Do you ask for permission...
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Got to give them the time frame or tell them "If we don't reboot and do X, then Y could potentially happen and will affect your production by affecting Z". If you can tie it back to business and dollars, then typically you will get a go-ahead for the time frame you requested.
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I have to check with the dev team to make sure there are no migrations or conversions running before I can reboot.
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@RojoLoco said in Do you ask for permission...:
I have to check with the dev team to make sure there are no migrations or conversions running before I can reboot.
I am the Dev Team
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I have sole discretion over that. Most of the time I try and warn people with at least a 30 minute notice, or more if I can. But there are times when I just reboot and don't say anything. A lot of it depends on how long I think it will be down. If it is just rebooting a VM, and it might only be down for a few minutes, then I may just go ahead and do it, although I do frequently warn people too.
But in my case, I have never asked for permission, I always use my own judgement.
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We have a manintenance window and for any change that involves risk or down time we have to submit a change request form that is approved by a committee that consists of one person from desktop support, devops, network engineering and our CIO.
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When a customer is paying you to maintain their systems you need to verify with the customer before you go and do things. whether it's system updates, reboots, shutdowns or migrations you always have to ask.
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@DustinB3403 said in Do you ask for permission...:
When a customer is paying you to maintain their systems you need to verify with the customer before you go and do things. whether it's system updates, reboots, shutdowns or migrations you always have to ask.
Just to be clear. I am in the house guy. I agree when it comes to production stuff there needs to be a window and permission. What I am saying is that even if I get a window/permission I still get push back. So if it is something that isn't going to affect the overall production then I reboot whenever I want now because it isn't worth the headache of finding a "good time" for all parties.
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@WLS-ITGuy said in Do you ask for permission...:
@DustinB3403 said in Do you ask for permission...:
When a customer is paying you to maintain their systems you need to verify with the customer before you go and do things. whether it's system updates, reboots, shutdowns or migrations you always have to ask.
Just to be clear. I am in the house guy. I agree when it comes to production stuff there needs to be a window and permission. What I am saying is that even if I get a window/permission I still get push back. So if it is something that isn't going to affect the overall production then I reboot whenever I want now because it isn't worth the headache of finding a "good time" for all parties.
You will never find a "good time" for all of the parties. This is a management question and needs to be in consortium with the managers. If the down time only affects 1 manager and has greater benefit for the entire company to reboot, then do what you have to. Otherwise, you have 1 manager holding the rest of the company potentially hostage.
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We ask. Most of our clients are accounting firms on our MSP side and contractors and their clients.
All it takes is a bit of coordination to make sure we're not infringing on any large projects they may be running. As a rule, tax season is off limits for obvious reasons.
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@WLS-ITGuy said in Do you ask for permission...:
@DustinB3403 said in Do you ask for permission...:
When a customer is paying you to maintain their systems you need to verify with the customer before you go and do things. whether it's system updates, reboots, shutdowns or migrations you always have to ask.
Just to be clear. I am in the house guy. I agree when it comes to production stuff there needs to be a window and permission. What I am saying is that even if I get a window/permission I still get push back. So if it is something that isn't going to affect the overall production then I reboot whenever I want now because it isn't worth the headache of finding a "good time" for all parties.
The simple thing of it is: We need a reboot to apply patches to protect our network from baddies and to help with overall stability in the operating systems.
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@PhlipElder said in Do you ask for permission...:
We ask. Most of our clients are accounting firms on our MSP side and contractors and their clients.
All it takes is a bit of coordination to make sure we're not infringing on any large projects they may be running. As a rule, tax season is off limits for obvious reasons.
When I was an outside guy/MSP guy we had that same rule. It applied to all our accounting firms and most of our financial firms and some attorney offices as well.
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What time do guys normally schedule reboots? During business hours? Early mornings? Late evenings? Weekends only?
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@black3dynamite said in Do you ask for permission...:
What time do guys normally schedule reboots? During business hours? Early mornings? Late evenings? Weekends only?
Depends on duties and priority of the systems it supports and the benefits of the changes being made. Typically they are either late night/very early morning or weekend. If it can be done during lunch hour, then its done during lunch hour.
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@black3dynamite said in Do you ask for permission...:
What time do guys normally schedule reboots? During business hours? Early mornings? Late evenings? Weekends only?
Was that a question for everyone? Either way:
I do maintenance on all desktops/Servers on Thursdays. That way if something goes sideways I am not working on the weekend, hopefully.
There are a few times where I miss the opportunity to do the maintenance on Thursday so I'll do them during lunch or at EOD.
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We are a manufacturing company with two shifts. Usually my "ideal" downtime still effects people being able to clock in and out of jobs on the production floor. I am not going to do my work at 2am from home, so I just live with unavoidable interruptions. I just try and make it as minimal as possible. I actually blasted out an email warning of having to do one today at 12:45pm. It's after our shop staff should be back from lunch, and before everyone else starts working after lunch.
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@black3dynamite said in Do you ask for permission...:
What time do guys normally schedule reboots? During business hours? Early mornings? Late evenings? Weekends only?
Cluster nodes can be run pretty much anytime during the day.
For servers running roles and services we schedule an outage and run with it.
Methodology is straightforward:
- Reboot the server if running longer than 60 days
- Back up
- Install the patch and reboot
- Verify services
If the patch fails restore.
We use Veeam and ShadowProtect to back up with.
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I have to ask every time i need to reboot or refresh the system ( refresh is sending the new data added to our application to the front of house terminals, and updating them to be current.) With out question, unless the site is not open for business, or before operating hours.
I think best Practice is to at least ask, especially when you reboot something that will effect the end user. or have set times,
If this has already been said I apologies, I read the OP and then hit reply, Did not read through the rest of the thread. -
This is a discussion I have with all clients that task us with this responsibility.
We never ask for permission during the agreed upon window of time. For most of my clients that is anytime after the last person went home. Typically 6 P.M. in their timezone.
Anything outside of that is coordinated. But it is not "asking permission" it is coordination. Because if we want to reboot in the middle of the day, there is a reason for it.
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@JaredBusch said in Do you ask for permission...:
This is a discussion I have with all clients that task us with this responsibility.
We never ask for permission during the agreed upon window of time. For most of my clients that is anytime after the last person went home. Typically 6 P.M. in their timezone.
Anything outside of that is coordinated. But it is not "asking permission" it is coordination. Because if we want to reboot in the middle of the day, there is a reason for it.
This is where I am. After hours and weekends - just reboot. During the day - something must really be f'ed up otherwise why the hell am i asking (really telling)?
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@WLS-ITGuy said in Do you ask for permission...:
Do you always ask for permission to take a server down? Or do you give them a time frame that it will be down? Or do you just reboot at your leisure?
Very much "it depends".
Depends on the customer, the time period, the issue at hand, the workload, etc.
