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Wie bereits erwähnt, bin ich seit Montag regulär angestellt und ein “ganzes” Teammitglied. In dieser Firma ist es üblich, dass der- oder diejenige etwas zum Znüni mitbringt. Natürlich hielt ich mich daran, und hab gestern morgen den Dorfbeck überfallen. Klar, man hätte auch vorbestellen können. Dies würde aber ein gewisses Mass an Planungsvermögen voraussetzen, an welchem es am Montag aber ganz klar mangelte.

Nichts destotrotz haben sich die Kollegen über die Mandelgipfel, Nussgipfel und die Aprikosenstrudel gefreut. Um zirka 09:30 entstand folgende MSN-Konversation

Kollege: Gratuliere & Danke für de fein Znüni

Me: Danke, gern gscheh

Kollege: Zum Dank hani der no es Ticket

Me: Ich han doch gwüsst do hets en hogge…

So ging es den ganzen Tag weiter. Auch Heute wurde ich mit Tickets zugespammt. Ich wusste doch, dass es irgendwo einen Haken geben musste. Jetzt habe ich ihn gefunden

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Am Freitag morgen hab ich mich zum letzten mal über den Nordring ins Büro gekämpft. Der letzte Arbeitstag war da. Letzte Übergabetasks abarbeiten, Schreibtisch auf- und ausräumen, Knabberzeugs für den Apéro besorgen. Ungefähr so sah er aus, der letzte Arbeitstag.

Um 16.00 Uhr wars dann soweit. Das Team begibt sich langsam in das zum Apéro-Raum umfunktionierten Sitzungszimmer. Ich stehe mit ein paar Kollegen draussen in der Garage und rauche meine Henkers-Zigi. Hab ich an alles gedacht? Hat mein Nachfolger alle Passwörter bekommen? Sind noch irgendwelche Files welche ich sichern müsste? Die Zigi ist durch und ich schiebe die Gedanken weg.

Eigentlich sollte ich mich freuen. Schliesslich breche ich auf zu neuen Ufern, schlage ein neues Kapitel auf, stelle mich einer neuen, noch unbekannten Herausforderung. Ja, ich glaube irgendwo freue ich mich. Schlussendlich habe ich es selbst so gewollt. Momentan drängt sich aber der Abschied in den Vordergrund. Und über den kann ich mich nicht freuen. nach fast sieben Jahren lernt man einen Haufen leute kennen und hat allehand zusammen erlebt. Zeitweise haben meine Kollegen mich besser gekannt als meine eigene Freundin. Und umgekehrt…

Ich trete ins Sitzungszimmer. Es sind fast alle von meinem jetzigen Team da. Ich schnappe mir ein Bier und stosse mit allen an. Der Chef sagt noch ein paar Worte, rekapituliert kurz meine Zeit in der Firma. Die eine oder andere Ungereimtheit hat sich eingeschlichen, ist mir aber in dem Moment egal.

Eigentlich müsste ich jetzt was sagen, aber es fällt mir nichts ein. Scheiss-Gefühl.

Die ersten verabschieden sich, andere kommen erst jetzt. Irgendwie kommt nicht so richtig Stimmung auf. Viele, welche sich angemeldet haben glänzen durch Abwesenheit. Schade, und schwach… Einige kommen nur kurz vorbei, um sich zu verabschieden. 10 Minuten später gehen sie wieder zurück an die Arbeit. Isch jo easy, ich kenns. Aber wenigstens sind sie kurz vorbeigekommen. Das bedeutet viel.

Etwas später disloziert der harte Kern in unsere Stamm-Kneipe und es wird reichlich Gerstensaft vernichtet. Der abend wird immer heiterer. Es ist ein schwelgen in Erinnerungen wie “Woher chasch du was du chasch?” vermischt mit heiterem feieren. Sagt mal, wart ihr froh mich los zu sein?!?

Ich möchte mich bei denen, die am Apéro dabei waren, bei denen, die auf der Karte unterschrieben haben und bei denen, welche etwas an das Abschiedsgeschenk beigesteuert haben herzlich bedanken. Es wird sicher gute Verwendung finden! Sowieso, danke für die geilen letzten sieben Jahre! Wir haben verdammt viel “duregrisse”! Vielleicht sehen wir uns irgendwann irgendwo wieder. Who knows…

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End of February we ordered a Broadband Cable connection for our Backup-Office (on the other end of the country). Last week, the Cable-Modem finally arrived (Remark: 3.5 months later). Our guy there connected the Modem and … drumroll please … it didn’t work.

Today I called the help-line, hoping that they could tell me if they “see” the modem on the network. I had the order confirmation in front of me hoping that all the information they could want from me is on there.

After idling in the waiting loop for 10 Minutes, listening to the IVR’s voice telling me that I must check the newest offers on their Web-page, I finally got a human being on the line. She actually sounded quite cute. Knowing that I’m that kind of customer that doesn’t have any info (I used to work at a Helpdesk too), we tried to find the customer-number on the order confirmation. According to the Call-Agent, it should be a 6-digit number. Yes ma’am, I’ve got loads of numbers on that paper, but not one that is 6 digits long. After looking up some names, she found the order and gave me the customer number, which is as follows 1234567 O…K, that 7-digit one was right on top of the form. Never mind.

After explaining our situation (All LED’s green, but no IP) and that I’m nowhere near the Modem, she checked our line. She actually saw the modem on the net, but something was “funny”. I should go and re-boot the modem. Again, I explained her that this would mean a 3-hour drive and if she minded to wait on the line.

After some audible mouseclicks and keyboard-clatter, she told me that the account wasn’t fully activated. It would be done “in due time” (Days from now). Good thing for a call-agent, she didn’t let me talk her into giving ne a more specific timeframe. Bad thing for me.

Now lets wait what happens. I’ll be in that office next week….

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Today we look at the hardware that we will need for the new infrastructure. Let us look at the requirements:

• Mail communication with Web-Access
• Collaboration through Share Point
• Expandability for future Applications (Time-Reporting is a hot topic)
• SQL-Server supporting both Share Point and other web-applications
• High availability

Considering the Software requirements and our knowledge, we will go for a complete Microsoft environment consisting of the following Products:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Enterprise
• Microsoft Office Share Point Server 2007
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition

As high availability is also a requirement, we will virtualize the servers using an ESX 3.0 Cluster. To accommodate this need we will use the following Hardware

• 2x HP DL370 G5 with 2 Quad-Core XEONs at 2.33Ghz and 8GB RAM
• 1x HP MSA 1000 with 500GB Disk-Space

The ESX-Cluster is controlled through a shared Virtual-Center to enable Vmotion, high availability (HA) and Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) functionality.

As we are on a VERY short timescale, the whole project should fall flat following the standard rules of business. Fortunately, there is such a system already at the datacenter which was planned to become a test-system for our server-guys. Well, now it is ours.

After a while the ESX-Cluster is ready to be filled with virtual machines.

3 Weeks to Deadline….

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We have gotten the task to set up a new communication and collaboration infrastructure for our department to work with both external partners, contractors and customers.

The old environment consists of an Exchange 2003 Server with OWA enabled, a Windows Sharepoint Services server 2.0 and a SQL 2005 server as back-end. All three Servers run on separate virtual systems hosted on two ESX 2.5 servers (1 for SQL and 1 for Exchange and Share Point).

Access control is realised through Active Directory where the Server hosting Exchange is also Domain controller.

The Systems grew over the past two years to accommodate new needs by the department. Unfortunately, the user managment was somewhat neglected and therefore a large number of accounts where no more used and therefore disabled, but never deleted. Also, many fancy applications came to help us simplify our work. They were soon abandoned because no one had time to manage them. They still are installed on the servers and idle around. No one was willing to remove the unused applications as the the Servers were already somewhat destabilized if you know what i mean

Unfortunately, the department that let us use the ESX-space informed us that they need the space themselves and that we would have to leave within 6 weeks. Yipee.

With this series I would like to document our experience while getting the new environment going. Maybe our mishaps can prevent someone else of doing the same mistake

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Currently I am working on a new Infrastructure farm for our Department. For the past two years we have used some spare space on a ESX-Farm of an other department. Mid of November we were informed that they need the space for themselves and will kick us out by the end of the year. My boss and I got the task to build up a new infrastructure consisting of one Exchange Server, one Share Point Server, one SQL server and one Web-Server for custom applications.

Oh yes, the timeline is 6 weeks from Hardware-Ordering to Production Release of at least the Exchange server.

I will try to write a series of Articles on our experiences while setting up this new environment. On one hand this should act as a help for all other guys and girls out there doing the same thing. On the other hand, this is a test-drive for my brand new Series-Plugin by Darren Ethier.

Stay tuned

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Normally I have a very normal eight-to-five job in an office. But working in the IT-Industry sometimes requires you to shift your working hours to the night. For example if you’re rolling out Office 2007 in a customers environment. Its not too bad doing this as it gives me experience, so no complaining about that.

There’s only one downside to it. I can’t sleep properly at night. Oh well, at least I managed to reach lvl 68 in WoW. Now just back to Shattrath, prospect some ore and then get to bed.

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As some of you probably know, I’m working for a large IT-Company that provides complete Support-Packages for companies. And today we started a new project.
I just found out today that the Sales-guys knew about this for 8 months. Well, no one thought of telling the people that were supposed to do the actual work, US!

The preparation was near to nothing. And what worries me even more is, that our team consists of two kind of people. One one hand you’ve got the people that know what they do and want to get this thing to work. On the other you have people that either are incompetent, or just plain morons.

So, today was the first day. no one knew exactly what was coming towards us. We only knew that it was big. I want to thank someone in the team who really worked her fingers to the bone to get everything to start as smooth as possible. But as you probably know, its not easy if you’re just one person in a big project. But against all odds, the first day was a success. It wasn’t as big as i expected. But lets see what the next week will bring.

Anyhow, i will keep you posted on the happenings…..