Ask Slashdot: Uses For a Small Office Server? 260
ragnvaldr writes "I'm the 'IT guy' for an office of about a dozen people. And when I say IT guy, I mean I'm the only one here who can use google well enough to figure out how to make things work. We have a 500GB Mac server with a Drobo with 6TB of storage attached. So far all this server does is back up data, and I want to make it a little more useful. We also have a Filemaker server on it, which I have yet to learn how to use at all, let alone efficiently. Any suggestions to make this machine a little more useful?"
It's Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
Porn server, of course!
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Porn server, of course!
Because nothing makes an office more productive than large quantities of porn.
On the plus side, it makes evidence gathering easier to settle the sexual harassment lawsuits.
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Porn server, of course!
Because nothing makes an office more productive than large quantities of porn.
Speak for yourself. My company used to encode porn for streaming. The more porn in the office, the more productive the office was!
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Was this office a sperm bank?
- Dan.
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At my office, we wouldn't need a porn server. Everyone's homepage gets randomly set to meatspin enough that nobody wants to see naked flesh. The president of the company has everyone's password for a reason.
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Everyone's homepage gets randomly set to meatspin... The president of the company has everyone's password for a reason.
So he can set their homepage to meatspin?
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Mais oui ... an MP3 folder would be apropos as well.
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Mais oui ... an MP3 folder would be highly apropos as well.
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Re:It's Obvious (Score:5, Informative)
Hi. Welcome to I.T. A lot of us get started in the exact position where you are.
Top 3 things:
1. Make sure you have a handle on what needs to be backed up.
2. Make sure it's backed up.
3. Make sure you can restore at least one file.
Backups run daily or weekly based on your preference, but run through this entire list at least once a month. People create new shares and it gets missed from the rotation and then... kaboom.
In addition to the above..
Can you share your printer(s) through the server? Sharing a laser printer is almost always cheaper than having a bunch of inkjets on desks.
Can you setup some sort of offsite backup rotation? Is taking a tape home once a month an acceptable solution?
Does your company have a website and branded email? You could very inexpensively purchase a domain and setup a template based site for them. Email @yourco.com is more professional looking than an address @yahoo or @gmail.
Filemaker is an excellent database system. Do you have forms that drive your business? If so then consider if there are benefits to translating them into filemaker.
For all of the above, you are at a disadvantage that you don't have test systems. Making untested changes on a production box is scary. Always have a backup. Try to setup a "test" environment wherever possible. Most importantly, understand what you do before you do it.
Best of luck,
Ellie
Please Mod This Up (Score:5, Interesting)
It's rare to see such a combination of technical experience, and familiarity with the realities of implementing a solution in a small business environment.
Usually you can only get one or the other from any particular individual. This is solid advice and a good starting point. It should be modded up.
Does your role give you time to be the IT guy? (Score:2)
As a company becomes larger, IT guy becomes a full time role. Eventually you need an IT staff. What percentage of your staff should be in IT depends on your business. But having 1 IT staff member per 10 or so users is a minimum.
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1 IT staff member per 10 users? Are you crazy?
Where i'm at, we have 50-60 total employees, myself included, and we are an IT shop of 1. I support all the users, phones, servers, backups, etc. and still have plenty of time to do a fair amount of research/learning/future planning. The company i'm at is in healthcare as well, and doctors tend to not be the most tech savvy individuals as well.
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I have been forced to attempt a recovery with time machine, it's a complete piece of garbage.
If you attempt to use consumer grade in a mission critical environment at least make sure your resume is up to date.
- Dan.
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I'll second that ratio. I used to work in an office of about 150 users, with 3 dedicated I.T. guys, and by that I mean helpdesky kind of roles. The server admin was handled by contractors, and later on my unit (sister company). For the most part, a properly designed network almost runs itself. Spend a little more money on infrastructure and you'll save it tenfold in support and maintenance time/costs.
The truly difficult part is transitioning from random donated gear to a properly conceived system. A lo
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It's all in how you manage the office, and sadly, the managers. If you stay ahead of the systems and think long term, you are less surprised if things break and hopefully, addressing the situation before they break. Good CTO's buy *new* hardware or upgrade when it reaches end of life. Bad CTO's look to ebay to shore up their legacy systems. Yes I have lived that nightmare.
But even a competent IT guy can be derailed by a bad CTO. And we all know who gets the blame.
- Dan.
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You lost me at Filemaker. - BOOT TO THE HEAD!
- Dan.
In my experience... (Score:5, Insightful)
42 (Score:2)
Re:In my experience... (Score:4, Insightful)
But when you're as inexperienced as this individual is, sometimes you have needs that you don't even recognize, and which you may be able to solve with the resources already available. Clearly he shouldn't be trying to make it something it isn't, but they may not realize that there are easy fixes out there to problems they have in the office and simply put up with at the moment.
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This, exactly. You might explore setting up a VPN so people can log in to work from home. That's an office pleaser, but it's also open to the Internet and maybe not a good idea to have sitting on the same hardware you are backing up / serving internal files from. Yeah scratch that... one really good backup server is worth more than anything else you could add. If you have spare PC's lying around, install Linux and add services to them... for 12 people you don't need big guns for most services. If you do decide to run other services off that server, consider putting them in a seperate virtual machine.
Yeah, because someone who needs help with an OS X Server is going to have NO problem setting up Linux! [rollseyes]
To the original poster of this article: That was NOT meant as a slam or slight of your abilities; rather a slam on the mindset that "Linux is for everyone and everything". You are right where you ought to be. OS X will make a FINE server for your dozen or so workstations (assuming you aren't all doing Non-Linear-Editing of video, or heavy-duty software development to/from same!). Grow your sk
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...you let a perceived need dictate a use, not the other way around.
That's crazy talk! Every business needs a server. First he needs to put some XML on it, then once he has the XML working he can install a cloud (everyone is talking about cloud so it must be good!). Then sit back and watch the money roll in!
Best & highest Use (Score:3, Funny)
Doorstop?
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Doorstop?
I know you are, but what am I?
Don't Disrespect the Backups (Score:4, Informative)
Seriously, data backups are crucial in every enterprise, even small ones. That's a *great* use for your server. Are you checking on your process by restoring files once per month? Once per quarter? I joined a bioscience center that had faithfully been making backups for half a year before I joined but five months of the backups had no data. So do check, please.
I have more questions about your backup methods than I can easily list here. Still, there are other good uses for *every* server. They can all:
1) Provide DHCP addresses
2) Offer NTP to keep the clocks synchronized
3) Provide comprehensive system logging (for all systems of concern)
4) Store and/or offer common utilities like print services
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Seriously, data backups are crucial in every enterprise, even small ones. That's a *great* use for your server. Are you checking on your process by restoring files once per month? Once per quarter? I joined a bioscience center that had faithfully been making backups for half a year before I joined but five months of the backups had no data. So do check, please.
I have more questions about your backup methods than I can easily list here. Still, there are other good uses for *every* server. They can all:
1) Provide DHCP addresses 2) Offer NTP to keep the clocks synchronized 3) Provide comprehensive system logging (for all systems of concern) 4) Store and/or offer common utilities like print services
Can things like 5 months of "no backups" happen with an rsync-based backup to external hard drives? (see my comment above regarding same). I'm honestly asking.
If all the clients AND the server use NTP, then why does the SERVER have to dole out the correct time, too? I would assume that if they are using a Mac as a Server, they are probably an all-Mac shop (or nearly so). OS X offers NTP clock/calendar sync on every workstation (in fact, Apple, Inc. itself provides NTP services). I think that Windows 7 doe
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"Can things like 5 months of "no backups" happen with an rsync-based backup to external hard drives? (see my comment above regarding same). I'm honestly asking."
Of course. Suppose the server gets rebooted, but there's an issue with the backup drive, and the server spits a warning and carries on without mounting it. Now the clients are dumping to server:/backups as usual, but oh dear, that's on the little 10G root file system and not the 6TB backup. Which soon fills up. And there's insufficient monitoring an
Needs based approach (Score:4, Insightful)
It sounds to me like you haven't identified a business need and are fishing for one. Wouldn't it be better to look at how the business operates and from there see if there is something that can be done more efficiently? If there is, then ask yourself how this server can be used to address that problem. A server can do a lot of things, but don't look at those things and try to force it on the business when the need doesn't necessarily exist. It may create more problems then it solves.
If what you are really looking for is something to play with, then Filemaker sounds like a great place to start. It could be your introduction to databases. Once you understand the power of databases, you may find areas of the business that might benefit from a database. But until you have the knowledge, you aren't in a position to implement and support one. Just remember, if you're going to play with something, don't do it on a production server. Backups are a real business need. Even if that is the only thing the box is used for, it is a perfectly good reason for its existence.
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Filemaker sounds like a great place to start. It could be your introduction to databases.
Dear god, just tell him to commit suicide!
Once you understand the power of databases
Not using filemaker you won't!
Set up a webserver on your personal machine and start playing with some utilities that you think might be useful in your environment. When you've got more than 2 things you'd like to see in use at your office, pitch it to your boss and get his approval. Then create a webserver on the apple server and start building your new company intranet.
Oh, and stay as far away from filemaker as you possibly can. In my last job I was the go-to fi
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Just say you are incompetent in FMP databases and be done with it. PHP/MySQL if fine. However, the guy obviously has other duties and it not an actual full time IT guy. He just wants to be able to do more with the tools he has. He is not asking if he can pick up another career as a SQL expert. FMP can do an awful lot for a businessif they have a business that can benefit from a custom database or one of the pre-built solutions. It will never replace MySQL or Oracle, but it is probably fine for a 12-person o
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The 80's called, and they want their database back.
Seriously, what kind of performance can you get out of FMP? NONE!
The databases I was working with were written by a FMP "expert". The one I remember best was online for 3 hours before it crashed. The 13,000 users accessing it simultaneously probably didn't help. I spent 6 hours rewriting in PHP/MySQL. It didn't even hiccup.
If not having any love for FMP makes me incompetent, I'm ok with that. FMP is a piece of shit app anyway. The only thing worse is
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The 80's called, and they want their database back.
Seriously, what kind of performance can you get out of FMP? NONE!
The databases I was working with were written by a FMP "expert". The one I remember best was online for 3 hours before it crashed. The 13,000 users accessing it simultaneously probably didn't help. I spent 6 hours rewriting in PHP/MySQL. It didn't even hiccup.
If not having any love for FMP makes me incompetent, I'm ok with that. FMP is a piece of shit app anyway. The only thing worse is Access.
First, You do realize that Access and FMP were one and the same at one time. FileMaker grew up; Access didn't.
13,000 users does sound like a bit much for FileMaker, though, since Filemaker 11 Server Advanced has only been tested with 250 simultaneous users [filemaker.com]. So, I call Shenanigans, or somebody should have been FIRED for specing something that far beyond its guaranteed limits. Or you are a fucking liar. I tend to think the latter, because I can't find anything to even REMOTELY suggest that capability in MyS
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Filemaker sounds like a great place to start. It could be your introduction to databases.
Dear god, just tell him to commit suicide!
Once you understand the power of databases
Not using filemaker you won't!
Set up a webserver on your personal machine and start playing with some utilities that you think might be useful in your environment. When you've got more than 2 things you'd like to see in use at your office, pitch it to your boss and get his approval. Then create a webserver on the apple server and start building your new company intranet.
Oh, and stay as far away from filemaker as you possibly can. In my last job I was the go-to filemaker guy (I didn't build the FM databases, I just cleaned up the mess). My approach was to wait until a filemaker database crashed, and rebuild it correctly in PHP/MySQL.
You DO realize, of course (but it sounds like you don't) that you can design a BAD database application in ANYTHING.
FileMaker is one spectacular feat of database engineering, and actually quite unique in many, many areas. It's just a shame that your vision is too narrow to realize that.
It is absolutely amazing to me the number of people on slashdot that can't see past their small little mindset, and must shoehorn every single thing into that narrow world.
Would I try to run American Airlines' reservati
Learn it. (Score:2)
Wrong way around (Score:5, Informative)
It's generally better to start a project from "I want to accomplish [x], so what do I need?" rather than "I have [x], so what can I accomplish with it?" The first approach will be much more focused and more likely to succeed.
Second thing to keep in mind: you don't want to experiment on a production server. I don't care if the "production server" is only a backup server-- if you don't want to endanger your backups, then it's still a production server. This means you shouldn't do anything with this server until you've planned what you want to install on it, and you've already set up a test implementation and you know what you're doing.
Third thing to keep in mind: in current IT practices, it's often not worth it for a small company to do things for themselves unless they need to. You probably need a local file server and therefore also a backup scheme. Aside from that, things like web hosting, email, and chat are usually better handled by a big company that can afford a datacenter. If you do try to do email internally, make sure you back it up and have a plan for outages and disaster recovery.
All that aside, you could start with basic services: directory services, file sharing, email, etc. Filemaker has its uses, but let the use determine the tool. Don't go around pounding on everything just because you've found yourself a hammer. Define the job, and then pick the best tool for the job.
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It's generally better to start a project from "I want to accomplish [x], so what do I need?" rather than "I have [x], so what can I accomplish with it?"
The problem is if you don't know what is possible how could you know if there are efficiencies to be gained from it? Not everything in IT is an "expense" that needs a business case for justification. Some things are features we already have and we don't know that we could potentially improve our way of life with it.
Example:
At our work we already have several Toughbooks. We already have WiFi coverage over the plant. We already have an database of all assets. The inspection team had a wonderful set of procedu
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Amen for common sense! Bot for your own business place and for your position on the original poster's question. You are the kind of guy I like to have around me in business.
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It's generally better to start a project from "I want to accomplish [x], so what do I need?" rather than "I have [x], so what can I accomplish with it?" The first approach will be much more focused and more likely to succeed.
While generally this is true, professionals tend to forget that at the very beginning plain ignorance (not stupidity... ignorance means one simply does not know) is the main problem. The question is "I don't know what I can accomplish or what I'm supposed to do. How do I know what's reasonable, what's too expensive, what might be accomplished?" If you're used to Algebra, how do you know when you need Trig or Calculus? It's obvious to those who use it a lot (e.g., a given physics problem can be many time
Re:Wrong way around (Score:5, Insightful)
It's generally better to start a project from "I want to accomplish [x], so what do I need?" rather than "I have [x], so what can I accomplish with it?" The first approach will be much more focused and more likely to succeed.
Rubbish. That is waterfall methodology all over.
Sometimes you don't know what you want to accomplish until you know what is possible. The problem with technology is that many people don't ask for what they want because it has never occurred to them that it is possible. They don't even know what they want because they cannot articulate a need that they have no words or concepts for.
Looking at what is possible can help someone to clarify their real needs and desires. That is what this guy wants. A few hints about what is possible, about what other people are doing, not a sanctimonious lecture about the need to define your goals at the start of a project.
If you want it to be useful... (Score:3)
Make sure it is reliable before you get people to rely on it. Make sure both the computer and storage are on UPS and have good surge protection. Ideally you want the server to shutdown before it loses power. Also, make sure you have some sort of backup scheme in place. Tape backup, DVD, whatever, just make sure you can backup the data and restore. It's a really good idea to test your backups from time to time to make sure they can be read. Ideally you will also save your backups either off-site, or at least in a fire safe. Also, check that the server area doesn't get too hot as that can cause problems as well. Make sure you apply current OS patches. Ideally you will also have anti-virus protection. If the office has access to the internet, make sure you have at least a cheap hardware firewall, or better if you can, to protect everyone. Consider physical security. Do you lock the room with the server? Use cables to secure it? Document things in case you need to rebuild it.
Consider information security: does everyone get access to everything?
Besides that, file servers tend to be very handy, even for small offices. Put any sort of shared resources you use on the file server instead of on individual PCs. Things like: document templates, form letters, contact lists, etc.
Beyond that, it really depends on your business doesn't it? I assume you bought Filemaker for a reason. Information sharing must be important somehow. You can use Filemaker as the heart of a lot of business applications. Would an internal web server be useful? Internal mail server? List server?
One more thing, teach people how things are intended to be used.
Help them out - make sure their PCs are properly patched, have anti-virus, and ideally aren't running as administrator.
how many people work in your organisation? (Score:2)
if your company is more than ten people, you should try a wiki [wikipedia.org] of course.
All offices have paperwork (Score:3)
Set up a document versioning system to track changes.
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Seconded. Version control of some stripe is a fantastic (and oft overlooked) thing for most organisations.
Which flavor of version control is left as an exercise to the OP. The "right one" for the office depends a great deal on what is produced, what they can budget, and what the users will tolerate. It's funny, sometimes users don't appreciate the extra steps it takes to check out/check in a file, until someone changes it under them.
Backups? (Score:2)
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I own both a 4 disk Drobo and a 5 disk Synology. The Drobo is bonehead easy to setup and use but it is also really damn slow. It's ok for backups but that's about it. The Synology is more involved to setup but it is a quantum leap faster than the Drobo. Once the Synology is setup it's day to day care and feeding is pretty minimal. I'm doing Time Machine backups to the Drobo and using the Synology for long term archiving of images. I'm a photographer and these days it is nothing to go out and shoot for two d
Use it to create another virual server (Score:2)
Internal or external? (Score:3)
I'm presuming this machine is for internal use only. If you need to host external services, such as a website, pay $1k for another Mini Server and use that exclusively for external facing services.
That being said, you could activate the Wiki function and produce a little company Intranet where people could post and update information. That's quite easy to do once you've enabled the WebServer (using Server Admin).
It's also easy to set up LDAP server, which will at a minimum simplify your account management. You could use Mobile accounts on each workstation, so that the workstation's data is local but is automatically both backed up to the server -and made available- if the user has to log onto or borrow another machine.
You could configure VPN for safe remote access (but that's a bit tricky.)
Right now the best book on OS X Server Admin is Daniel Eran Dilger's book. (http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Leopard-Server-Developer-Reference/dp/0470521317)
My experience as a SOHO user/administrator of Server going back to Tiger Server is that each version has gotten easier to use, but unless the out-of-the-box configuration is -exactly what you need-, it's worth paying a couple $100s to get an expert to fully configure the server initial setup, particularly the DNS. If the DNS isn't set up perfectly, a lot of stuff breaks in OS X Server. (I've used Mid Atlantic Consulting here in the DC area.)
Finally, you need to have an additional backup strategy that involves off-site/off-machine backups. Consider the recent tornadoes all over the US! I have a pair of USB drives and my plan is to monthly back up to one and swap it for the other stored at an offsite location (friend's house.) (Disclosure: I'm about 6 months behind doing that, one of the drives in an external exclosure died and I haven't gotten around to replacing it.)
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Or drop the kiddie os and use a real one Linux Solaris or even windows
Yeah, because a certified Unix is such a kiddie OS compared to Linux.
No wonder you posted as AC. Even YOU don't believe your bullshit!
Off site backups (Score:2)
I think the most important thing you can do for your small company is to research and implement an off-site backup solution. Find one strikes the right balance of cost versus privacy/security for the business sector that you're in. So if you're using the Mac as a central place to back up the employees individual computers, or if you've made it the place where everyone saves all their files, that's a great first step. But it needs to be augmented with off-site backup.
I have seen too many examples of sma
Trivial Apache/MySQL Services (Score:2)
I run the server for a small company as well, and since we do some Apache/MySQL stuff on it anyway, there's a lot of lightweight, mostly turn-key Apache/MySQL stuff I've set up opportunistically, some of which have turned out to be useful to the whole organization, and some of which have just turned out to be useful for me and the developers. It's a bit simpler to set up on a Linux server where a lot of this stuff is prepackaged for you, but Macports is rather straightforward, and installing PHP apps is onl
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there's a lot of lightweight, mostly turn-key Apache/MySQL stuff I've set up opportunistically, ... [snip] ... PHP apps ...
In my experience, Apache, MySQL and PHP are anything but lightweight.
Not flaimbaiting, just wanted to point it out. I've been a web developer for over 10 years and the above setup is all my preference (well, LAMP, not MAMP - *NIX is *NIX though)
reconsider your own question (Score:2)
"All it does is back up data."
If you fuck uppa da backups then you gotta backa da fuck up and finda youself a new job. Capisce?
Define and Document, be Cassandra (Score:2)
Be well aware of what you don't know. There are good comments about security and reliability already. Outsource things such e-mail and web services to a reliable, willing to be audited vendor. Ensure DR plan and testing is included.
Now the big point. You have greater than 6 TB of storage. Is there a backup and recovery plan in place? RAID is not equal to backup. Is this information important to the business or is someone unwilling to learn "delete" options? Does the backup plan include off site m
Documentation and Wiki (Score:3)
Firstly, (and most importantly) read the documentation: http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/resources/documentation.html [apple.com]
Secondly, you can set up a wiki server pretty easily. It is extremely useful for self-help and internal process documentation. Easy to add videos, screenshots and keep the documentation up to date.
Thirdly, if you don't have an office collaboration server, you can also run your own Jabber server.
Both Wiki and Jabber services have their own documentation at the aforementioned link.
2 cents from a sysadmin (Score:2)
Bitcoin miner. (Score:2)
That machine could be adding to the company's bottom line instead of just being a depreciating asset.
On a serious note... (Score:2)
It's a shame that you have that much computer going to waste.
What about using as a place to put all the illegal mp3's and videos you get from torrents?
Open Directory, Groups, mail, calendar, etc. (Score:2)
If you have a Mac Mini with OSX Server, you really should be running it as such. There is a great write up regarding the setup for a complete noob here http://www.wazmac.com/servers_network/fileservers/osxserver_setup/osxserver106_setup.htm [wazmac.com]
fengoffice server (Score:2)
http://www.fengoffice.com/web/community/why-is-open-source.php [fengoffice.com]
was in Linux Journal this month.
Its like your own Google Docs.
Identify what is needed (Score:2)
We have no idea what you are doing and what the office is doing. If no central database or file access is required, then a server for backup seems fine to me.
Here's the low hanging fruit (Score:3)
Your mac mini has a lot of juice for a tiny little box, and cycles you don't use disappear into the ether. May as well be using it as much as you can.
You're asking the wrong people (Score:4, Interesting)
And I say this as an IT guy myself.
You can put together all the fancy features you like. I don't care what they are, what is important is what the business can benefit from.
So you need to do two things:
1. Don't speak to us. Speak to the people in your company who are driving the business.
2. Stop thinking in terms of "clever things I can do with the server" and start thinking in terms of "things I can do that offer a tangible benefit to the business". 99 times out of 100, those things will fall into one of four categories:
a. Bring money in - either directly or indirectly.
b. Save money.
c. Reduce risk.
d. Make life easier for someone else in the business.
B and C are relatively easy. A is seldom found in IT; D often requires people to change the way they work. Getting people to change the way they work is generally very difficult, so unless the benefit is so absolutely vast that even the most deluded, stuck-in-the-mud person would see huge benefits to it before you've even finished explaining your idea, you may well be wasting your time. If you have an idea that offers only small benefits but requires significant changes to how people work, forget it.
Re:Hire a professional... (Score:5, Insightful)
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If you think macs are overpriced, you havent seen the price of that drobo boat anchor.
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Agreed. Apple techs are far from "worth their weight in gold". First off, they have specialized, niche skills (if they have them at all), secondly, they are fat.
You know why they are fat?
Because they don't have to DO anything!
Re:Hire a professional... (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't that at all. I've worked in the field and taken plenty of calls from guys like this. Guys who thought, yeah, I know just enough to be dangerous, let's see what I can do. Then he's sitting there, no backups, no duplication of media, nothing to keep his ass out of the frying pan, and then he's on the phone to me because he's got some hot project that he needs the system for and it suddenly becomes my priority to unfuck the mess he's in.
Either way, he should call the pro. It's cheaper if he calls before he fucks everything up beyond belief.
You non-science, non-engineering types, especially in IT, love to exaggerate and use pontificating language. You clearly don't mean "fucks everything up beyond belief" because it's a meaningless phrase that you picked up from your stupid colleagues in IT. "nothing to keep his ass out of the frying pan" -- is that really necessary? Get to the point and move on.
How hard are backups? rsync, RAID, different storage media, onsite and offsite backups, and cost / benefit analysis to defend the choices. Some of it will be subjective (the "benefit" of something is obviously difficult to gauge and liable to debate). You could suggest some points of reference. That's what every good scientist and every good engineer I've met does -- because they know their worth is not limited to learning some quirks about programs. They design and build stuff. They often debug it. The bad ones constantly overstate their worth and present themselves with a really irritating know-it-all attitude. The bad ones think that by communicating their ideas and helping others out, they are risking job security. The good ones help others learn how to learn. The good ones demonstrate that they know their stuff and understand their worth is not rooted just in knowledge or wisdom, but also in interpersonal skills, often overlooked or downplayed in STEM fields.
I used to be like you in high school. I had worked at a few Fortune 100 companies as a coder / sysadmin type and I didn't realize my douchiness until I left the field in college for computer science, electrical engineering, physics, and chemistry. I know my comments sound a bit harsh, but maybe my tone may make you reevaluate how you behave.
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RAID is not a backup solution. RAID will simply increase the reliability. I've had many raid 5 arrays fail and loose everything. There are many ways of backing up data and RAID is not one of them.
I agree. But RAID is a place to start.
There are a zillion GUI front-ends for rsync-based backups for OS X. Most of them are even free. Some of them handle backing-up Time Machine backups (Sparse Image files). Then there are industrial-strength backup systems like the ones from TOLIS [tolisgroup.com] (full disclosure: I haven't used these. I just know they exist). But, I think with a 10-person office, you probably can get by with something that is rsync-based (rsync is a very powerful UNIX "file/folder synchronization" uti
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When Time Machine is in the mix, you essentially have two "competing" backup methodologies
Re:Hire a professional... (Score:4, Insightful)
Call the pro?
Call him for what? If you don't have a problem and you "call a pro" you're going to get a solution you didn't need for a problem you didn't have.
You have this backwards. First he comes to slashdot to figure out how to make it useful, once he's done that only THEN can we tell him to hire a pro.
Admittedly there are many people who follow your model of thinking. They invariably end up spending the rest of the year figuring out where all the money went while reading their emails on an iPad sitting next to their computer.
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We'll all worked in the field, and taken visits from guys like you. The smallest glitch is "being in deep shit", the smallest deviation form doing what YOU know to do, the exact way YOU do it, is "fucking everything up beyond belief". And trying to actually work with you to get anything done yields... same results.
I got it. (Score:2)
He will perform exploratory research on the departments' only production backup server, risking the economic well being of some 24 people. First he needs a development system, once that's in place, I'd suggest either email, website, or database.
Re:Hire a professional... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I'm sure a 12-person office has an extra 100k sitting around for an IT guy.
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Actually... I used to be an on-demand IT guy. I worked for a company that charged on billable hours. When something needed maintenance or a break happened, I would schedule some time to see them and take care of it. When my clients had a need, they'd talk it out with me and our business guy, we'd draw up a quote and then do the work. We'd also take care of necessary maintenance (again on demand).
It's actually a pretty good way to get the IT needs taken care of without needing to spend 100K... Or even 5
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Yeah, I'm sure a 12-person office has an extra 100k sitting around for an IT guy.
Not all IT staff start at 100k, or work full time.
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Stonewall and obfuscate until they are willing to hire additional help or give you an obscene raise. Once they recognize your unique ability to set priorities, they will promote you to manager.
Spoken like a TRUE IT "professional". You DO know what "MCSE" REALLY stands for, don't you:
Must Consult Someone Experienced!
Don't listen to this jackass. You're doing what most IT "pros" NEVER do: Admit it when they DON'T know something; and instead just "STONEWALL AND OBSFUCATE"
Did they teach you that technique in Famous IT Professional's School? Or did you just make that one up all by yourself?
You, sir, are why WINDOWS continues to be the predominant business platform.
Let me say it again: STONEW
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That's the first intelligent reply on this thread. Sometimes I wonder how drunk the average slashdotter is while posting...
They are not drunk. They are simply stupid and juvenile... even when they are not juvenile anymore.
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Yep... IT seems fairly easy for a layman until you have a hardware failure due a power outage, and suddenly find out that your daily backups haven't been working correctly for the past few weeks.
Only THEN will many people understand how important IT concepts like UPS battery backup, RAID, and scheduled backup tests are.
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Yep... IT seems fairly easy for a layman until you have a hardware failure due a power outage, and suddenly find out that your daily backups haven't been working correctly for the past few weeks.
Only THEN will many people understand how important IT concepts like UPS battery backup, RAID, and scheduled backup tests are.
Yeah, because there aren't ANY lazy IT people...
Re:Hire a professional... (Score:4, Interesting)
There's nothing wrong with doing things oneself, if one does them right.
I frequently have to pick my jaw off the floor when I look at what professionals have done. Which, mind you, isn't always the fault of the professionals, but can be because those professionals aren't mind readers and don't now what's so obvious to a company's manager that he never tells them. Or a manager who has to stay within a budget, and orders a half-assed job. Or a manager who can't write contracts and don't have anyone technical enough to verify specs.
Sure, I just as often have seen internal snafus, where someone hacked up something terrible.
That's "just as often", not "more often".
'Cause quite frankly, the "professionals" can be quite incompetent too, and often are. They hire people based on the demand for work they get, and are legally obligated to fulfill a contract and give a customer what he asks for, not what he needs. The professionals are the ones who ask the customer "what browser do you use?" and then proceed to code a project for that browser, and are the assholes responsible for why so many companies are still at IE6. Who uses authentication that works for the test user, but won't work for remote users, or the sysadmin who doesn't use Windows. Who foists upon the customer completely idiotic platform requirements (including both OS versions, JVM versions and network specifics). Who take shortcuts, including hardcoding and incorrect assumptions.
Because robustness was never a consideration; just getting the job done and move on. Hell, if it breaks, it's a good chance they get hired back to fix it!
In short, professionals are dangerous. What you want are experts. And most professionals aren't; they are consultants on a H1B or in-between real jobs, who know just enough to be dangerous, working for profit, not pride.
In this case, I too think the OP should leave well enough alone, but not for your flawed reasons.
If a system is already used for backups, it is one of the most important systems the business has. It should be treated as blessed, and not to be messed with, only replaced when that day comes. It's so critical that it deserves the "legacy" stamp from day one, no matter how modern it is at that point.
Do not look for unused capacity on critical systems. There is a chance that you break them, but also the reverse risk that what you implement itself becomes critical to the business, and that higher demand on the existing system will break your new functionality.
Do you really want to be responsible for restores not working the day lightning strikes, because your app needed a patch that invisibly broke backups? Or do you want your app to become a favourite of managers, and then suddenly become sluggish or not work at all once someone decides to back up the new Hawaii or Europe office during what's business hours for you?
Also, untangling two critical functions running on the same system without business impact can be a daunting task, which is best avoided.
tl;dr: Don't mess with critical systems. This is not the unused capacity you are looking for. Move on.
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i liked the "working for profit, not pride" bit.
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I second this, a good small business I.T. consultant/contractor can be hard to find, but if you find a good guy a few hours of his time could save you a lot of headaches. My former boss who had small business specializing in networking for small businesses probably could set everything up for a business your size in a few days.
Yeah, and then nobody in the office has the knowledge and or the ACCESS to fix even the tiniest little thing, and so someone (or everyone!) sits around for a whole day (minimum!) while the 2-person "IT consultancy" gets time to get around to you.
In fact, that's why I ended up doing IT for the firm I worked as an embedded developer for. We had an outside IT firm. But their response times kept slipping and slipping, and I kept getting collared by the secretarial (and other) staff as I walked in the door "Ca
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Re:MAC Server?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? It's doing backups, and it's a full-fledged Unix machine.
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I see you've never actually used a Mac as a server. Apple sells a server flavor of OS X, and it's actually quite good.
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Why would you replace a Unix server with a Linux server?
Because Linux is free (as in speech, and in most cases as in beer as well). Linux isn't locked into a specific company. Linux doesn't (generally) have DRM. The only proprietary, non-open parts of Linux I can't mess with come from third parties, and even those have free (though less functional) replacements. Linux runs on most common hardware, not just Macs (both licensing and technology). Linux has a number of companies backing various versions of it, not just one company.
Now, of course someone could make up a similar list for OS A vs. OS B regardless of what A and B are. And that's fine, choice is good. But you asked why someone would replace a "unix" (and yes I know that Mac OS X is certified UNIX) server with a Linux server... so there's one answer. Could you dispute each point I made? Sure you could. Any point to anything can be disputed in some way. But the above is why *I* would choose to replace a "unix" server with a Linux server. You asked, and here's one answer that applies to at least one person.
YMMV.
You DO realize, of course, that to him, OS X was FREE, too; because it comes with the machine, right?
And what, exactly DRM were you referring to?
He already HAS a Mac. His employer has already purchased the hardware; so that's a moot point. And Linux's many flavors have been a LIABILITY, not a strength. And it's high-time that the Linux fanbois wake up and realize that the world really doesn't need 10^200 Linux distros. Or even 10^2. Or maybe not even 10^1.
For this guy (not you), OS X is EXACTLY where
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First off replace it with a linux server or at least a Windows server
Obviously, you don't even believe that yourself, or you wouldn't have posted AC.
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The next release of Max OS (Lion) includes server functions as an optional install at no additional cost.
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No problem... It's ********
Credit [dilbert.com]
My god... (Score:2)
...it's full of stars.
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Normally I recommend NOT editing anything in /System, but thats where apple put the time machine preference files so I suppose in this case it's acceptable to modify that file.
Or be safer, and use one of the GUI Time Machine editors, eh?
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1. Configure it as an unsecure FTP server. 2. Expose it to a public network for a few days/weeks. 3. Collect 6TB of pr0n and movies from your server. 4. ????? 5. Profit.
The very G5 dualie that I am typing this on not only runs an ftp server with anonymous (albeit read-only) access (and several ftp accounts that have R/W access), and it runs a (non pr0n) streaming video server, that is liked to from a public website, but it has been "on", barenaked on the internet, since I purchased it in April, 2005. Many, many, many attacks have been launched against it. It is probably being attacked as I type; but, so far at least, None Shall Pass.
Oh, and I regularly cruise pr0n sites