Business Advice for a New NetAdmin
Hello everyone - Recently I was promoted from a desktop support tech to a network administrator due to circumstance and although I'm very supportive of my promotion I lack the fundamental knowledge necessary to keep me afloat. What this question is based on is purely open to the degree that I am willing and asking for any of you who feel like participating the chance to suggest a structure to follow. I can provide any information upon request as to what equipment we are running in my facility and what our current practices involve. I'm looking to basically start ground up in reworking our structure - I will leave all base systems intact until a full plan has been organized and a direction has been chosen. Right now we are in a working state where we function basically as we should be but our former network administrator has thrown several wrenches into our machines upon his departure and this has caused many sleepless nights trying to piece everything back together. Right now we're running an Active Directory system on windows server 2008 r2 - we use a VMS system with tape backup and we have an Exchange Server 2010 running. Right now specifically we're having trouble with our backups - trouble being the sort of thing like we don't know HOW to back things up properly or schedule what we need with our software to automate it. The software we use for backup is CA Arcserve and I'm unfamiliar with it to almost every degree. We have made lists of WHAT we want to backup but still struggle with getting it done. We've been able to make a successful backup so far to get us "current" but we're not there yet by any means. I just placed an order for another Dell SAN to give us another layer of backup protection to work in conjunction with our current means and this will be another issue I turn to you guys for when it arrives - but for the time being please let me have it. What would YOU do if you were in my situation? I love my job and I love my promotion but as I mentioned above I'm very wet behind the ears when it comes to this sort of thing and all the trial by fire is beginning to dry some of that moisture up I'm still completely lost. HELP. I'm new to EE and I'm not sure which forum to place my question so I made it pretty broad and I'll award each answer by relevance to my particular situation based on helpfulness and idea content.
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ArcServe R16 Online Documentation
Maybe start with the Implementation Guide
On the Exchange system, go to Control Panel, Programs (or Add/Remove Programs) and look for ArcServe Exchange Agent, or CA ArcServe Exchange Agent.
When you say the previous admin left behind some "issues", can you be more specific without giving away any confidential info?
Maybe start with the Implementation Guide
On the Exchange system, go to Control Panel, Programs (or Add/Remove Programs) and look for ArcServe Exchange Agent, or CA ArcServe Exchange Agent.
When you say the previous admin left behind some "issues", can you be more specific without giving away any confidential info?
ASKER
The previous network administrator either deleted or removed ALL documentation of machines and wiped all records of his involvement with projects and stuff so we are literally forced to learn every aspect of our new jobs on the fly. As you can imagine this has put us in a place where we are expected to use this stuff without knowing how to use this stuff. Thank you very much for the documentation - i'm currently trying to hoard every piece of useful data I can. I will get back with you shortly on the exchange agent.
ASKER
These are all the installed programs on the exchange server - looks like there is a CA ARCserve backup agent running there.
Previous admin sounds like a real class act.
"CA ARCServe Backup" my be the standard Windows backup agent, not the Exchange-specific agent. I no longer have an Exchange server here to check that on. The ARCServe Exchange Agent is a separate license that has to be purchased and installed on the Exchange system. Your CA License Certificate will tell you what products and agents you have licenses for and the quantity of each license.
Thinking about this more, I may be very out of touch with the backup requirements for Exchange 2010. I'm thinking I read somewhere that the ArcServe Exchange agent is no longer necessary. Hopefully someone will chime in on that. Sorry I can't be more help on that issue.
"CA ARCServe Backup" my be the standard Windows backup agent, not the Exchange-specific agent. I no longer have an Exchange server here to check that on. The ARCServe Exchange Agent is a separate license that has to be purchased and installed on the Exchange system. Your CA License Certificate will tell you what products and agents you have licenses for and the quantity of each license.
Thinking about this more, I may be very out of touch with the backup requirements for Exchange 2010. I'm thinking I read somewhere that the ArcServe Exchange agent is no longer necessary. Hopefully someone will chime in on that. Sorry I can't be more help on that issue.
ASKER
Everything is appreciated - Thank you very much. Hopefully others chime in on the situation - but yes, the former net admin was awesome (sarcasm intended)
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ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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ASKER
Arcserve is R16 and I honestly couldn't tell you if we have the Exchange agent running - I'd assume so but who knows at this point with the way things have been going. I'm so lost - lol