Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?
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@black3dynamite said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@wrx7m said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@flaxking said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@scottalanmiller This makes me miss my old job. I was working on replacing all of our GPOs with Salt and printer deployment was coming up. However, as a solo SMB IT employee, I had an insane amount of time on my hands.
I am a solo SMB employee and have no time on my hands.
We just hired about 10 people in the last 4 weeks and 2 start in a week and 2 more possibly the week after. No real time to do anything more than setup new employees.HR and Workday handles most of the onboarding and the rest is automated.
I am talking about account creation and computer setup, installation etc.
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@wrx7m said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@black3dynamite said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@wrx7m said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@flaxking said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@scottalanmiller This makes me miss my old job. I was working on replacing all of our GPOs with Salt and printer deployment was coming up. However, as a solo SMB IT employee, I had an insane amount of time on my hands.
I am a solo SMB employee and have no time on my hands.
We just hired about 10 people in the last 4 weeks and 2 start in a week and 2 more possibly the week after. No real time to do anything more than setup new employees.HR and Workday handles most of the onboarding and the rest is automated.
I am talking about account creation and computer setup, installation etc.
I can't think of any business case for why IT has to handle account setup. Most of the time it's just a technology deficiency as to why HR doesn't have the ability to do so.
98% of the time computer setup and software installation can be completely automated. Even when the software support says it can't. So you might be dealing with the 2%, or you could be bogged down with so much technical debt that you haven't been able to dedicate the cycle required in order to automate
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On and Offboarding is very labor intensive and if it's not that's possibly because your team may have streamlined the experience. However, every business by far isn't streamlined. That is a fact.
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@krisleslie said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
On and Offboarding is very labor intensive and if it's not that's possibly because your team may have streamlined the experience. However, every business by far isn't streamlined. That is a fact.
Sometimes this is an advantage of an outside firm, they have more clout, or just a fresh set of eyes, to evaluate the process.
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@scottalanmiller I totally agree, but every company can't afford an outside firm on top of an internal person/team at same time in the scale I'm in.
I have often looked at using a 3rd party for not only the finance and HR. Get's expensive and some functions don't get performed with a 3rd party which leaves you still to fill a gap or take it upon yourself.
Totally doable, in 5 and maybe 10 man companies but when you get hit with dose of growth and you can't effectively scale, it comes back to haunt.
#ghostlybooooooo -
@scottalanmiller said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@krisleslie said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
On and Offboarding is very labor intensive and if it's not that's possibly because your team may have streamlined the experience. However, every business by far isn't streamlined. That is a fact.
Sometimes this is an advantage of an outside firm, they have more clout, or just a fresh set of eyes, to evaluate the process.
This is so frustrating... and sadly so damned true.
Internal resources are frequently ignored because the people in charge forget that they are paying the internal resources... but with an outside firm - that's always first and foremost in their mind, and if they are paying, well by god we should be doing what they say because otherwise why in the world are we paying them?
Now if only they applied that same logic to the employees they employ. -
@krisleslie said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@scottalanmiller I totally agree, but every company can't afford an outside firm on top of an internal person/team at same time in the scale I'm in.
I have often looked at using a 3rd party for not only the finance and HR. Get's expensive and some functions don't get performed with a 3rd party which leaves you still to fill a gap or take it upon yourself.
Totally doable, in 5 and maybe 10 man companies but when you get hit with dose of growth and you can't effectively scale, it comes back to haunt.
#ghostlyboooooooSee, this is where Scott will tell you that hiring internally was the crazy thing. You can get the same functionality of an internal hire with an MSP/ITSP type hire if you want it. I.e. you hire Joe's MSP to put full time tech in your company. When that tech (John) takes vacation, you're not left without a person because Joe's puts a different tech (Jeremy) in that tech's place while John's gone, all at the same price. John needs extra help for a week or two, Joe's sends over Jeremy to help John (bills according) and when done, Jeremy doesn't show up any more.
This flexibility can cost a bit more (frankly I have no idea how much more), but from the postings around these parts, some seem to think the cost would be pretty small.
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@krisleslie said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@scottalanmiller I totally agree, but every company can't afford an outside firm on top of an internal person/team at same time in the scale I'm in.
I don't agree with this. The best decision for any company is always affordable, that's how IT and business work. Whatever is best is always within reach, because what is best is determined by including the whole picture.
Outside firms, when used properly, lower the cost of IT, not raise it. So who can't afford to "spend less"?
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@scottalanmiller said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
, when used properly,
See, this is the part that almost never happens. I have to fight this perception all the time.
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@krisleslie said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
I have often looked at using a 3rd party for not only the finance and HR. Get's expensive and some functions don't get performed with a 3rd party which leaves you still to fill a gap or take it upon yourself.
These are not statements that come from outsourcing, they come from vendor selection.
Here is a trick to determining if an outsourcing statement is true - reverse it and can it still be sometimes true? If so, the original thought is incorrect. So let's reverse yours...
"We've often looked at using internal resources not only for finance and HR. It gets expensive and some functions don't get performance with in house resources which leave you still to fill a gap or take it upon yourself."
See how that works? Clearly this can be just as true with employees as with outsourced resources. So the issue is not with it being outsourced or not, but with going with the wrong vendor and/or hiring the wrong staffer.
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@dashrender said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
Internal resources are frequently ignored because the people in charge forget that they are paying the internal resources... but with an outside firm - that's always first and foremost in their mind, and if they are paying, well by god we should be doing what they say because otherwise why in the world are we paying them?
Remembering that they cost money isn't the issue. That management thinks that how much they pay determines the value of advice is the issue.
Example: if you volunteered your work would it actually make it less valuable? Of course not. The ends are the ends.
The issue is similar to management confusing the ends for the means.
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@dashrender said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
This flexibility can cost a bit more (frankly I have no idea how much more), but from the postings around these parts, some seem to think the cost would be pretty small.
"Can" cost more, but I never see it. It's less in the cases I see. Find me ANY FTE company, and I'll show you outsourcing for less than the in house costs. Every time. I challenge anyone to find an exception.
Are there exceptions? Yes, of course. But they are insanely rare and as rare as they are, they are almost always someone volunteering.
The idea that MSPs cost more comes from one of two misunderstandings:
- Refusing to look at good MSPs and only going for local firms that know that they can price gouge based on the local fallacy.
- Refusing to use the MSP for equal work and demanding the MSP be dramatically more than the internal resource was. Nothing wrong with this, but obviously this make it difficult or impossible to be cheaper.
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I have possibly opposing views. When you read from people like Tim Ferris and such, it is very applicable to create an environment that most of your staff aren't even in the same building, state or country. It feels like it isn't smart, but in some cases it is and some it is a challenge.
In our company fleshing out 3rd party HR has been on the table for many years. I even at one point suggested 3rd party finance account manager. The thought of having a "right vs wrong" isn't going to work for these scenarios, it's more of knowing you have options and which one suits the situation best.
In my company we still have "insta-hires" which baffles my mind. But we also have too many word docs and spreadsheets that effectively "on paper" (no pun intended) seem to work but due to scale and experience over the years is a hit or miss. While I do like jumping the bandwagon on having metrics (like Google) for almost anything, I do agree that if you don't measure something you can't improve it, but honestly if you blatantly don't want to measure it, then it is destined forever to never improve.
I wish we could afford a sweet HR system but often your left with options that are expensive that often cost more than Windows! Sure you can go the open source route or even free (SAAS) route but they all bring pro's and con's.
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@scottalanmiller said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@dashrender said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
This flexibility can cost a bit more (frankly I have no idea how much more), but from the postings around these parts, some seem to think the cost would be pretty small.
"Can" cost more, but I never see it. It's less in the cases I see. Find me ANY FTE company, and I'll show you outsourcing for less than the in house costs. Every time. I challenge anyone to find an exception.
Are there exceptions? Yes, of course. But they are insanely rare and as rare as they are, they are almost always someone volunteering.
The idea that MSPs cost more comes from one of two misunderstandings:
- Refusing to look at good MSPs and only going for local firms that know that they can price gouge based on the local fallacy.
- Refusing to use the MSP for equal work and demanding the MSP be dramatically more than the internal resource was. Nothing wrong with this, but obviously this make it difficult or impossible to be cheaper.
So, FTE companies should never have internal IT? Always outsource to MSPs?
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@krisleslie said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
It feels like it isn't smart, but in some cases it is and some it is a challenge.
Nearly all. There are exceptions, but the "stall all in the same building" thing is almost always super expensive, super un-productive, and a crutch for hiring staff that are actually not able to work without being prodded by a manager. If your staff is good, they don't need to be managed. Managed staff is expensive staff. Motivated staff is cheap.
It should feel brilliant to not have staff all in one building. What would cause the cost of real estate, the risks of housing staff, and the inefficiencies of workplace banter to sound like positives?
Employees love working in offices because they make it easy to use "showing up" as a proxy for "working". People who work from home only look like they are working when they are... actually working. Totally different.
Management should love people being home. Workers who want to work should love being home. People who want to collect a paycheck for talking aroudn the water cooler are the ones who promote the office environment in most cases.
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@obsolesce IMHO it depends on the scale, financial health and overall understanding of a company at every level. I can say if your a startup with 1-5 people, having outsourced IT is smart. I can say up to 100 staff, having outsourced IT in different roles/capacities is smart. But it all depends on the financial health of the company.
I agree with Scott as far as the mindset of a business and what steps they should take to focus on the priorities and "make it happen". But if you have little budget, little can be done in some scenarios until you grow and have cash flow to support it.
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@obsolesce said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@scottalanmiller said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@dashrender said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
This flexibility can cost a bit more (frankly I have no idea how much more), but from the postings around these parts, some seem to think the cost would be pretty small.
"Can" cost more, but I never see it. It's less in the cases I see. Find me ANY FTE company, and I'll show you outsourcing for less than the in house costs. Every time. I challenge anyone to find an exception.
Are there exceptions? Yes, of course. But they are insanely rare and as rare as they are, they are almost always someone volunteering.
The idea that MSPs cost more comes from one of two misunderstandings:
- Refusing to look at good MSPs and only going for local firms that know that they can price gouge based on the local fallacy.
- Refusing to use the MSP for equal work and demanding the MSP be dramatically more than the internal resource was. Nothing wrong with this, but obviously this make it difficult or impossible to be cheaper.
So, FTE companies should never have internal IT? Always outsource to MSPs?
Absolutely. I've covered this a lot. The MSP model is so vastly superior to in house staff that is non-core (so this applies to IT, HR, Accouting, etc.) that it should never come up to consider FTEs until you are in the Fortune 1000.
Outsouced staff can meet or beat internal in every way. People often think outsourced has downsides, but can never actually produce any. There are all kinds of misunderstandings about outsourced that people use as reasons, but the reasons are universally false.
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@krisleslie said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
@obsolesce IMHO it depends on the scale, financial health and overall understanding of a company at every level. I can say if your a startup with 1-5 people, having outsourced IT is smart. I can say up to 100 staff, having outsourced IT in different roles/capacities is smart. But it all depends on the financial health of the company.
In house IT staff only makes sense if...
- Your team is SO large that no MSP can match it.
- IT is your core business so is handled under the "in house core, out source all else" rule.
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@krisleslie said in Anyone Attempting Deploying Printers through SaltStack?:
But if you have little budget, little can be done in some scenarios until you grow and have cash flow to support it.
But since the MSP model is cheaper, companies with small budgets should always outsource.
FTEs are for the rich that want to flaunt their ability to hire headcount.
MSPs are for frugal companies wanting to improve the bottom line.
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@scottalanmiller it just depends. One harsh example would be cabling. If you hired a contractor, msp, or someone who is the IT (locally and FTE), who do you think would end up being cheaper? Always the local if he/she has done it before. The labor, equipment and resources cost always sky rockets!
