Weekly check-list for domain admin

Prophet

Prophet

Prophet

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I've been asked by a client to compile a weekly check-list for a domain admin who's not very good. I've got a basic list sorted but would appreciate any suggestion on what you would include.

Usually I wouldn't like doing this for a fellow IT guy but the dude is a moron who can't do basic tasks then tries to pass the buck my way. So he's fair game in my eyes :
 
Water available when tap used.... Check
Light on Kettle does stuff when button used... Check
Clean mugs or cups available in cupboard... Check
Teabags in caddy... Check
Milk doesn't smell like old socks.. Check
Light in fridge works when door opened.. Check

:)
 
skyripper said:
Water available when tap used.... Check
Light on Kettle does stuff when button used... Check
Clean mugs or cups available in cupboard... Check
Teabags in caddy... Check
Milk doesn't smell like old socks.. Check
Light in fridge works when door opened.. Check

:)
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Haha they're the things he excels at! Well apart from the clean mugs!!!
 
Daily incremental backups worked.. Check
Weekly Full backups offloaded and stored safely elsewhere.. Check
Databases online and accessible.. Check
Essential web applications available.. Check
Disk space on servers within tolerance levels.. Check
email accessible and able to route to / from the internet.. Check
email store size within tolerance levels.. Check
Anti-virus definitions updated.. Check
UPS not showing battery error.. Check
Internet connection up and sync'd at reasonable speed.. Check
No critical errors in the Event Logs.. Check

?
 
Most of these should really be done daily.

Server Disk Space

Failed updates in WSUS

Backups not failing

AV updates deploying properly

Raid warnings

There should also be a fair amount of physical checking of IT suites. How often this is needed will depend a lot on the school and the attitude of it's staff and students.
 
skyripper said:
Daily incremental backups worked.. Check
Weekly Full backups offloaded and stored safely elsewhere.. Check
Databases online and accessible.. Check
Essential web applications available.. Check
Disk space on servers within tolerance levels.. Check
email accessible and able to route to / from the internet.. Check
email store size within tolerance levels.. Check
Anti-virus definitions updated.. Check
UPS not showing battery error.. Check
Internet connection up and sync'd at reasonable speed.. Check
No critical errors in the Event Logs.. Check

?
Click to expand...

Great list :) A few there I'd not thought of!

Cheers.
 
The key thing in our organisation with checklists is they're ranked in order of "Whats the impact if this isn't right".

No point worrying about laser toner levels if at 9:00am you haven't noticed the mail servers are out of disk space and about to barf horribly.
 
skyripper said:
The key thing in our organisation with checklists is they're ranked in order of "Whats the impact if this isn't right".

No point worrying about laser toner levels if at 9:00am you haven't noticed the mail servers are out of disk space and about to barf horribly.
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He has an apprentice who does all the floor walking/toner replacements etc. Poor guy is really eager to learn but has an idiot for a mentor. When I visited yesterday I showed him how to configure DHCP to failover (Server 2012) because it was something I was setting up and thought it may be interesting. The IT 'manager' won't show him anything because he knows the student will pass the master very quickly.
 
Apprentices should have a development plan or a training schedule. If this manager isn't doing these things, the apprentice should suck up as much experience as they can, and then get the hell outta there to a better place for their career. Or raise a grievance over this dudes head. All depends on the organisation.

As for the manager, if I was the client I would be asking the Manager to produce a checklist - its part of his responsibility. Are they going to compare yours and his?
 
skyripper said:
Apprentices should have a development plan or a training schedule. If this manager isn't doing these things, the apprentice should suck up as much experience as they can, and then get the hell outta there to a better place for their career. Or raise a grievance over this dudes head. All depends on the organisation.

As for the manager, if I was the client I would be asking the Manager to produce a checklist - its part of his responsibility. Are they going to compare yours and his?
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Part of my recommendation is for him to prepare a development plan for the apprentice. The manager is no more than a low level techy who's fallen on his feet. Before I installed thee VMWare platform and managed switches his duties were to look after user accounts and toner cartridges. Now you could say it's unfair to try and highlight his failings when he's been dumped into an environment outside his experience level, however the guy has been given every opportunity to develop his skills but would rather surf the net and pass the buck..
 
We send an email to echo @ eu.uu.net it gives a bounce back email to confirm incoming and outgoing mail.

We also test application functionality and we monitor with prtg so check that for alerts. Which means opening and closing documents from the dms, testing the dictation server is functional and so on.

We also have a daily and weekly checks with the weekly being more extensive.

The 1st 2nd line guys do the daily checks and I tend to do constant monitoring with prtg and try to stay on top of everything constantly rather than doing daily checks.
 
Last edited:
anything I don't mind said:
We send an email to echo @ eu.uu.net it gives a bounce back email to confirm incoming and outgoing mail.

We also test application functionality and we monitor with prtg so check that for alerts. Which means opening and closing documents from the dms, testing the dictation server is functional and so on.

We also have a daily and weekly checks with the weekly being more extensive.

The 1st 2nd line guys do the daily checks and I tend to do constant monitoring with prtg and try to stay on top of everything constantly rather than doing daily checks.
Click to expand...

Manual check lists are very nice, but why bother when PRTG (or NAGIOS or whatever) will monitor stuff 24/7 for you?
 
The checklist should be:

1. Check monitoring dashboard. If dashboard is not available then fix it.

There's no value in checking for spare disk space each day like some sort of caveman. Just make damn sure you know how to check if your monitoring is working.

Also your printers should automatically inform the company that you subcontract them out to about supplies, because lol at having printers on your list of responsibilities.
 
Prophet said:
Educational. 16 virtual/1 physical server(s), around 300 PC's and a few managed switches.
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Guessing it 1 Hyper V host with the 16 servers on ? if so I would get the school to add physical DC and a extra host.

You need to do daily , weekly and monthly checks for him. Also ask the school what they want him to do during the day.

You want daily checks of each IT Rooms
AV / Windows update checks.
Check back up can restore each day
check cluster / disk space
 
PurplePhoenix said:
Guessing it 1 Hyper V host with the 16 servers on ? if so I would get the school to add physical DC and a extra host.

You need to do daily , weekly and monthly checks for him. Also ask the school what they want him to do during the day.

You want daily checks of each IT Rooms
AV / Windows update checks.
Check back up can restore each day
check cluster / disk space
Click to expand...

4 ESXi hosts and a 20TB SAN running 5.5. The physical is the backup DC. I'm so used to talking about them in that way I didn't think to mention the hosts as he wouldn't know where to start with them and we currently maintain them due this.

Thanks for the additional checks. I think I've got most things covered now :)
 
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