This is how you create tasks from the xml files with powershell.

https://www.petri.com/import-scheduled-tasks-PowerShell

@thwr You could also just rent another identical server with Hetzner. When you have moved everything over you can terminate the first one. It unlikely that the second server has problems as well.

Will only cost you roughly 200 euros to do it.

OVHcloud has also dedicated game servers. https://www.ovh.ie/dedicated_servers/game/prices/
I think they are in the same market segment as Hetzner.

Debian 10 upgrade might throw a curve ball.

If that is the case you could have a look at Debian's official upgrade docs as well:
https://www.debian.org/releases/buster/i386/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html

@Net-Runner said in Windows Server 2012 - Task Scheduler Issue:

There was an issue with US NTP servers multiple users reported during this week. Not sure if it might be the case here but still.

That's why anyone who relies on proper time sync should never use pool.ntp.org servers. They even spell it out on their website but nobody seems to read it.

@Dashrender said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:

@Pete-S said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:

Stop running glorified desktops as servers. Buy real rack servers and put them in a rack. No sane person wants to use that as a workstation. Problem solved.

I don't consider this reasonable in most SMB setups. A desktop style server system is generally fine. Desktop servers are still huge compared to normal desktops (especially now with CD-RomLess systems, they are tiny.

I don't know. Many here seems to think every SMB is 5 employees but that's really a SOHO. SMB is up to 500 employees.

Anyway, I haven't installed a tower server in a very, very long time. If someone only needs a simple server, we use low power short depth 1U rack servers. If you don't want to waste space, you can use a half rack or smaller and also put switches in it. And you can roll it around if you want to. Sticking to the 19" rack format just makes life easier I think. Also more flexible if you want to move a server or two to colo down the line.

Maybe not Dell but Supermicro and others have really small power efficient 1U rack servers that's like 12 inches deep. CPUs like Intel C3000, D1572 etc. They easily fit in wall racks.

@DustinB3403 said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:

@scottalanmiller said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:

@DustinB3403 said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:

It's super simple to take a closet for example and put a vent near the top of the wall to let heat escape.

Not if you don't have that closet, the vent would let in hotter air, or you don't have outside access from a closet.

Of course, if you physically don't have any space, then using this example doesn't make sense. The question really is "at what point should a business start looking at different form factors (from the desktop style)?"

It ridiculous to even think there is no space for a rack. Unless someone runs a company out of their bedroom. A rack takes what, 5 square feet?

Most IT people I know get their hardware for nothing where they work. So they have stuff like R710's at home.
So setting up a home lab isn't a cost thing, more a question of having the space.

We're looking at some low volume label printers, such as Zebra GK240t, Honeywell PC42t - in the $300 to $500 range. These are the same class of printers used in POS. We intend to run them with ribbons though in thermal transfer mode and print labels.

Does anyone have any experience with these printers? Any preference to what to pick? Other brands to consider?

@magicmarker said in Obtaining hardware from terminated remote employee:

When a remote employee is terminated how do you handle the collection of the hardware (laptop, docking station, printer, etc..)? In the new company I work for, almost 60% of the workforce is working from home throughout the US. Our HR department is out-sourced, but we have 1 main in-house employee that does HR tasks to help bridge the gap between the out-sourced HR service and internal employees. Employees are typically terminated over the phone by their managers. The IT department is then tasked with the collection of the hardware. This includes contacting the terminated employee over a personal email, or personal cell phone number. We are also tasked with working with the shipping manager to prepare a pre-paid shipping label and box to ship the equipment to the employee’s residence to send back the hardware.

It’s been a major challenge getting hardware back from the terminated employees. For obvious reasons, the fired employees are hard to get ahold of, and are difficult to work with. We are sending 1,2, 3 emails and/or calling the employee multiple times.

When the IT department proposed the holding the paycheck to VP’s until the hardware is returned, we were told it’s illegal. In all my previous companies I’ve never had to worry about this. This was always handled by HR or the fired managers employee. Is this normal? How can I get this task off our plate and worry about more important IT related tasks?

It's really easy. You should just follow the company's written procedure how to handle the equipment of terminated employees.

If the procedure isn't working, management needs to change it or just accept that they wont get the equipment back.

Because why should the fired employee even bother with packing and shipping back the company's used equipment? They don't work there anymore. You need either a stick or a carrot to convince them and right now it's neither.

@Dashrender said in Compare Azure to Windows On Prem for Normal Business Workloads:

@Pete-S said in Compare Azure to Windows On Prem for Normal Business Workloads:

@scottalanmiller said in Compare Azure to Windows On Prem for Normal Business Workloads:

@Dashrender said in Compare Azure to Windows On Prem for Normal Business Workloads:

Hosting Costs
1U Colocation America, /24 IP Range
Monthly cost: ~$250/month
Yearly cost: 12 x 250 = $3000
5 year cost: 5 x $3000 = $15K

Last I looked, 1U was more like $225 with that many IPs. And I think typically you'd get fewer for a lot less cost and/or go IPv6. /24 is two IPs per VM. No need to pay for that.

Yes, the basic 1U was $100 with two power outlets and then you get four usable IPv4s.

A smaller server, say 16c EPYC, 128GB RAM, 2x500GB SSD, would be about $3500 and something even smaller, like a 8c Xeon @ 3.7Ghz, 64GB RAM, 2x500GB SSD around $2K.

So you could scale down everything substantially if you wanted. But if all you are doing is running a few very small workloads then a couple of $5 Vultr VM would be cheaper.

another factor is - are you running windows VMs, likely always cheaper to have your own hardware, but yeah, the amount of workloads definitely plays a factor here.

Good point. Windows in general also requires a lot more storage than linux.

Does Skype support WebRTC clients in some way?

It seems like they require a msi package (Skype Meeting App plug-in) to be installed for the web browser. Are we still living in the 90's?

@PhlipElder said in Intel SR2600urlxr Raid:

But yes, SAS 3Gbps had a 2TB limitation as did SATA 3Gbps AFAIK.

I don't think so. We have some servers with newer 4TB drives connected to SATA2 ports.

Not as boot drives though, which used to be where 2TB limit became the problem. (Limit is related to MBR)

A lot of people in IT works in virtual teams even if most have an actual physical place of work. But some work almost 100% remote.

Now with the virus many people, not just IT people, are going to be working remotely. And not just one day here or there, but for extended periods of time.

Do you guys have any ideas to share on how to make a team work and be productive in an all virtual environment?

@Grey said in Large File Sharing:

@Kyle said in Large File Sharing:

@hobbit666 Large files, 200-900 Gb design files.

If they're truly that large, and your workforce is remotely accessing them, you might consider going to a full VDI solution, especially VMWare Horizon with Tesla cards for graphic and processing enhancements.

I agree with this. You don't want to move those files at all if possible. They need to be on a 10 gigabit connection to the machines working on the files.

Alright, it worked pretty well.

Had some minor tearing issues with video. It disappeared when I changed setting in nvidia panel from Nvidia Performance to Nvidia On Demand. I'm not sure what this does. The laptop has GTX 1050 4GB RAM.

My goto video for checking tearing is Taylor Swift's - Look What You Made Me Do. Lots of fast screen changes.

Also had some problems with display rotation. Ubuntu thought that the laptop was standing sideways but it wasn't. So the display was rotated 90 degrees. Very irritating. Solved by sudo apt-get remove iio-sensor-proxy

I feel there is more value moving from on-prem servers to SaaS than to IaaS. It's simply higher up the value chain.

Typical companies have infrastructure because they have to, not because it's their mission in life. It's the digital tools and advantages they are after.

So unless you are a provider yourself, why even bother with infrastructure if you don't have to? Let someone else have that problem.

Is there a common subdomain used for access to web meetings / conferences?

I'm looking at setting up Jitsi on our servers but was wondering about the FQDN to use.

@Obsolesce said in Path from on-prem Windows servers to hosted/cloud (Azure)?:

I wouldn't simply pick up your VMs and host them somewhere more expensive... Which is really anywhere else.

Unless the OP's company have a real datacenter in house, it can actually make sense to move equipment just for that reason. Most SMBs don't have power redundancy, redundant cooling, redundant internet connections, fire suppression and what not.

@scottalanmiller said in Path from on-prem Windows servers to hosted/cloud (Azure)?:

@Pete-S said in Path from on-prem Windows servers to hosted/cloud (Azure)?:

@Obsolesce said in Path from on-prem Windows servers to hosted/cloud (Azure)?:

I wouldn't simply pick up your VMs and host them somewhere more expensive... Which is really anywhere else.

Unless the OP's company have a real datacenter in house, it can actually make sense to move equipment just for that reason. Most SMBs don't have power redundancy, redundant cooling, redundant internet connections, fire suppression and what not.

And sometimes datacenters actually lower your overall cost because of better Internet and power deals.

Very true.

Going from having your servers on-prem to having them in a colocation datacenter is exactly like going from physical servers to VMs. More consolidation, higher utilization and the economies of scale.

@JaredBusch said in WP-CLI and database users:

@Pete-S said in WP-CLI and database users:

@JaredBusch said in WP-CLI and database users:

ok a better example of my issue with WP-CLI and the database....

in my new guide to standing up WP I have this step.

I think this is a horrible solution. In order to let wp-cli create the dataabse, the WP DB user have to have the ability to actually CREATE a database.

So unlike more normal guides where I tell you to create a DB user with GRANT ALL only on the database it needs (dbname.*), I had to create it with GRANT ALL on everything (*.*).

I guess, I could refrain from setting the root password stuff until the very end and first revoke these permission and then re-add with only GRANT ALL on the specific database.

But that just seems stupidly clunky.

I think you are mistaken. Just grant the privileges to the database you are about to create

 sudo mysql -e "GRANT ALL ON '$DB_NAME'.* TO '$DB_USER'@'localhost';"

then you can do the wp-cli stuff like wp config create, wp db create etc.

My results on a google search were unclear. So I went assuming no as that is illogical to me.

But wouldn't be the first time something illogical to me was fact.

Well, it's very logical to me. And I just confirmed on MariaDB 10.1.44 that it works the way I thought it did.

Privileges are dependent on object names and not a particular object. Therefor the rights to something on a database, table or whatever can be created before that something exists.

Or in this case, give the right to a user to create a database before that database exists.