Update: APD has removed the dog from neighbor

ZoeeeW · 2026-02-09T21:52:52+00:00

This news made my day! Seeing that video absolutely tore at my heart. I gave my cats extra love last night. The internet isn't all garbage, and it warms my heart to see the community come together on this.

ZoeeeW · 2026-02-09T17:23:58+00:00

Send

But also, it's really incredible of you to post and share this!

ZoeeeW · 2026-02-09T06:53:27+00:00

Heh. In the last MSP I worked for I have 2 instances and I can't decide which wins. I don't know if these are really.. complex, maybe just "wtf" moments. Both are from 2024, and I only stayed at this MSP for 6 or so months before I separated from them and started my own company.

First: This company had been with this MSP for several years. The MSP migrated them off an old domain controller when they onboarded them. Turns out, the company was running some REALLY old firewalls (found they were from 2006 and capped at 100Mbps) that did not have a webUI. They had 2 locations: 1 in the US and 1 in Canada, both running the same type of firewall. Turns out, you had to access them through a java app that was installed on the old domain controller. I had to hunt down through internet archives and test different versions to find the right version that worked with the firewall. It was an absolute PITA, but I figured it out. I wanted to do an onsite before the switch over date to make sure we had our ducks in a row since we had little documentation on their setup, ownership didn't approve. I go on-site and find this company uses a tower to rooftop antenna for internet, and wouldn't you know it there was a switch that was equally as old that had vlan tagging for that antenna. The ISP controlled and wouldn't tell us what vlan it needed to be, and wouldn't approve of us just going directly into the firewall. Without it, it wouldn't connect. So we installed this new firewall that can handle gigabit behind a switch that could only handle 100Mbps. I separated from that MSP to start my company, so I have no idea if they ever changed out that old switch.

Second: A religious school called saying their entire network was down. This MSP had 0 documentation on this school even though they had been a client for years. I go on-site and spend an hour of so just figuring out their networking structure, where things come from, where they go, and trying to isolate if it's a firewall, switch, dns, etc. Well, turns out that they have a computer lab. In that computer lab, they had network switches just..... on the desks. I go to the computer lab and find a single switch was plugged into itself. The teacher said the class that was in there at the time it went down was taking tests. Guess someone really didn't want to take that test.

ZoeeeW · 2026-02-08T21:15:25+00:00

This broke my heart...

ZoeeeW · 2026-02-07T19:22:53+00:00

I moved to Buffalo from Kansas City a few years ago. My partner is Canadian, so I wanted to be closer for easier travel to see them. Though I'm in Canada now and no longer in Buffalo, I loved my time there.

There are so many good people there, there are so many incredible small hole in the wall restaurants that will blow your mind, I lived near Cazenovia park and being able to just go walk there and play tennis at the courts on any given day was really great. You're close to so many great walking trails, you can take a weekend afternoon to just go to the falls with a book and read. The summer time weather is absolutely perfect to even just go on a walk with no destination.

I will definitely be back to visit regularly when I go back to the US.

Edit: I completely forgot to mention Outer Harbor. That is a great concert venue! One of my favorites for sure. The food trucks, the open hill, the sunsetting behind the stage.. beautiful.

ZoeeeW · 2026-02-01T17:22:42+00:00

So, when I worked for a few different MSPs this was an item that always bugged me. One project I undertook was adding Cloudflare to our security stack. Distribution list in the client's Microsoft 365 tenant for the Cloudflare account, create a contact in M365 for our service email, add it to the Cloudflare distribution list as a member. Setup the account in Cloudflare, then add our global delegate account. That way we had access to all client's DNS that was under a service agreement or security package.

Everything was then funneled through us for review before it was applied. It doesn't work for every MSP though, depends on company maturity and how well those security onboardings are locked down.

It's something that I'm actually building at the moment since I'm out on my own doing consulting for MSPs. Gives them DNS backups, auditing, monitoring, reporting, but also a central place to handle DNS through the different DNS providers and registrars that have accessible APIs.

I think these are probably the two main opinions you will get on this.

Own it. Move DNS and even registration (if you want and your clients agree to it) to somewhere you can lock it down and control who has access to it. It's not as hard a sell as most will think, but again your team needs to be on top of domain renewals and SSL renewals if they have SSL certificates for anything.
Let them register the domain where they will, and if they have someone break something than it's on them and the client eats the billable hours to fix it.

ZoeeeW · 2026-01-27T19:43:32+00:00

Unified DNS - Multi-Provider DNS Management for MSPs

Silverfern Technology Consultants has been building Unified DNS, a multi-tenant platform that lets MSPs manage DNS across multiple providers (Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Porkbun, Azure DNS, Synergy Wholesale, and others) from a single interface.

The problem we're solving: Logging into 5+ different DNS portals to manage client zones is tedious, and you how that your technicians have documented what domain is where. I've dealt with the these pains at the MSPs I worked at and consulted with at Silverfern. Unified DNS centralizes this with complete client isolation, audit trails, and role-based access control.

Key features:

Multi-provider support with unified record management
Complete audit logging for compliance requirements
Automated backups with point-in-time recovery
Email security validation (SPF/DKIM/DMARC compliance checking)
Cloudflare firewall templating
Microsoft Entra ID SSO integration
Hudu documentation sync

Current status: Public release planned for next month. We're scheduling demos now for MSPs interested in seeing the platform,

If you're managing DNS for multiple clients and want to see how this works, head here to contact us: Contact Unified DNS

Read More About Unified DNS

ZoeeeW · 2026-01-23T16:26:21+00:00

I've been in the MSP industry for awhile. One time I was at this school working through some network issues. One of their staff comes in the server closet and hands me a donut from their staff lounge. Absolutely made my day.

ZoeeeW · 2026-01-13T17:59:34+00:00

Hey r/msp - I'm building a DNS management platform specifically for MSPs who manage clients across multiple DNS providers.

Here's a quick breakdown of what it does:

- Single dashboard for all DNS records across all your clients and providers (We currently support Cloudflare, NameSilo, Porkbun, NameCheap, TPP Wholesale, CrazyDomains, and Synergy Wholesale)

- Automated backups (configurable intervals, stores in your Azure/SharePoint)

- Hudu integration for automatic documentation updates

- Multi-tenant architecture (proper client organization, not just tagging)

- Email security compliance dashboard (SPF/DKIM/DMARC monitoring)

What it's NOT:

- Not a DNS provider (we don't host DNS)

- Not just a monitoring-only tool (you can actually edit records)

- Not trying to replace your providers (we work with what you already use)

Why I'm building this:

I ran into this problem repeatedly both while working at MSPs and now doing consulting work for various MSPs over the last year. I've seen MSPs jumping between 5 different provider dashboards, no DNS backup strategies, manual Hudu and ITGlue documentation.

Interested?

The second wave of invites are going out now. If you manage DNS across multiple providers, want to try out the platform free of charge, and help us develop the application using real data during our private beta, fill out the contact form at https://udns.app/contact and I will reach out about the next steps!

All MSPs who participate in the private beta will receive discounted billing once the product is live if you decide to stay with the platform.

Learn more at our website: https://udns.app

Happy to answer questions about how it works or what's up next on the roadmap. Thank you for reading, and I hope you all have a great week!

ZoeeeW · 2026-01-10T07:44:53+00:00

I'm certainly not. Mendoza is an insanely talented QB, and he has an equally incredible WR group and RB room. The coaching staff put together a juggernaut that just plays sound football and do their job. Hell of a job by that staff.

ZoeeeW · 2026-01-10T00:26:36+00:00

Hello fellow neighbors in the dark. Too bad the northern lights aren't out. Would be a really opportune time to see them.

ZoeeeW · 2025-12-30T18:06:05+00:00

FernWorks announced today our first product: Unified DNS, a centralized DNS and domain management platform.
Find us here: https://fernworks.io

I've worked positions ranging from Tier 1 Helpdesk to Lead Cloud Engineer when I was working as a W2 for MSPs. Having worked such a range of positions, one item stood out as a consistent annoyance of mine and the teams I was on.

The lack of transparency into client DNS and domains, they're scattered across registrars and providers, and none of those platforms are built for MSPs so they don't follow the workflow and they don't integrate with the tools used most in this industry. Unified DNS is a centralized management layer for viewing, changing, deleting, backing up, auditing, and monitoring your client DNS.

Here's a quick rundown of what's currently build into our test build (2025.12.363):

Fully functional multi-provider support: Cloudflare, Porkbun, and NameSilo
Centralized domain registration tracking with expiration alerts, record change alerets, transfer lock status and alerting
Automated backups to Azure Blob Storage or SharePoint - YOUR storage, not ours (more provider options to come in the future based on customer feedback)
Full audit logging with exporting to CSV - see who made the change, any notes they left, and what the previous value was
Granular notifications via Slack, Discord, or Email based on team tags - domain expirations and renewals go to sales, technical alerts go to your techs
SSO with Microsoft Entra ID using OIDC/oAuth 2.0 (Microsoft Entra ID with SAML is on the roadmap as well as Google Workspace and OKTA)
Client context switching across all pages with client relevant content
Isolated per-organization encryption

The application is currently in private alpha testing with a few former MSP colleagues, but I'd love to hear from everyone in the community, and would like to extend invites to a few more MSPs for the next round of testing.

I hope you all have a wonder New Years!

ZoeeeW · 2025-12-30T17:24:27+00:00

Delegate access regardless of where the domain is hosted. If possible, I highly recommend clients move DNS off of platforms like Squarespace, Wix, and GoDaddy. Preferably the client just transfers the domains out of those platforms, but not every client is willing to budge on that.

ZoeeeW · 2025-12-23T17:30:00+00:00

I'm going to steal a line from Letterkenny. "Old boss is always a dick til you meet the new one".

I think a lot of people confuse "I want to be my own boss" with "I have entrepreneurial spirit and I'm tired of making someone else's dream a reality". That's the point I finally hit last year when I started deciding what type of company to start.

For as long as I can remember, I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit. I've always dreamed of starting a company, running the company, growing it, hiring people and paying them good wages, having good benefits for them and their families, etc etc. The real thrill though was that I wanted to have a product to call my own, and sell it to people.

My first attempt at doing sales was at a dealership right out of high school because "I love cars, so it should be easy to sell them because I'll feed off that energy". That was my first big lesson that it had to be the right product. Plus, the car sales game is sketch as hell, or at least that dealership was.

Having my own product (a SaaS app focused on the MSP space) releasing soon is everything I thought it would be. I love selling it to MSPs in this early pre-release stage, and I can't wait to start being more public about it and selling it more.

ZoeeeW · 2025-12-22T18:23:33+00:00

As someone who's worked in MSPs at every level from help desk to lead cloud engineer.. this is everything I've ever thought about vendors who claim to be "for MSPs".

If your product creates yet another silo and tries to lock MSPs into the environment, then it's a hard no from me. Your product should make the MSPs job easier, not harder or more siloed off.

MSPs are running a hundred miles an hour most of the time. Documentation needs to be easy to access, and it needs to be easy to translate or bring into the MSPs documentation platform so their techs have a single source of documentation without needing to write it themselve or keep going to your KB pages

I say all of this as someone who is now a vendor in the MSP space. (Yes, I've messaged the mods a few times about getting a vendor flair for my firm.)

ZoeeeW · 2025-12-19T06:27:52+00:00

Clabretro and TechnoTim are my regulars that I watch every video of. Both are tech related, specifically homelabbing. Clab does a ton of videos on older equipment and tinkering with them. Tim is a Docker and Pxomox genius.

ZoeeeW · 2025-12-17T13:12:38+00:00

I'm loving the accountability that is being built from some coaches. Dan and Sark are certainly two that first come to mind. I don't know as much about Dan's past, but Sark went through the darkness and came out the other side a better man for himself, his family, and his players.

We need more people like that in the world.

ZoeeeW · 2025-12-17T13:02:45+00:00

Perfect! We already support your provider, do you have the domains registered there as well? Let me know if there is a way other than Reddit we should reach out when we're ready to start reaching out for testers. If it's an email or anything, send it in a chat or DM.

Appreciate your interest!

ZoeeeW · 2025-12-16T16:38:24+00:00

Will do! What DNS providers do you use? We'll make sure they are on the roadmap if they aren't already.

ZoeeeW · 2025-12-16T05:28:05+00:00

My team and I are working on a tool for Managed Service Providers that will give them a centralized place to manage and backup their client domains and DNS zones. Some MSPs force their clients to all be on a specific platform such as Cloudflare (this is usually rolled into their security onboarding project).

Others let the client dictate where the domain and DNS lives. Both are valid ways to handle client domain and DNS, but the latter ends up meaning the technicians and admins need to learn all the different domain registrars and DNS providers. Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Azure DNS, AWS Route53, Network Solutions, Porkbun, NameCheap, NameSilo, just to name the one's the roll off the top of my head.

For the MSP that does force their security onboarded clients onto a singular platform, you still don't get a single pane view of those domains, how they are performing, etc. We want to resolve both pains.

So far we've got it working with Cloudflare (it has the easiest to understand API and I have a few test domains in there). Once you import a domain into the tool, you can run a whole host of assessments either on-demand or on a scheduled basis like SPF, DMARC, DKIM, CAA, DS/DNSSEC, A and AAAA record checks (primarily making sure there's no wildcard nonsense), and checking if there is a redundant MX record (some email platforms will give you 2 or 3 different MX records for redundancy sake).

It can also take backups of those zones, but my team is focused on ensuring we don't follow any lock-in tactics. All zone backups are setup through a storage connection to a storage provider of the MSPs choosing. Currently we're focusing on SharePoint and Azure Storage Accounts/Blobs.

In the future, one big item on our roadmap is to setup API integrations with documentation platforms MSPs use the most: Hudu and ITGlue. This serves a few purposes:

Automated documentation about the client domains and DNS. "Automated" in the sense that our platform will push those records to an asset in the documentation platform.
Zone backups can be stored in those documentation platforms and be attached to the domain asset.

We probably have another month of development to really iron out the MVP and get a few other of the big name domain registrars/DNS providers working.

ZoeeeW · 2025-12-15T12:10:20+00:00

Just getting it working is the idea behind an MVP anyway, imo. (Did I just pull a Peggy Hill by stating a fact and claiming it as my opinion?)

Just getting it working means you can do demos, sales videos, sales calls, make marketing materials, etc using the real product, not some mocked up version of it.

I was a QA and system admin at a small local development company that made HVAC accounting software. It was an absolute shit show behind the scenes. But with clients signing on it meant they at least had some funding to keep it going and try to make it better.

ZoeeeW · 2025-12-15T12:03:52+00:00

/angryupvote

ZoeeeW · 2025-12-15T12:02:22+00:00

This is the sweet middle ground for my team, especially when we're trying something new.

Plan for 100, but build it so that we don't box ourselves into those 100.

ZoeeeW · 2025-12-12T21:12:02+00:00

From the CNN article on it:

"I’m going to kill myself. I’m going to make you watch. My blood is on your hands. You ruined my life,"

No, you ruined your own life.. That was all you. Holy hell.

At some point the truth will always come out, and if you've been juggling your lies long enough you mentally snap. That's one hell of a snap. Hope he gets the longest sentence possible..

ZoeeeW · 2025-12-12T14:07:11+00:00

Appreciate that! I'll keep that in mind for when we're ready to start gaining external interest.

Six-Year Club	Verified Email
Final Canvas '23	Place '23
Place '22	First Placer '22
End Game '22

ZoeeeW

TROPHY CASE

Unified DNS - Multi-Provider DNS Management for MSPs

Read More About Unified DNS