The Lone Sysadmin

At work we’ll often eat lunch as a group around the conference table in the middle of the office. It has a projector and a Mac attached to it, so inevitably we’ll start roaming around YouTube for something to watch. Yesterday we stumbled into a bunch of crazy acoustic guitar playing.

Edgar Cruz playing Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody:”

Andy Mckee playing Toto’s “Africa:”

Wow.

A while ago I wrote a diatribe on keeping too much data. Recently I have been asked what data I do suggest keeping in a configuration management database (CMDB).My preliminary answer: Less is more. Store whatever data you absolutely cannot live without. Be stingy, for every item requires maintenance, and maintenance requires time which nobody has. Don’t store anything you can query from the machine or elsewhere. Do store information that will help you repair the machine if there is a problem.My suggestions for things to start with:

• Server name. (duh!) :-)
• Hardware serial number. From this you can usually look up the system configuration as shipped.
• Hardware manufacturer model number, which will tell you a lot.
• Hardware warranty expiration. While you can get this from the system configuration it’s pretty useful to generate a report of everything that’s going to expire this year.
• Number of CPUs and the number of cores. Do you really care about their speed? Probably not. The quantity has a bearing on licensing, though. If you don’t care about that don’t record any of this.
• IP addresses and service DNS records, if you don’t have another way to correlate services to servers.
• Primary & backup system administrator or administration team (who to call when there’s a question or trouble).
• The location of the server, should someone need to find it or a labeling mishap occur.
• Customer information, specifically any financial information you need to bill the customer.

There’s lots of other data that is useful in a CMDB, and it depends on your own business and processes. Just ask yourself: is what I’m storing useful to me right now and not some nebulous “what if” contrived future situation? Could I add the data the first time I need it instead of right now?Fight the urge to add everything you can think of. Less is more!

“The usual choice is not between the good and the bad but between the bad and the worse.”– French Proverb(sounds like most enterprise software packages to me…)

“When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.”

– God to Bender, “Godfellas” episode of Futurama.

Sorry folks, this week is going to be slow on the blog, and I am having a tough time getting to my email if you have sent me some. I have a big lighting design project to finish, taken as a favor to a friend in need, and it seems that last weekend and this coming one have been jam-packed with stuff going on. So my time where I’d normally write about stuff and answer my email… poof! Gone.

You know what, though? I’d rather be busy than bored.

Okay, maybe a little less busy.

:-)

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”

– Miriam Beard

(I liked this one so much I’m totally stealing it from my friend Maitri’s post… thanks Maitri!)

• Seth’s Blog: Rochambeau the front line

• Craptails - CHOW

  Worst. Cocktails. Ever.

• Manhunt 2 - Can this game be saved?

  You know, it seems that this is a perfect opportunity for parents to teach their kids the difference between the real world and imagination, and that REAL violence isn’t okay. The less kids know about violence the less they’ll be able to defend themselves against it, or be able to stop it from happening.

“What’s My Blog Rated?” says I’m rated G:

Yeah, um, WTF. I’m going to have to go ahead and disagree. :-) I saw this on Maitri’s blog, but her friend’s post is hilarious. At least to me.