Its more hours, which is more money. Also the more of their system you 
can administer, the more you can control, the more they will come to 
you, the more money you can make. Ideally, you want to support the whole 
thing. Small companies like calling one guy for all their 'IT' problems.
Likely they cant differentiate between different problems - 'email is 
down' could just mean that their network cable is unplugged.

Lol, i bet lots of people know how that goes.

Anyway sounds like you are well awair of it. just need to remember that 
small businesses want one person to turn to for all their problems - 
they dont have time for much else and are willing to pay money for the 
convenience.

>> 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).

I wasnt actually referring to routers. Cisco switches dominate the 
market. Sure a 5-50 employee setup might not really be in bleeding need 
of VLANs etc. However some idea of how to use the basic features of IOS 
will help you.

Other vendors were mentioned, and yes they are out there. But for better 
or worse the ninety and nine are cisco. Having a basic grip of how to 
get into a cisco device and see whats going on will only help you.

I would also suggest that you graph every vital statistic you can 
(especially internet links, website traffic, cpu, disk, memory and 
emails). This will help you help them plan for capacity - which may pay 
you commissions and future work.



Hi All,
With all the technical skills you may need to have, you also need to be extremely passionate about the job and be patient...

You might encounter a user who happens to know everything about IT. Asking you to troubleshoot a problem, and hover around your back while you are getting frustrated already trying to figure out what's wrong, bombarding you with their ideas about what has gone wrong and how to fix it ... maybe because of this, maybe that, what if you do this, maybe it's the settings, maybe it's the setup, what about you look at the connect buton, maybe it's the cable ......, what about the setting, what about the setup, you think it's because of the hard disk? what about the memory? may be a virus deleted my documents, maybe ......., and when you managed to fix something then they say ....NOOOOOO!!!! it wasn't like this before you fix it!!!!!!


Or, you might get lucky spending hours configuring an ADSL router you are not really familiar with - has weird control panel, get paid well, and a few days later you get a call to do the same thing over again just because some genius employee happened to decide to factory reset the router because they forgot that the password to the router is written in the documentation papers, and the guy couldn't to login using admin/admin user/password combination.


Or, you may deal with someone who claims that he/she has a Masters degree in IT, and strangely enough giving suggestions that installing a particular OS would solve any problem (that happens to have anything to do with any OS). 


Yance

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