Hi folks,

Does anybody know of any reputable companies or resellers of Dell kit in Singapore? I guess Dell have a local presence but can anybody give some advise?

Best,
Jim

Sitting in the open plan office waiting for my last day here pretty much doing nothing but hoping time goes quicker.

Penultimate day, new job Monday. Bored.

I am not sure on Office 365/Windows 10 Enterprise, but that link you included is interesting.

I think I remember something along the lines of if you have many machines with Windows 10 Professional OEM that you can re-image them with Windows 10 Enterprise if you have 1 Windows 10 Enterprise License with SA within Volume Licensing (not sure on the details though).

Pretty sure others on the forum will be able to help with that...

@scottalanmiller said in Defining High Availability:

@Jimmy9008 said in Defining High Availability:

@scottalanmiller said in Defining High Availability:

@Dashrender said in Defining High Availability:

@scottalanmiller said in Defining High Availability:

@Dashrender said in Defining High Availability:

.9999939117 or in percent 99.99939117 % uptime

AKA: Five Nines

Or more accurately, 5 Nines+

That extra "39" after your five nines is a significant improvement over five nines, but not close to six nines. I'd call it "really good" availability

And significant means the difference between 315.36 seconds of downtime vs your 192 seconds (5 mins 15.36 second vs 3 min 12 seconds).

Yeah. Its nearly half!

Hopefully it will remain as 48 seconds for the rest of the year. So, if that were to happen we would be: %99.99984779, correct?

Sounds about right. Six nines is just 2.6 seconds!

Yeah, not long. That is unplanned downtime only though. We have plenty of planned downtime for running updates and other projects. But still, good.

I'm off to a new job on 1st of April so won't know the end of year figure. I'd hope it is around 48 seconds though.

@scottalanmiller said in Defining High Availability:

@Dashrender said in Defining High Availability:

@scottalanmiller said in Defining High Availability:

@Dashrender said in Defining High Availability:

.9999939117 or in percent 99.99939117 % uptime

AKA: Five Nines

Or more accurately, 5 Nines+

That extra "39" after your five nines is a significant improvement over five nines, but not close to six nines. I'd call it "really good" availability

And significant means the difference between 315.36 seconds of downtime vs your 192 seconds (5 mins 15.36 second vs 3 min 12 seconds).

Yeah. Its nearly half!

Hopefully it will remain as 48 seconds for the rest of the year. So, if that were to happen we would be: %99.99984779, correct?

I find this all very interesting. Anywhere to read more in depth on industry standards surrounding this?

My team base availability on HTTP/S error codes. If a code comes back, say 404, then we consider that unavailable. If the page loads, but the site does not function because our development team messed a release up, as long as it is not an error such as 404, we consider we are available.

Our development team probably calculate their up-time differently, but its all very interesting to me.

We are at 48 seconds of unavailability so far in 2019. Providing that stays the same for the rest of the year per quarter (48 seconds per quarter), how many 9's does that project for us? (Not really sure how to calculate that)...

So, how many 9's up-time would 192 seconds of downtime for a whole year be?

@Dashrender said in Networking/ISP:

@Jimmy9008 said in Networking/ISP:

@scottalanmiller said in Networking/ISP:

@Jimmy9008 said in Networking/ISP:

Can one fibere cable route our Internet traffic to them, whilst also passing 'private' traffic over this line too?

That's the norm. And not just for ISPs, VPNs do this, too.

The gateway out is public IP to the Internet. VPN tunnels between two public IPs, etc... all Internet.

What they seem to be saying is that the 89.x.x.x public 'Internet Stuff' can go through that cable, and my 192.168.3.x 'LAN' stuff can also go through that cable, and at the same time I can have Internet served to my Firewall, and 'LAN' to my device... can it work that way?

So their switch interface 2 is routing 89.x.x.x traffic, and interface 3 is is extending my LAN on 192.x.x.x (public IPs going on and private)... all through the fibre cable to their DC?

More or less - yes.
They can trunk the single line to act like many lines - think VLANs

Ok. I think that makes more sense to me.

So, the ISP switch eth1 is vLAN1, which passes 89.x.x.x to my firewall for my organisations Internet access. eth1 routes out over their eth0 fibre link. Then, vLAN2 is eth2 on their switch, which extends my 192.x.x.x private range to them, again over the eth0.

Ok, I think in that warped way I get it.

So, I can say to them:

"I'm going to plug my device 10.10.10.2 in to your switch at my office on eth3.
Connect my box at your DC. Its set to be 10.10.10.3. Now, make them talk over my fibre line..."

@scottalanmiller said in Networking/ISP:

@Jimmy9008 said in Networking/ISP:

Can one fibere cable route our Internet traffic to them, whilst also passing 'private' traffic over this line too?

That's the norm. And not just for ISPs, VPNs do this, too.

The gateway out is public IP to the Internet. VPN tunnels between two public IPs, etc... all Internet.

What they seem to be saying is that the 89.x.x.x public 'Internet Stuff' can go through that cable, and my 192.168.3.x 'LAN' stuff can also go through that cable, and at the same time I can have Internet served to my Firewall, and 'LAN' to my device... can it work that way?

So their switch interface 2 is routing 89.x.x.x traffic, and interface 3 is is extending my LAN on 192.x.x.x (public IPs going on and private)... all through the fibre cable to their DC?

Hi folks,

As I say, networking isnt my focus but trying to get my head around it. Hopefully this diagram will help... (sorry for how crap it looks!)...

So, top = ISPs 'end'. Red dash lines next to the black lines, thats one fibre cable.

So, is it possible to connect eth3 on the ISP switch on my site in to my switch (the lower red line), and for the ISP to connect that to their end, (I guess a switch), whilst also connecting my internet line through my firewall traffic?

Essentially the top device x.x.3.5 can communicate with x.x.x.3.2 like its on my LAN? At the same time as Internet traffic going through the fibre cable?

Really confused and just imagine im going drastically wrong here...


Its an off site backup NAS. I'll draw a diagram after cooking dinner. Hopefully that will help explain it to me...

We have a few ISPs, we just happen to have a device that we want to host with them off site.

Can one fibere cable route our Internet traffic to them, whilst also passing 'private' traffic over this line too?

I guess the switch/cable they have just passes 'data', and their routers at their end will be configured based on the IPs I give to pass 89.x out, and 10.x to my site their end?

Hi folks,

Quite confused here, could you help me understand how this works...

My ISP provide a fibre line to my office for our Internet. This comes in to my office in to their device sitting in my cabinet (the POP?) by fibre cable. A cable (cat6) comes from their device in to a switch (which is also their device). I then connect my firewall to interface 2 on their switch.

I connect my WAN on my firewall (89.x.x.x) in to interface 2 on their switch. Traffic then goes from my LAN on the firewall out to the Internet over the existing setup.

We are looking to put a device in their datacenter and they have said we can use datacenter connect. Which is 'like a private network' from my office to the devices I will put on their site over our existing line. I just don't understand how it works...

They have said I can use private addresses for this and want the IPs from me, but I still only have the one fibre connection coming in to their kit and just cant grasp what is going on...

I am guessing they are saying I can connect a device to Interface 3 on their switch (not through my firewall) with an IP like 10.10.10.3, and their datacenter could have another device using 10.10.10.4 at the DC end, and over the fibre they can talk 'private'/point to point over my fibre line...

In this case, will the one fibre link pass traffic from me to them on this private setup, whist also passing traffic for my public internet access? (Over the one cable)?

Probably a totally idiot question, but any help to help me understand this?

Ta,
J

@dbeato said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@Jimmy9008 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Just finishing off agreeing and signing a new job! Exciting news

Congratulations!

Thank you, found out I was successful an hour or so ago. Nice bump in pay, better benefits. Very happy. Just need to get the contracts all signed then hand in my notice to current employer.

Just finishing off agreeing and signing a new job! Exciting news

@NashBrydges said in Backing up Office 365:

@Dashrender @Jimmy9008 My largest client to use this for their Office 365 backup has 42 mailboxes and it works very well for them. I can't confirm with anything larger than that though.

In theory then it should work well for me. Will test and see. Thanks

@Dashrender said in Backing up Office 365:

@Jimmy9008 said in Backing up Office 365:

@NashBrydges said in Backing up Office 365:

@Reid-Cooper said in Backing up Office 365:

@NashBrydges said in Backing up Office 365:

If you happen to have a Synology onsite, they also offer Active Backup For Office 365. I'm using this at a small client's site with ~40 mailboxes. Works pretty well.

Is that included or you need to purchase it additionally?

It's included. No additional licensing required. It happens to be running right now for another client who we just setup a NAS for onsite backups so here's a screenshot (removed the list of users for privacy). This is the initial backup that's running. 14 users done, 6 more to go. The daily backups once the initial is done are much faster.

Does this work well for larger numbers of mailboxes? Say. 40 rather than 10?

How about more like 100?

I am trying this on just my account. Will see how that runs before trying with 40. Hopefully it works well. 15 minutes in still 'processing'.

@NashBrydges said in Backing up Office 365:

@Reid-Cooper said in Backing up Office 365:

@NashBrydges said in Backing up Office 365:

If you happen to have a Synology onsite, they also offer Active Backup For Office 365. I'm using this at a small client's site with ~40 mailboxes. Works pretty well.

Is that included or you need to purchase it additionally?

It's included. No additional licensing required. It happens to be running right now for another client who we just setup a NAS for onsite backups so here's a screenshot (removed the list of users for privacy). This is the initial backup that's running. 14 users done, 6 more to go. The daily backups once the initial is done are much faster.

Does this work well for larger numbers of mailboxes? Say. 40 rather than 10?

@Dashrender said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

@dyasny said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

@JaredBusch said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

That is totally creating fake jobs. Jobs that exist for no reason. Why should a company pay to lease cars it doesn't need? It could simply pay out mileage or some other small compensation that costs a ton less than leasing vehicles.

The company would make more profit, hopefully invest that back into growing the company more and creating a good cycle of growth.

No, the company would simply pay more taxes and instead of letting employees have better conditions, only the government benefits.

@JaredBusch missed the whole point of why cars were added - it was for salary position, i.e. the company having to pay less payroll taxes while 'paying' the employees more through the benefit of the lease being one of their benefits.

As mentioned above by me - some employees might want and be OK with this, while others would likely want the cash.

Here's another way to look at this.

In the US, larger companies provide healthcare coverage for their employees, this coverage is part of the employee salary package. There are tax benefits for the companies paying this.

But let's say an employee had their own health coverage - so they didn't want/need the company's supplied one - will the company give them the cash they would otherwise pay the insurance company? Some companies will, some won't.

I have a car. I'd want the cash thanks...

@scottalanmiller said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

@Jimmy9008 said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

@scottalanmiller said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

@Dashrender said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

@Jimmy9008 said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

@scottalanmiller said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

@Jimmy9008 said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

@dyasny said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

@scottalanmiller said in Finally leaving my job, and it's just as annoying as I thought it would be:

Why would you get a car working in IT? When do you need to drive anywhere? I don't even need a car to drive to work, let alone anywhere else.

In Israel, it was a standard benefit for all IT related employees. The idea was that anything in IT is considered a creative job, so if you suddenly have a great idea in the middle of the night, you just drive to the office and get to work on it (no remote jobs back in the 90s). The perk stuck around until it got taxed out of existence in 2007-2010-ish.

I've worked a few MSP jobs in the UK and they usually say you have to use your own car. They do pay for petrol though, so if you have a good efficient car you can make some cash on it.

Why would a car come up? Is it because they were doing bench work? In the US, often you get a company car if you are a bench tech.

No. You had to do regular site visits to see the clients and look at what they wanted you to look at, or do regular face to face 'im doing stuff' type work. All things that could be done remote, but just their business model.

There are many companies that work this way - and those same companies have an incredible amount of waste. There is likely very little actual value in those visits other than glad-handing. Now, if you're charging those clients full rate for all the drive time and glad-handing, more power to ya.

Low cost account managers do this, high cost IT pros would need to be doing IT work. If IT is acting as account managers you likely have major problems. One in that you can't hire effectively, two in that you have to pay really high rates for no work being done, three that you have a skill mismatch as IT people are rarely good account people or vice versa.

This was not account manager work. Don't know why that was their business was model, but it was. For example, you could be sent to a client's office to reconfigure a server, or bring down exchange for maintenance, or to test backups... All things that could be done remote.

Account managers actually worked remotely and never visited the clients. They would have a call about what needs doing g over the next year, their goals etc then the IT projects would be assigned and we would go and visit.

Not my decision. Just was what they wanted.

If "face time matters" that makes it account management, no matter what other tasks are being done there. It's the account management aspects of the MSP that were putting people on site. Don't confuse titles for roles.

I'll have to disagree with you on that. Just because the work is being done on site, rather than in a remote office, that's IT work. It doesn't matter where it's done. The business decision is to do the IT work on site, it doesn't make it not IT.