Loz’s ALITs Blog

Got over the Dell thing. 7 days. Shocker. Not helped by Dell’s Gold support being quite rigid in the approach. When its a system down you need to be flexible to get the shooting match back up as quickly as poss…. Its also worth noting that in Windows Small Business Server 2003 you cannot restore just AD. In a regular domain you have authoritative & non-authoritative restore options. No such luck with SBS. Its system state lock stock & barrel. Registry, AD, the whole 9 yards. So if you overlooked something or indeed simply got a path wrong - it’ll mess up the system & take eons to clean up. Hmmmm. BackupExec no help in this situation either as it is simply looking at the Windows API’s etc to do its restore.

So I have decided its time to stick my nose back in a txt book and get 70-282 under my belt. No doubt this exam will be retired soon as 2008 comes mainstream. Oddly it is an elective for MCSE but not valid for MCSA…? Mostly you pass through the MCSA bracket on the way to MCSE. But not if you do this elective. The Exchange 2007 exam didn’t look too easy so i left that one for now!!

Onwards…

Dropped a disk from a 4 disk RAID5 array. Punter calls Dell. They say fine we’ll frun a test and then send you a new drive. Its important for me to mention at this point that this is still a working server… During the tests another disk losses life… Server reboots - Windows never to run again.

So punter says to Dell tech “what happened there then?” Dell tech says “Your firmware is all out of date. Thats why this happened” Punter says “oh thats dull. Aren’t you supposed to tell me about these things? Afterall I have Dell Gold 24/7 Enterprise Support?” Dell tech says “you probably haven’t setup your sub…”

So the long & short is that this install is buggered. Being an SBS2003 box it has the whole shooting match on this box. Exchange data,, user data, AD - the whole 9 yards.

Now all this started last night. Its now 6pm BST & we are only just getting the OS reinstalled. Dell Gold tech support have been faffing around since 9am having spent all last night on it as well. Best bit is I have had to create a slipstreamed install with the drivers in as the Dell tech couldn’t quite make it work. Hmmmm. Is this Dell Gold tech at its best?

Am sure this is going to be a loooooonnnnnngg night.

And the worst part is going to bed knowing that you have to be up at some awful hour to do a school run that is hideous, climb on a tube that will be slow & packed - do a days work in an aircon’d box then repeat previous process in reverse…

I have done three MX record corrections in as many days. Some of the control panels out there - the sort that allow users to adjust their own DNS can create more problems than they solve. Because each one does it slightly differently there is never one way to describe the process. Creating an “A” record is easy enough… mostly. Then using this “A” record for an MX record should be easy as well. If only it wasn’t for the last “.” & how many people does it fox. Not only that - some control panels put it in for you - even if you have already done it. So you end up with “..” which doesn’t work either.

And now its Friday & i have to collect from LHR T5. We know how long that will take…!!!

VoIP is a great thing in telecoms. But customer expectations need to be managed. They need to be realistic. We install Nortel, Avaya & Cisco VoIP platforms. Some use a ¨proper¨ switch & others are hosted elsewhere - removing the capital outlay & the support overhead. When the switch is hosted in a datacentre, the call traffic comes via an xDSL or greater depending on the number of users. To acheive a good ratio, various codecs are used to compress the traffic. This keeps the data packet small & secure. But there is a cost to this (technical cost not fiscal). I would describe it as ¨mobile phone¨ type of quality - which for most is fine as we yack on mobiles more than ever these days. But for those who want fixed line call clarity you need to include provision for either a high bandwidth connection or some ISDN trunks. Its all a debate but without doubt - it is the way forward!

I almost got blown off the roof of the Albert Hall couple of days ago. Wind was very strong. I took a picture to illustrate the point - & it was so windy the pic came out blurred!! Well what do you say to that then?

Am watching BBC3 - Familey Guy. Very amusing.

I have dealt with no new tech challenges. Just old ones that keep coming back from different places. Lots of projects on the go so usual stuff - where does this wire go? how does this fix to that? this will never fit in that! etc etc.

Think the roof is blowing off the house…. laters.

… the baby….

The kit they make usually works - but you pay for that. I drive a VW - it it is still going after 10 years of being driven briskly around the capital with three kids in the back. My half German daughter has never gone wrong in the 10/11 years she’s been around & my 11 year old AEG washing machine also never skips a beat. Then I bought a Zanussi fridge/freezer & a Hoover tumble dryer… Nothing but bloody grief. The Hoover tumble thing got replaced once cause it was crap. Now the replacmene thas gone bang. Out of warranty and in bits ion the garden. Motor bearing shot. £140 for a new one. Well i just bought a new machine…. Thought to myself that I’ll by a Zanussi as the fridge has been fine. Until today that is. Bang - freezer fan gone. So now I know I should have bought German. Yes it may cost twice the price but lasts 10+ years… As my old dear would say “buy cheap buy twice”.

Made a point of not working this weekend. Well not work as in ¨get paid for it¨ work. More ¨do this at home¨ type work. Quite productive though. Nights this week. Sleep during day and work all night. Like some slaving dog.

Our chum Mr Chris Beale made an appearance on the TV last night. Some doco on BBC3 about a festival on the beach somewhere SW England. The poor loves were worried about the SPL and called Chris in to come and check out the levels. All very amusing.

Am off now to continue my tasks…

Its been a week of trying to find cable routes to pull 8 core fibre through. A 9 floor building. Some things marked up, others not. Drawings that don’t match whats actually there and no end of creepy crawlies. Almost at the end now. Just termination & test. Then a week of mellow jobs til we are straight back into another hardarsed fibre job. They pay well but bust your balls.

All i have managed to do this week therefore is to understand how to program CV’s better on my DCC equiped bits in the loft. if you know what i mean…