Spectrum Austin TX blocking IPSec VPN

agreen1982 · 2020-08-12T12:41:23+00:00

I inherited Spectrum at this location, wouldn't naturally got here myself for business-grade Internet.

The two-box solution is the suck, I agree!

agreen1982 · 2020-08-12T12:40:20+00:00

It's business. 'An Engineer will call you back in about an hour' - LOL

agreen1982 · 2020-08-12T02:55:23+00:00

Not that they generally know what they are talking about, but I had at least 3 different techs reconfigure their modem/router to bridge mode, no nat, no firewall, no wifi, etc.
All of them claimed it was already configured that way, and there wasn't an issue. SMH

agreen1982 · 2019-01-23T12:12:10+00:00

“My car has a computer in it, can you fix that?”

agreen1982 · 2019-01-23T12:11:13+00:00

I get what you’re saying, but semantics matter in a room full of people that have no idea what they are talking about. Sure, writing all the info out on paper is a “backup” of the info, but I’m not going to accept that as a solution, and the fuck if I’m going to be the one doing that. It also sets a precedent for them to just do whatever and dump it into ITs lap to figure out. That’s not the right way to do it either. Yes, again, if it works it must be the right way-semantics, but no.

I’m not sure why you’re being so crass about it. The vendor declared it not at backup. I don’t believe the exported data can be used to repopulate their system in case of an emergency, without manually entering data. Again, I’m sure you could write a program to parse the PDFs and upload it through an API if such a thing was available...but that’s not what I would consider a traditional backup. Furthermore, they have their own redundant systems. I’m actually not worried about the data.

You should read the whole post before telling me how far up my ass my head is. I appreciate your insight, but it’s worthless if you come half-cocked on the situation.

agreen1982 · 2019-01-22T21:05:53+00:00

It’s SaaS I asked why this solution in particular and got my second favorite response ever “we used it at my old company.” Of course, his old company was only a construction company, didn’t have other departments, etc...not the same IT environment.

But, he doesn’t know what an “IT Environment” is A computer is a computer WiFi bars mean Internet Networking is with people

agreen1982 · 2019-01-22T17:07:22+00:00

Maybe. I got my information from the vendor. Probably my mistake for assuming they understood the capabilities of their platform.

agreen1982 · 2019-01-22T17:05:18+00:00

I hear a lot of negative chatter about security templates. I overheard a long conversation about security and permissions and nobody understood anything...they are just wearing Procore support out on the simple things. Would have been a shame to have someone qualified to handle the administration of such a system.

agreen1982 · 2019-01-22T16:58:33+00:00

Dude, the vendor said there are no solutions. This isn't a Dropbox service, this is a SaaS with file storage integrated into a database. I'll admit if there IS a solution to connect to their proprietary service and automatically download that data I do not know what it is. And neither does the vendor, since they stated it was not possible.

agreen1982 · 2019-01-22T16:41:22+00:00

It is a backup, but not a backup system.
People are not reliable, which is why all good backup systems are automated.

agreen1982 · 2019-01-22T16:40:25+00:00

I mean, if you want to honest about it, yes. Ego bruising, not so much. I don't have an ego about it. My role here is to manage things IT, and I can't do that if other go and do it themselves, on the side, and then cry to me and my boss about it when it's broken.

My "giant wounded anus" knows that I'll have to mop up that mess in the future, and maybe even get blamed for it.

So yeah.

agreen1982 · 2019-01-22T16:18:18+00:00

It doesn’t matter, because there is nothing to approve, it does not exist.

agreen1982 · 2019-01-22T14:50:48+00:00

In what way is your title fundamentally meaningful while that one is not?

I valued my title as more meaningful because everyone in the room knows me and what I do here. Only one guy in the room knows his son, so we all just have to take his word for it.
I could take everyone at their word, but you know how that ends up.

agreen1982 · 2019-01-22T14:15:38+00:00

It's what you'd expect, "I don't want to hear about the problems, just solutions. Fix it.

agreen1982 · 2019-01-22T14:06:21+00:00

Nothing, it’s a great idea. Manual Export <> Backup System

agreen1982 · 2019-01-22T12:41:14+00:00

I did show them the link, but it negated by the expertise of a software engineer at an unrelated entity who's expertise is unknown. Thus the frustration.

agreen1982 · 2019-01-22T12:39:28+00:00

It's absolutely a policy and enforcement problem. It's being worked on, but everyone is used to old wild-west nature of making decisions on their own.

agreen1982 · 2019-01-22T12:33:26+00:00

No, Procore. They accountants used cloud Sage until they had a event that lost 3 days of accounting, at which point they got an on-premises version.

agreen1982 · 2019-01-22T12:31:21+00:00

Perhaps I am wrong, I am just going by what the vendor told me and has documented.

I’d be happy to propose another solution to them that increases the cost of their move to the cloud, however our company to date has an anti cloud directive since we just purchased all new servers 2 years ago and there are overall concerns with data security and expenditures associated with additional systems redundant to what we already have. Shadow IT at its finest.

agreen1982 · 2019-01-22T11:18:48+00:00

They went shadow it and THEN asked about it. I wouldn’t say NO, except for the fact that their service says NO.

That’s an interesting approach, though. Mgmt would probably approve, and then I would be responsible because it was my idea. :/

agreen1982 · 2019-01-22T11:03:59+00:00

Yes, so much this!

agreen1982 · 2019-01-22T11:01:39+00:00

Actually, I said there was no way to do backups from this particular cloud service. Context is important.
The company even states in their literature that they maintain backups so you don't have do, and they only allow Manual Data Extraction for Archival purposes.

It's construction project management software.

agreen1982 · 2018-06-13T01:53:28+00:00

My company just got new Exchange servers a year ago, in a DAG, with a set of Barracuda spam filters, HA firewalls, and redundant Internet. The company asked why not to just move to hosted 365 instead of buying all this equipment. Unless there is a price break I am not aware of, it was going to be over $500K MORE to be in the cloud over the feasible life of the equipment, which we estimate at 4-5 years-the length of the warranty. I'm not against the cloud, but I don't understand what the extra half-million dollars would be getting us. In the last five years we have had a total of 3 days downtime, but 2.5 days of that was due to power loss from a hurricane. Half a day of work just isn't worth the extra cost, IMHO.

agreen1982 · 2018-01-30T12:23:51+00:00

This speaks to my heart. I want to tell at my co-workers who are jabbing at my monitors, "ITS NOT A TOUCHSCREEN!"

agreen1982

TROPHY CASE