Hi,
Perhaps I'm missing something, or have not read the entire thread properly, but why would a NAS not work over here ? Unless, the server would be performing some other function, apart from acting as a File Server ... Most NAS boxes too use Linux-based operating systems...
Never reviewed or used it, for myself.. .. But, I do remember some posts/reviews about it on, a while back, Spiceworks ..
@scottalanmiller said in Favorite Linux Distro:
@Veet said in Favorite Linux Distro:
@stacksofplates said in Favorite Linux Distro:
Have you used Fedora 24 workstation ? I just installed it on a VM (4 GB RAM, 50GB HDD, 2 Cores), and I wasn't too impressed ... Just seemed a tad laggy ... I know, it shouldn't be ... I installed it from the Live Image .. dunno, what I did wrong .. shall I try one from Fedora Spins, perhaps ?
If you feel lag, that's because it's a VM without GPU passthrough. That's what that is 100% of the time. And it's the desktop choice, not the distro, that causes that.
I've installed this on my laptop, as VM, running on VMware Workstation. So, I don't think GPU passthrough option is available (??)
Anyway, it's a lot lot better, after I bumped-up the RAM from 4GB to 6GB, and installed VMware Tools...
@stacksofplates said in Favorite Linux Distro:
Have you used Fedora 24 workstation ? I just installed it on a VM (4 GB RAM, 50GB HDD, 2 Cores), and I wasn't too impressed ... Just seemed a tad laggy ... I know, it shouldn't be ... I installed it from the Live Image .. dunno, what I did wrong .. shall I try one from Fedora Spins, perhaps ?
Anyway, my fav distro has to be Debian ... It's the distro (Lenny and then squeeze), I've actually used the longest, as a desktop .. It just works for me ..
On the server side, I prefer CentOS... Zentyal too ... technically Zentyal is also a Linux server distro ,since it runs atop Ubuntu
@IRJ said in Help with Helpy:
I've used osTicket before and it works fine, but the interface on Helpy looks nice. I wont be handling hundreds of tickets a week. Maybe 10-15 a month so I am more worried about looks then something that is powerful. So helpy seems like a good solution
You can easily skin the user-facing portion of osTicket .. If you don't mind putting in the effort, you could even make it look somewhat like Helpy ...
@JaredBusch said in Help with Helpy:
@Veet said in Help with Helpy:
Heard of it last year, and Demo'ed it a couple of months back .. Nice GUI ...
btw, it's developed by a guy named "Scott Miller" ...
How is the reporting side? there is nothing listed except "google analytics" blasted on every page.
As I said ... "The UI is nice" ... and that's that.
oooh ... you're entering a market that's already saturated with an entire smorgasbord of vendor types.. penetrating this market would be a challenge...
What is the key differentiator, that you have ?
Heard of it last year, and Demo'ed it a couple of months back .. Nice GUI ...
btw, it's developed by a guy named "Scott Miller" ...
+1 for FreePBX .. it's popular, and has a strong community ..
If you're looking for options, other than FreePBX, have you looked @ XiVO ? It's been around for quite sometime now ..
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@Veet my ears are bleeding now
oops, I didn't mean to sound like I'm griping incessantly .. sorry ... no more vendor bashing..
@scottalanmiller said in HelpDesk Ticketing System:
@Jstear said in HelpDesk Ticketing System:
A big concern of changing solutions is the existing tickets. How hard is it to migrate from one solution to another is a question that needs to be asked. I would like to move from Spiceworks to osTicket, but not seeing anything that anyone has done to migrate the tickets. Looks like a script will need to be made to import those old tickets into the new system.
Probably not too horrible.
We've been using osTicket, for a around ..umm.. 2.5 years now .. It's pretty customizable, just out of the box, with deeper customizations possible with coding .. Infact, OsTicket itself offers Customization as an additional service ..
@JaredBusch said in HelpDesk Ticketing System:
@Breffni-Potter said in HelpDesk Ticketing System:
@FrostyPhoenix said in HelpDesk Ticketing System:
Why not build a ticketing system?
Development costs a fair bit of money.
Someone has to then maintain and support it.
Further dev if you want to add features which also costs money.
Is the cost of a premade tool over the course of a year more or less than building and hosting your own?Now, a ticketing system is the hub of your business as an IT support firm, so whilst you could build it factoring in budget, features and project managing it to make sure it is secure, reliable, fast for years to come. Is it really worth it?
I've had the exact same conversation in house but with a documentation/client management system which we've chosen to build in house but not after exhausting every other option. It's a very very expensive project but nobody else has built a tool that we really need.
Remember that in terms of cost
This is the per hour cost for 160 hours of working time across a month to have a pre-built product which works amazingly well. So the math has to be done to build a new one from scratch.
Yeah, development is certainly not cheap.
Instead of developing one, right from scratch, would it be a bad idea to develop one, based on an existing Open Source solution ?
@scottalanmiller said in Converting to a virtual environment:
@Veet said in Converting to a virtual environment:
This is precisely what we were discussing in the "Starting own IT consultancy .." thread ...
This kind of crap happens all the time ..
I recollect an instance, when a vendor went as far as to insist that the compute-name of the Server be a specific one (I think it was the name of their product), or ELSE, the application would not work properly .... Luckily, this was one of the rare occasions when the client backed us, instead of the vendor... I put my sparring gloves on, and TKO'ed the vendor.
Wow, just... wow. I wonder if anyone thought to ask if it was the hostname or a DNS entry or the NetBIOS name
I'll explain ...
The client side of the application, obviously needed to be pointed to the server via the hostname of the server ...Once it so happened that we installed a new desktop, and could could not connect to the product's tech support, to have them install the client app... So, we went ahead and installed it .. Upon starting-up the app, we were confronted with a "Server not found error" ... Upon digging around a bit, we discovered that the installation folder contained an ".ini" file, with the hostname of the server, and database path, predefined ... Stupid app design ... stupider tech support ...
This is precisely what we were discussing in the "Starting own IT consultancy .." thread ...
This kind of crap happens all the time ..
I recollect an instance, when a vendor went as far as to insist that the compute-name of the Server be a specific one (I think it was the name of their product), or ELSE, the application would not work properly .... Luckily, this was one of the rare occasions when the client backed us, instead of the vendor... I put my sparring gloves on, and TKO'ed the vendor.
These vendors know, that over a period of time, the client becomes totally dependent on their product, that they (vendors) can dish out any bullshit, and be rest assured that the client would HAVE to lap it up .. To an extent, the client himself is to be blamed for this..
Yes, 100% control of 100% clients (If the client approves of it, and most do) ... We do this for remote support for most of our clients, where we have setup their IT infra... The VPN technology used is same for most, but yes, some are different .. But, no host ed VPN, for sure ..
We are comparatively a smaller company, with a comparatively smaller client-base .... For, most parts, one person from our end, is connected to just one client.. However, I think multiple simultaneous VPN connections have been made... I recollect, a colleague doing something with routing table to accomplish this ...
@scottalanmiller said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
@Veet said in Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations:
Okay, I kind of agree to the part about the security risk ... But, steps can be taken, at both ends, to reduce this type of exposure... All our clients, have most of the recommended/necessary layers of security, and the same holds true, at our end ...Agreed, none of that is %100 fool-proof .. But, then, by that same definition your or your client's network could get infected/attacked, even without VPN ...
Absolutely, but that risk is multiplied, and fast, when you use a VPN. It's a totally unnecessary exposure. I can't believe that any customer, anywhere even allows it, yet many demand it.
The only real step that you can take is having dedicated machines (or VMs) per customer. As someone who has worked in finance, I can tell you, any vendor that tries to use a VPN is an ex-vendor. In the SMB space it is common. I have no idea why, but it is. In the enterprise, it's frowned on very strongly.
Not common in just SMB space, I've seen it with Large Enterprises too ..
Would say that the same risk applies, when an employee working from a remote location, connects via VPN ?
We use VPN extensively, to provide remote support to our clients... We have an 8mbps Internet connection, but a lot of our clients have connections as low as 2 mbps; but we've never found VPN to be slow, cumbersome, or ineffective ..
Okay, I kind of agree to the part about the security risk ... But, steps can be taken, at both ends, to reduce this type of exposure... All our clients, have most of the recommended/necessary layers of security, and the same holds true, at our end ...Agreed, none of that is %100 fool-proof .. But, then, by that same definition your or your client's network could get infected/attacked, even without VPN ...
