So I have managed to get one of my coworkers (teh poor fellow who has to share an office with me) to start a blog for and by systems admins. We only got it up and running last night, but hopefully will have lots of good knowledge up and maybe even some helpful hints and tips along the way. New blog is located here Eschew Obfuscation, check it out if you are interested, thanks.
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I work for a large company as a jr. systems administrator and I noticed something the other day about the difference in mindset between those who work in helpdesk (some might say tier 1) as opposed to those that work in system administration (tier 2 or 3 depending on whom you ask). Don’t get me wrong I have a great amount of respect for all of the people that I work with, they are all great and very very knowledgeable, we just see the worlds in different ways.
I have been trying to install a server for my boss who wants a playground (he used to be the IT director for another subsidiary of the company that I work for) and it’s not a difficult request, standard Dell 1950 shouldn’t be too difficult, I got it racked, cabled, labeled and switchport turned on and good to go. So I go to install the OS using the standard OpenManage Server Assistant CD and blah, it posts fine, the bios sees the disks just fine (2 250GB disks Raid 1), but the OpenManage is unable to see the boot device. So I have a ton of different people look at it after trying to troubleshoot it on my own, and no dice. These guys actually go into the startup code (which is written in python) and start actually debugging it from there, still no dice. We all know that it’s a driver issue to due with the PERC raid card (6/i, I believe but don’t quote me) as this isn’t the first time that we have run into the issue with dells and their damned PERC cards.
So we have this guy that works in helpdesk that is a registered Dell tech, so I give him a call and ask if he can take a look at it, so he comes over grabs it, then the next day calls and says that it might have just been a bad disk (CD). So he boots it up fine and it sees everything but he gets to the install OS and that’s where he’ll stop (only for us mind you as they support all the end users). I was just fascinated by the viewpoints of the too different groups, our group tried from a hardware / system level and he went straight to the most fundamental aspects of the system. I know that I have learned a valuable lesson from this and will continue to remember that sometimes the K.I.S.S. principle is there for a reason. As I am a systems admin, this will probably be an ongoing thing (and junior to boot so I have a lot to learn).
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