superadmin_1

things are very different on a large scale versus small company. questions I had when interviewing were: 1. how do you apply that change to 100/500/1000 servers? 2. what down time actions did you have to take when you applied above change? 3. how did you test prior to change? 4. how did you handle change mgt? 5. how did you know the change was successful? Not exact order - but starting with these questions, quickly identified gaps in thinking or implementation (plus toolset experience)

My personal experience is that the cars I have owned have had little to no issues. I owned a 2007 BMW 5-series, 2014 Audi and 2022 BMW 5-series The BMW cars are fun to drive (for me) and the Audi was very good. I used the car dealership for all maintenance issues and brought them in regularly for maintenance. For the most part I went with the recommended maintenance and on occasion added whatever the dealership strongly suggested. I am not a car person, so I am not comfortable doing any maintenance myself. The only issue I had, was the 2022 BMW came with run-flats. The tires had issues within 9 months and I would up getting rid of them even though the dealers swapped them out for "free". I sold my cars at around the 7-8 year mark even though they were running fine (personal preference).

where was the QA by crowdstrike????

Maybe unpopular opinion, but I would say keep working as hard as you can. Keep learning and doing great things. If your current company doesn't appreciate it (or compensate you enough), then look for another job where someone will. Why? Because your resume will look great, your reputation will be high and you should feel better that you are always giving 100%. There may be a lot of reasons why the new person is making as much as you: - starting salaries go up, you don't negotiate well (or never asked for a significant raise), the new hire is a great negotiator. I once worked at a crappy company and worked my ass off even though my boss (the CFO) was a spiteful, nasty person. I took everything I learned there and landed a job at another company that worked out well for me. That is how I have approached things (worked well for me).

we require 2FA for all admin activity on internal servers. we don't for PC access

Palo Alto Cortex - very happy with it

I ignore the meeting or delete it without sending a reply. In the past, sometimes vendors would show up (uninvited) and I would not meet them.

This is the answer - think back to 5-10 years ago! Don't forget personal files on c-drive of laptop. If you can get your team to document, you have won most of the battle. Now to put it in a share-able space ! I would go for sharepoint - it's survived for the past 15-20 years?

need more details, but for me, I always wanted to get ahead. If the additional $$ also included a path to promotion based on hard work and results, then that is the path for me. After managing remote, hybrid and mostly on-prem workers for the past 3 years, you significantly increase your chance of success by being on site (especially if your manager is on site). From what I have observed, fully remote individuals are okay with their life and don't prioritize work over home life - if that is what you want, go for it. If you want to climb the corporate ladder, work hard to get ahead, make more money -then go for the on-prem job. It depends what you want.

Depends how large the company. If you want to focus on an area more and become a SME, then try to learn as much as possible now. I worked for a medium sized company in the past, $1B in revenue. We had strong SME's, paid them well. I hired for specific tech talent and knowledge, but the reason I hired them is because they had personal labs at home that they were passionate about and could explain how they tested things, taught themselves new ideas, etc.

printers SUCK! Since windows v.1 Once those dot matrix printers died (or was it the thermal printers?), it's been all downhill

We have something similar (mandatories). If they are not completed, you are not eligible for bonus. The managers are alerted when employees don't complete mandatories. If enough employees on your team don't complete them, then the manager suffers as well.

If you want to dig into a bit of security, Darknet Diaries.

We had similar issues. Teams live for presentations - any type really improved it. Otherwise, the presenter is sending up presentation to MS teams from desktop then back down over multiple streams to all desktops. You impact the bandwidth. what is the bandwidth utilization at egress? have the network guy show you. what is the latency to [teams.microsoft.com](https://teams.microsoft.com) \- are you using top tier ISP, or 2nd or 3rd tier? whats the typical desktop? for all presenters in our teams large meetings, we gave them super pc with 8gb ram minimum. told them NOT to run anything else during presentation. during a live session - run the teams admin. zero in on complainers to see what is happening on their desktop. our experience - even when in office and hardwired: \- exec decides to use laptop at last minute and pulls from docking station, so now wifi is in use - realizes choppy performance, so plugs in - teams drops/lags as he switches to wired IP address \- user is using their iphone on their home wifi and trying to present \- user is in a bad wifi spot in the office \- user is running multiple programs and when you look at cpu, they are over 90% and trying to present. You can only see this with the teams admin \- also saw multiple versions of teams on computers \-home networks having terrible wifi Overall, our teams experience improved. We use Verizon which peers with Microsoft (low latency. we increased our bandwidth because we saw saturation at egress during presentations. We called out users complaining by pointing out what they were doing and how to improve it. Now we have better experiences (not perfect). For large meetings, we always use Teams live.

this is the answer. you are under investing in IT and the risk is that you will lose your company (all of it). Security - you need it for email. You could still suffer a BEC attack and lose thousands, millions. You need an email system and you need to teach your management team security and the risks associated with NOT maintaining security. Your website - hijacked - held for ransom. Your company reputation is damaged. Today, with cyber insurance policies, there are many requirements by the insurance companies that you need to maintain in order to prove that you are maintaining your environment. PC's, laptops other computers - who are local admins? can they be taken over? What company secrets, orders, bills, invoices, customer information are kept on the computers? Are you protecting the information? Where do you have your IP? As a mid-size company, you make decisions to protect the company. This is for the benefit of your company. Get your legal team engaged.

we only deal with local customers. no overseas offices except for insurance companies. we geoblock all outside of our continent.

Updates will happen more often now that the russians stole source code

Yes, I would agree - but what are the options? Continue getting robbed/ransomware'd? At what point are the losses acceptable and the cost of doing business? Insurance costs go up, which has a direct impact to the US economy because the costs get spread from the Insurance company, to the company that has the insurance, to the customers of the company. The customers could be business or consumers. OR - try to destroy the bitcoin services that anonymize payments and receivers.

We need to think of these hacking groups like pirates. Surgical strikes to take them out.

You don't indicate your level, but if you talk to the cyber insurance provider, I am assuming you are at least a manager. Are you at your final step in pushing back? I would create a document / powerpoint - starting with: "I am recommending we NOT go through with the following requests, for the following reasons:" And then list out each request, with your rationale and RISK associated with the request. example: login in on any device: NOT RECOMMENDED, RISK=Medium/High Reason - not protected, cached credentials, impersonation risk, etc. Mitigation - MFA, user must clear cache, user must change PW next time, user etc. I would send it to your manager, exec requesting and any friends you have in legal, compliance. You will go on record as NOT recommending (but you have to be able to offer options). Look at the users and the process - is it difficult to do the steps for the average user? How does it impact their workflow - talk to individuals and put yourself in their shoes. This will help you come up with options that may be acceptable to you and the business.

most company policies allow the company to have full access to everything (not quite, but close). however, at my last two places I work (both medium sized firms), all requests like that had to approved by HR. Check your company's policies.

We had a meeting and tried immersive. That was ridiculously stupid. What a waste of time - I can't believe with all the bugs in the product, that MS would spend time on something like that.

One of the main benefits when purchasing your own hardware, is that your 3 year upgrade cycle is totally under your control. If business is great, you can expand. If business is not going well, you can extend your 3-year cycle to 4,5 or even 6 years. So your only cost during those extra years are maintenance. And your license costs should stay the same (relatively speaking. Right now, if things don't work well, fast or there are issues - you (and your team) will be on them quick. Cloud - it depends. You may be able to address issues, find someone to speak to, or will be dependent on the cloud provider to somehow address issues. If you go cloud, you have consistent operational costs (that will NEVER go down). If your business is great, good or bad, you will be challenged to reduce costs once you have built up that cloud infrastructure. Your costs will only go up. You don't save money going to cloud. You get scalability, more tools, etc.

I am not sure what the size of the company is, but if the CEO determines your bonus, are you working for a small (-ish) company? I think you actually made your case why you deserve a bonus. 1. worked super hard on this. 2. prepped the customer with no additional cost to them (good and bad - maybe you should have let management know all along that you were doing this. and didn't bill the customer). 3. have been held up by company policy (you have no control). 4. have worked closely with company to identify issue holding the project up (GPO). 5. (again) have worked your ass off and you are mostly waiting for the company Never feel bad that you worked hard. You learned a lot, you gave it your best effort, you know the good work you did. You should feel confident that you can always bring that - if not this company, then the next one. Bottom line: What do you want? Bonus ? Give them all the reasons that you deserve it. If the CEO determines the bonus, speak to them. Good managers want to hear the truth, whether it's pleasant or un-pleasant. Be prepared to negotiate. 50% bonus now and 50% bonus when complete(?) Speak to the company you are supporting - once the freeze is lifted, what is the game plan. (Management hat on - what are your dates, after speaking with the company, that they will commit to finishing)? If you come prepared and make your case, you should feel better about your direction, one way or another. Don't ask, don't get

As others have said, ask for a garden leave to start after you finish helping them (on Dec 31). Don't ask, don't get. Make it a point that you are trying to be fair and help them. Practice with someone asking for more - so that you aren't nervous. Speak to someone face-to-face (or virtual), don't do it by email (except to confirm and document). If you don't get what you want, I would still do your job to the best of your abilities. You never know when you will run into someone at another company and it benefits YOU to leave on good terms, and that people have a positive memory of you. If you quit/leave now, you may not get everything that you believe you should get.

Cost for VMWare is ridiculous. Sad that there is no real competition. We renegotiated our Enterprise licensing and cost went up over 50%

I have a 4TB NAS at home + google cloud data (photos and data)

If I were you, I would go to the new job because you are going to learn more and make more money. You need to think about your family and provide for them. What are the downsides? do you work in an area where you could go to a different place if you didn't like the new job?

It is a different mindset. Once you're in management, the expectation isn't that you are working but that your whole team is working. You are expected to get results from your group (not you). The better results you get, the more successful you will be. In order to get good results, it is a lot of work - different than what made you successful and got you into the management role. Now you have to think strategically, ways to motivate, make sure that your team follows up and communicates. You can maintain your technical skills (if that is what you meant by working), but that is not expected of you and won't necessarily be rewarded. Keep focusing on results, motivate your team, mentor them, have them keep learning, challenge them and make them better than you were - you (as a manager) will reap the benefits.

I think this is a good strategy. I went back to school for an MBA in finance while working in technology for a financial services firm. It my opinion, it made my conversations and communications more acceptable to the financial analysts, etc on the business side. The other reasons/benefits: 1. Schools can't keep up with the changes in technology and so I felt that I wouldn't learn as much by majoring in technology (as opposed to finance). I was a strong self-learner on the tech side. 2. At the time, I felt my budgeting, forecasting and understanding of operational expenses was weak and I thought that going to school for finance would strengthen it (this was accurate). I felt these were areas I would need to know and understand if I went into the management ranks (this proved accurate). 3. On a more personal point, going to school for finance improved my knowledge of stocks, investing, asset allocation. I have managed our family (and extended family) finances in this area. 4. The finance major improved my visibility within the organization and helped me get promoted throughout my time in financial services. It made me more rounded and was not looked on a "just a techie". Good luck !

How many super users? Do they all plan to connect at the same time? If so, you may need to review your FW for max throughput. Especially if your FW is used for the rest of the company for other activity. Also - no split tunnel for your users otherwise you introduce bad internet with your good internet. We are entering a similar situation - we have our remote users (doctors) who are doing specialized readings and need high bandwidth. We have locked down their remote setup so only the assigned computer can connect (no other device allowed).

Microsoft spent time creating avatars and including makeup as part of teams instead of anything worthwhile.

how are you traveling? are you driving? bus, train? Keep looking for another job, don't give up! in the meantime, make yourself a better person while commuting. listen to podcasts, listen to old comedy, new comedy. read books, learn a language, there are a lot of opportunities to do something better with yourselves. for podcasts, listen to David Senra, Founders - I listen to it and get motivated (as I go to work). There are so many options. BTW, I commuted to work for about 1.5 hours for 25 years - it's not fun, but I tried to make the best of it

Focus on getting another job. You need to look out for # 1 = you and your family. Don't make enemies, unfortunately, you will need to put up with the situation until you can leave. Be aggressive in looking for another job. When you find one, give two weeks notice and walk away with your head held high. Learn as much as you can.

recommend an external SME show what happened. Keep all logs and evidence now.

Networking is part of the process of finding a job. It is important because all you need is an introduction. 1. Expand your network. Use linkedin to connect with as many people as you know. Go back to your prior jobs, college, even high school and try to connect. You may think, I was never friendly with that person, or whatever, but you have to TRY to connect otherwise you WON'T. 2. To network, you have to get out of your comfort zone. Go to conference, tech events, meetups and walk around and introduce yourself. First few times, very uncomfortable introducing your self to strangers. Over time you get better. If you put your hand out, most people will shake your hand. When you go to events where you don't know anyone, just remember, others are in the same situation as you and would like to meet you. 3. Find a job you like, before you apply, check you linkedin network to see if anyone can make an introduction for you (2nd connection). This may or may not work, there is only one way to find out - you must TRY. On a personal note, I did all of the above. I had many resume rejections and interviews with no offers. What worked for me is that I saw an ad on a company website (near my town). I reached out to people I knew who lived in that town (personal and via linked). I asked them if they knew anyone who worked there. Turns out, one contact did know someone who worked at the company. Introduction was made and I then submitted my resume. I managed to get to the screening process because of the introduction. I was eventually hired. If someone I know says to me, you have to take a look at this person, my team always does. We may not hire, but we definitely reach out and do a phone screen. Best of luck - keep trying and don't give up !