I agree with each assessment given; however, I think the biggest problem is not the tools - as already stated, most aren't perfect. The problem is people just don't understand change management.
As suggested in this book (The Visible Ops Handbook - http://www.amazon.com/Visible-Ops-Handbook-Implementing-Practical/dp/0975568 612/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204114754&sr=8-1) most lower performing shops have a "culture of causality." 80% of their outages are due to change; and those low performing shops worked on an intuition or gut feeling methodology. However, high performing shops, those with a "culture of continual improvement" had problem managers that could recommend a fix more than 80% of the time with a 90% first time fix rate. (Paraphrasing) To me, those that have a problem manager that knows how to institute the change (to include a process to facilitate it and mitigate any risks by proper testing etc.) are those that are highly successful. Knowing how to do this IS, in my opinion, the reason they are successful. -----Original Message----- From: Ziots, Edward [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 5:37 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: If you're monitoring your servers thoroughly.... I agree MOF is great in theory but you need an organization the size of M$ to properly implement it. I think looking at NIST guides, also helps, but might not be realistic for some organization/business. Understanding your security policies and how they translate to your technical, administrative, and physical controls, and then implementing monitoring ( passive, detective control) probably the best way to go. Using Servers alive here, but its slowly being overloaded with the number of servers it can monitor and the useful information I can get out of it, so looking at other enterprise packages ( AKA NETPRO) to do some of this heavy-lifting for me. Z Edward E. Ziots Netwok Engineer Lifespan Organization MCSE,MCSA,MCP,Security+,Network+,CCA Phone: 401-639-3505 -----Original Message----- From: Michael B. Smith [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 6:54 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: If you're monitoring your servers thoroughly.... MOF is great on theory. I used it extensively. I've just started using SCOM. It's early in my evaluation, but so far - it's got holes. I'm figuring out (slowly) how best to fill them for my needs... Regards, Michael B. Smith MCSE/Exchange MVP http://TheEssentialExchange.com -----Original Message----- From: Ken Schaefer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 6:46 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: If you're monitoring your servers thoroughly.... Microsoft's got MOF (Microsoft Operations Framework) and Ops Manager to make this easier for you if you are a Microsoft shop. That takes away a lot of the need to run base level diagnostic tools as that can all be done for you via Ops Manager. Unfortunately they don't have a CMDB product yet, so you'll still something else that can hook in. Cheers Ken -----Original Message----- From: Kurt Buff [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, 27 February 2008 10:40 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: If you're monitoring your servers thoroughly.... I agree. It's one of the major reasons why I bought my juniors each a personal copy of the book. On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 3:35 PM, Michael B. Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > When I was responsible for a fairly large server farm, after patching I ran > DCDIAG on the DCs and netdiag on all servers. I did parse the output of the > utilities. I also had a complex script that tested the health of our DCs > from an LDAP perspective and all of the mail servers (with each protocol - > POP, IMAP, RPC/HTTP, MAPI, HTTP) and web servers. > > After 26 years, primarily in computer operations, I can say with some > authority that (in my experience) what most people screw up is change > management. They just don't do it. Don't understand it. Don't see the value > in it. > > Until it bites them in the rear. > > Regards, > > Michael B. Smith > MCSE/Exchange MVP > http://TheEssentialExchange.com ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~
