The biggest one that comes to mind is to write it with the idea that the person who reads won't be familiar with the company. By that I mean that you may want to write WHY vs. what because the next person should know the technical bits else know where to look, but nobody but you can know why it was set up that way. I see that as the biggest value you can provide. Some daily tasks would be helpful as well I'm sure. Al
________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Kern, Tom Sent: Mon 7/25/2005 3:05 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] OT: new job speaking of planning for the future- I'd like to plan for the past first. does anyone know of good examples for documenting your stuff when leaving a company? since i'm taking the job, i want to document all my changes and configs for my soon to be previous employer so they're not left high and dry. This includes not only AD/Exchange but cisco router and switch configs, DR testing, Linux Postfix/BIND server,etc. My current(old) company wasn't big on documentation when i was working for them but i don't want to see them screwed. I want to leave them something they can work with and that makes sense. However, no one here really understands AD,linux,cisco,etc. I'd like it written so even a manager can read it. Or at least an outside consultant.... i know its a lot to ask for but do you know any tips for writing such a doc? thanks -----Original Message----- From: Myrick, Todd (NIH/CC/DNA) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 7:29 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] OT: new job Since I work for the Government, I am all about not taking risk with my employment :) Since you are going to be entering into a sticky situation, I would ask myself the following questions. Why does the company want to cut their ties with outsourcer? Are they unhappy with the SLA? Is it costing too much? Are they willing to take on the additional cost for running their own exchange correctly (Virus walls, SAN, Solid Hardware platform, good backup). I would be concerned if a company was going to do it on the cheap. What happens if the outsourcers sabotage your efforts, will it reflect poorly on you? What is the job market like in your area? Since your long term employment opportunity is probably going to be based on your ability to successfully migrate their infrastructure back to the company, you might want to try a couple dry runs in your lab to see if you can easily do it. If it was me, I would prefer to start over from scratch, and just migrate the accounts and Exchange data into my new infrastructure. There are some really good third-party tools to assist you in doing this. I am not clear if the environment is on the company's site, or at the outsourcer's site. There are a lot of details there that you might want to look into before getting involved. All the things you pointed out are easily learned. Doing AD today is a lot easier, then it was back in 2000 when it came out. RIS, and unattended installs are really well documented on the net. So don't sweat that stuff. For the most part the hard part (Not really hard, just requires planning.) is setting up the AD in the first place, and then getting the exchange environment configured in a secure fashion. (Front End/ Backend, virus gateways, backups, etc. /Psycho Babble On On the psychological front. Couple of books I recommend on relationships. (Hey you put it in the response so I will just tell you what I know) If you like cognitive approaches to solving problems I recommend Harville Hendricks. I recommend the workbooks more than the books I outlined below, because they tend to ask you lots of questions and explain the themes in digestible doses. If you are in a relationship. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805068953/qid=1122289591/sr=8 -1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-2228004-9529505?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 If you are single http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0671734202/qid=1122289591/sr=8 -3/ref=pd_bbs_3/104-2228004-9529505?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 If you like behavioral approaches, then I just recommend Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil tends to give formulas and uses a lot of axioms and 10 point strategies, and 7 point keys. For relationships, Dr. Phil says your happiness factor is based on how safe, and alive you feel with your partner in a relationship. Simple, but makes sense. The whole fear thing, well that is just related to security. It is good to have some fear, stops you from trying to be Eval Kanival in Rush Hour, or installing an untested Service Pack in production. Too much fear could be an anxiety disorder. They have a lot of good drugs for that now a days. I recommend a hot tub at the end of the day though. :) Good luck on your new opportunity, I say anything that anything that challenges you to learn new skills is a good thing. I am learning ESX server now, so I am learning how to do several IT operations in UNIX, it is good for the soul. When I teach classes, I always tell my students that their success in the course is based on two factors. 1. Their wiliness to do the activity they are about to embark on. I usually ask the student to rate this on a scale from 1 to 10, (1 low, 10 high... most say 10) 2 their willingness to accept change. (Same deal, this one is where the number fluctuates) The success factor is the product of the two numbers. So 10*10 = 100%. I know it is trite and unscientific, but it does help you quickly assess things if applied correctly, and a good thing to use to develop a strategy. In your situation, if you find yourself spending 80 hours a week to migrate this company's data back home, is it worth it? Cause to me that is one hell of a change in my life, and I like to do more things than just work. /Psycho Babble off -----Original Message----- From: Kern, Tom [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2005 2:40 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ActiveDir] OT: new job Thanks for all your replies. This really helps. As I told Al offlist, I'm gonna start asking you guys for relationship advice. Also as Al pointed out,I'm most def a generalist. I'm the only engineer at my current job with 400 users. I do the DNS(Win and BIND) as well as the routers/switches,firewall,AV,DR,wan links,Blackberry server!on top of AD/Exchange. Pretty much everything but help desk. I'm a jack of all trades and master of none. My fear is that I hope I'm up to the AD/Exchange. In my current ebvoirment I never had to worry about unattended installs or RIS or security in a real specific way or object attributes and under the hood replications,etc. While I know a lot of this stuff in theory, thanks to books like Inside AD,2nd ed and Robbie Allen's cookbokks and screwing around at home(and sometimes with the live network:) ) We all know that's a far cry from really knowing it. I just hope I'm up to it. Thanks -------------------------- Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld (www.BlackBerry.net) List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/
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