Who works in Enterprise IT

[memyselfandi]

Senior Systems Admin for an outsourcing company. Work on HPUX kit at the moment, (up to and including Superdomes), and the odd bits of Linux and Solaris. Previously I have done a lot on IBM kit with AIX and Tivoli Storage Manager.

Been doing it for ~10-11 years ...

 

[EvilGrin]

Ah new forum

I'm the senior engineer for a oil and gas services company. Directly support 3 UK offices and about 10 Euro and Asian\Australian offices indirectly. Also got about 4 ships in the North Sea.

Plenty of scope in my work, day to day I work with: W2k3 Server, Exchange 2003, SQL 2000\2005, etc. Little bit of VMware, loads of Citrix, Linux HTPC clusters and just about to get a SAN implementation off the ground (Compellent, anyone used these before?) so that should be interesting.

Nice one, which company you with? Always good to see some Aberdeen IT boffins about, never know when the contacts may come in useful.

 

[oddjob62]

I've heard really good things about DPM, mind you it was from a complete Microsoft fanboy, so I've taken it with a pinch of salt. Think it's worth bothering with over Backup Exec?

The backup to disk side of things is very good (although it's the only one i've tried) and I have no issues with that at all (except that as expected you need a LOT of disk space)
The backup to tape was brought in with 2007 and is very... basic. It isn't nearly configurable enough for most people's needs, and has quite a few "quirks".
Main reason why we have gone with it is cost. It's SO much cheaper than any alternative due to the massive reduction we get from MS.

 

[bigredshark]

Infrastructure architect for an ISP myself, lots of variety. Loads of networking with Cisco, Juniper and Foundry, MPLS core and all the usual stuff. Server stuff is HP and Sun, SANs from Netapp, Onstor, Intransa and HP and various other bits and pieces.

I've collected on my way, MCSE (Messageing), CCNP, CCDP, CCIP, JNCIP (M Series) JNCIS (Firewalls), RHCE and a few other bits and pieces.

 

[Vtec9k]

Nice one, which company you with? Always good to see some Aberdeen IT boffins about, never know when the contacts may come in useful.

Will give you a shout on msn, would rather not put too many details on the web

 

[EvilGrin]

Will give you a shout on msn, would rather not put too many details on the web

Sure thing mate, have added you.

 

[Anewbe4u]

You hate HP because you don't know how to restore from backup?

They don't know how!

 

[paradigm]

I've been in Corporate IT for a fair while now, pretty diverse skillset at the moment, not really focussed on one area yet.

Cisco and Microsoft are my forte though.

Oh, I don't mind the HP tape libraries, although I have only had dealings with the MSL500.

 

[Felix]

Rolling out a new vpn over the next few weeks then moving the mail system from MDaemon (why does anyone use this ****?) to exchange 2007. Fun times ahead

I would be interested how you get on with the migration. Mdaemon has improved a lot over the years but it is still lacking a lot of the functionality of exchange.

 

[Felix]

not an enterprise by far but i control the network for a school and the server rooms like a home away from home for me, HP DL320s mainly, one ML350, a few DL360s, and ultrium 1840 for backups, iSCSI eonstor for storage, majority of switches are HP2650s, 1800s and a 4108 with the odd 6108 dotted around

9 x DCs
2 x Exchange servers (both on 2003, migrating to 2007 soon)
2 x terminal servers for small client boxes (which are ****)
everything else running single tasks

i do a lot of tasks here that the technicians at other schools have never even gone near, so i guess i've got myself a fair old whack of experiance from this job considering its my first in IT, all the servers were only replaced last summer so i spent a lot of my time doing server related tasks to get it all setup as well as replacing all the switches

I take it you are at an Independent school. No way would an LEA would spend that much!

 

[Peace]

Technical Support for several big companies.

Main products are;
Checkpoint
Nokia
Juniper
Cisco
Watchguard
Bluecoat

Also done some work on Websense, Trend and Clearswift integrations.

 

[ringo747]

Not quite there yet, but I start on the HP graduate scheme under C&I in September. Are you on a mobile contract Rotty, my knowledge of HP offices in the UK is limited to bracknell, bristol and wood street - all of which are a bit of a treck for you if you are in Notts

You will enjoy life in C&I!

 

[mrbios]

I take it you are at an Independent school. No way would an LEA would spend that much!

nope all council funded, before last summer the server rack consisted of celeron YES CELERON servers!!! and the odd P3 server, all the switches were old unmanaged Dlinks with the occasional loop being found in places

every student PC was celeron based with a maximum of 256mb ram, the whole network was INCREDIBLY slow, the celeron student pcs had got so old the hard drives were starting to die 1 by 1, the eonstors drives are all a good 5 years old now and has occasional errors of randomly losing data :S

everything needed a complete overhaul, so with the completion of a new building with 3 IT rooms (and 240 PCs being built later) we upgraded the entire network, new servers, switches, teacher laptops (which we're doing this year) and student PCs all being bought to replace the old crap

in total i think ive installed and setup about 15 servers (i didnt do the DCs, dont have the expertise yet to know exactly what im doin with replacing a PDC then adding DCs on seperate subnets) built a few hundred PCs and our ghostcast server has steam coming out its ears with the amount of packages and installs that have gone through it

so one big budget and a lot of hard work later we have what can only call a brand new network

 

[Rwac]

You will enjoy life in C&I!

Good to hear! Have you worked in C&I yourself in the past?

 

[ringo747]

Good to hear! Have you worked in C&I yourself in the past?

Have indeed - through the graduate scheme as well - its good!

 

[Rwac]

Have indeed - through the graduate scheme as well - its good!

Interesting! As to not derail the thread too far, i'll ask just one more question. How long ago did you do it, and where are you now?

 

[ringo747]

Interesting! As to not derail the thread too far, i'll ask just one more question. How long ago did you do it, and where are you now?

I'm still there! Contact details in trust if you want more info!

 

[sidethink]

I work for a large managed services outfit in Belfast on the Education side of the business. We look after the local Managed Learning Environment for C2k (about 80000 machines and 300k users) but have been branching out into GB under the auspices of the Building Schools for the Future project. We've been borging a few schools every couple of months for the last year or so.

Mostly Wintel and Cisco experience but now working in Service Delivery driving a desk.

 

[Nick Xero]

I work for Dell in Pre-Sales for Servers & Storage, due to move over to the newly acquired EqualLogic Pre-Sales division at the end of this month

Anyone want some iSCSI??

 

[Deathwish]

Been working in IT for a Local Scottish Authority for nearly 2 years now, straight from a 4 year degree. Our small team looks after the server farm and any associated applications (Email, AD, Citrix etc). Have around 150 servers, 99% of which are HP DL and ML class with a few HPUX boxes for good measure. We also look after the Schools in the county, each having its own server (DC, Print and File all-in-one), so add another 46 servers

Been building up my experience and its all good, any questions about HP DL or ML server i'd be happy to answer

Ahh yes and I forgot, one of my daily jobs is looking after the backup systems, including tape libraries