What Is Your CloudatCost Project?
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Our first server up is what we call a "Jump Station" or an SSH Proxy. Pretty simple style system and this is replacing a production workload in our Mississauga datacenter that is slated for retirement. This is a security system whose only role is to be a clean and lean system into which people log in initially before "jumping" via SSH to other UNIX systems via keys. CloudatCost appears to be really perfect for this.
We are running this on a Dev 1 with CentOS 7. No need for anything more.
This worked out perfectly for us as our old Jump Station was on CentOS 6.5 and was slated to be updated and the hardware that it was on retired. So we killed two birds with one stone.
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I purchased a single Dev 2 system for the express purpose of deploying various PBX packages on it.
I could do it on my Hyper-V server (thanks X-Byte & GroveSocial/Mangolassi for that!) in my colocation space and it would be easier, but I also have need for some hosted solutions in the planning stages at a couple clients. so this kills two birds with one stone.
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I'm going to try ScreenConnect, though sounds like I'll need to buy a beefier dev level for it.
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Working on a tabletop gaming wordpress site/blog. Running it on the Debian release and nginx, on a Dev 1 server, which I've never used before. So far this is working really well. I also noticed that it is much faster to deploy instances then when I was messing around with Amazon EC2.
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ManageEngine Service Desk to start...
ScreenConnect - maybe.
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@g.jacobse said:
ManageEngine Service Desk to start...
ScreenConnect - maybe.
Has the Standard Edition of ManageEngine always been free? It seems like this is a new option.
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A better person to ask is @JaredBusch.
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@coliver Always? Sort of. They have always had a free model but for only one or two techs I believe. They made the Helpdesk free for unlimited techs about a year ago.
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@JaredBusch said:
@coliver Always? Sort of. They have always had a free model but for only one or two techs I believe. They made the Helpdesk free for unlimited techs about a year ago.
Good to know, I've never really looked into their suite of tools... I feel as though I should now... especially since I have to restart my current helpdesk software 1-2 times a day.
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@coliver said:
Good to know, I've never really looked into their suite of tools... I feel as though I should now... especially since I have to restart my current helpdesk software 1-2 times a day.
Their documentation is not the greatest, but once up and running, it has been rock solid.
Plan ahead, if you act like and MSP, use the MSP version. The differences are minor, but there is no migration path other than paying ME to do it for you.
I glossed over that they even had an MSP version because I avoid things with that term in general. That was my mistake and I am working on spinning up a new instance running that version. So much of it does not apply to what we do, but it has a couple key things that make it better for someone with multiple clients.
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@JaredBusch said:
@coliver said:
Good to know, I've never really looked into their suite of tools... I feel as though I should now... especially since I have to restart my current helpdesk software 1-2 times a day.
Their documentation is not the greatest, but once up and running, it has been rock solid.
Plan ahead, if you act like and MSP, use the MSP version. The differences are minor, but there is no migration path other than paying ME to do it for you.
I glossed over that they even had an MSP version because I avoid things with that term in general. That was my mistake and I am working on spinning up a new instance running that version. So much of it does not apply to what we do, but it has a couple key things that make it better for someone with multiple clients.
I am the only "agent" here right now. and don't show billable hours or anything that indepth. Just doing basic ticketing and information management. Just thought it was interesting as I hadn't heard about the free option prior to this.
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@Dashrender said:
I'm going to try ScreenConnect, though sounds like I'll need to buy a beefier dev level for it.
Dev 3 should be plenty.
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@coliver said:
@g.jacobse said:
ManageEngine Service Desk to start...
ScreenConnect - maybe.
Has the Standard Edition of ManageEngine always been free? It seems like this is a new option.
It's been for a while. Not always though.
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@coliver said:
@g.jacobse said:
ManageEngine Service Desk to start...
ScreenConnect - maybe.
Has the Standard Edition of ManageEngine always been free? It seems like this is a new option.
Nearly a year. ManageEngine made it free around the time that MangoLassi got started last year. There was a lot of discussion around it.
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@coliver said:
@JaredBusch said:
@coliver Always? Sort of. They have always had a free model but for only one or two techs I believe. They made the Helpdesk free for unlimited techs about a year ago.
Good to know, I've never really looked into their suite of tools... I feel as though I should now... especially since I have to restart my current helpdesk software 1-2 times a day.
They offer a fully hosted option too, completely free.
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@coliver said:
@JaredBusch said:
@coliver said:
Good to know, I've never really looked into their suite of tools... I feel as though I should now... especially since I have to restart my current helpdesk software 1-2 times a day.
Their documentation is not the greatest, but once up and running, it has been rock solid.
Plan ahead, if you act like and MSP, use the MSP version. The differences are minor, but there is no migration path other than paying ME to do it for you.
I glossed over that they even had an MSP version because I avoid things with that term in general. That was my mistake and I am working on spinning up a new instance running that version. So much of it does not apply to what we do, but it has a couple key things that make it better for someone with multiple clients.
I am the only "agent" here right now. and don't show billable hours or anything that indepth. Just doing basic ticketing and information management. Just thought it was interesting as I hadn't heard about the free option prior to this.
The MSP version is not available hosted. So would be a perfect candidate for CloudatCost projects.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I'm going to try ScreenConnect, though sounds like I'll need to buy a beefier dev level for it.
Dev 3 should be plenty.
Right, I saw your earlier post. I have a Dev1 I bought to play with, now I'll need to get the Dev3.
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We have two Dev 1 instances for what we think of as "pure lab" boxes. These are plain jane, completely vanilla, no app OS instances that exist only to be research systems for the bare OS. Need to look at packages, test a script, blow them away and rebuild... whatever. We keep them just to see what a bare system looks like, needs for patches, etc.
So the two we have currently are...
CentOS 6.5 Lab
CentOS 7 Lab -
I have two instances
1x Dev 1 instance. Running CentOS 7 with LAMP right now, for my personal site (mainly testing) I may add SOGo for email on to this too if it works.
1x Big Dog 1 Instance. Currently running Win 2k12 R2 64bit but, I have no idea what I will actually do with it.
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One nice thing that you can do is use the Big Dog series for Windows testing. If you are not using them for production, but just for testing, certs or similar, you can just rebuild every 90 days. This is how I did all of my Windows NT 4 certs back in the 1990s. Not on a cloud, obviously, but by physically reinstalling every three months from scratch (which was a huge deal back then, let me tell you!!) and reconfiguring the entire system every time. Learned a lot that way!