Ryan Is Rambling On Again

Back in February I started at a new job at Keystone Industries in Cherry Hill, NJ.  This is my first job in the IT field.  The first few weeks were crazy for me because they were in the process of switching from one ERP system to another.  I was left to figure out most things on my own which is difficult when you don’t even have access to all of the buildings.  I didn’t have a clue how the network was structured or even how many servers we have (I now know that we have 18 in total) and what the functions of each server is.  I was left to handle all non-ERP related functions which consisted mostly of desktop and printer support.  I learned very quickly that all of the printers were not installed on the same server.  In fact, the printers are spread out over 5 different servers which isquite the nightmare when trying to diagnose problems with or install new network printers when you don’t know the names or even quantity of servers in the organization! 

Things have finally settled down a little for me.  I’ve gotten a handle on the structure of the company and my job scope has been more defined.  I’m getting to know the people here and I surprised to discover that there are only two people that I am not very fond of.  I expected that number to be higher.  Maybe it will increase as I put in more time here, but I hope not.  The new ERP system is Microsoft’s Dynamics AX and it is apparently quite different from the old system.  I get questions about it all the time and I am completely unable to help because I had never even heard of it prior to coming here.  I need to learn how it works so that I can be a better resource to the company and so I don’t feel like a complete tool when a user asks the “IT guy” a question and all I can do is shrug my shoulders and say something brilliant like “hmmmm…” or “I don’t know”.  Does anyone have any suggestions on where I can go to learn this system?

As time goes on this job will become much easier but I do not believe it will ever be boring.  There is just too much to do in a three person IT department for it to ever get dull or repetitive.

It’s official…Microsoft Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 sp1 DO NOT play well together.  After almost 2 hours of trying to install Exchange 2007, I finally gave up.  I downloaded Exchange Server 2010 and PRESTO…no problems!  It installed with no errors on the first try!  As you can imagine I was thrilled and disgusted all at the same time.  So, we will be using Exchange 2010 for certain.

BIND DNS may be the most widely used DNS server on the planet, but like all things open source it has NO GUI, numerous little “quirks”, and no decent documentation.  I installed BIND, configured it, started it and was able to verify it was working.  Then I shut down VMWare and my computer and went to bed.  When I came back this afternoon to work on it some more, BIND was not working.  I tried to start it manually…no luck.  I tried to reload it…no joy.  AAAARRRGGGH!  Time to fire up the primary resource for the open source community, Google, and figure out what is going wrong.  I found numerous blogs about this problem, but none of the solutions seem to work.  I think that when I shut down the server last night it installed an update.  According to a few of the posts I’ve read, those automatic updates from Microsoft have a habit of blowing out BIND DNS and reloading Microsoft’s DNS (shocking that Microsoft would do something like that *said dripping with sarcasm*).  But, after shutting down Microsoft’s DNS, rebooting and shutting down Microsoft’s DNS again, and finally shouting and swearing at my monitor I still can’t start BIND.  If you heard a hollow thudding sound earlier today it was just the sound of my head repeatedly banging against my desk.  I’m thinking that I’m just going to reinstall BIND from scratch RIGHT AFTER I DISABLE THE AUTOMATIC UPDATES FROM MICRO$OFT!!

I learned a lot of good stuff about an MPLS network over the weekend.  Now I’m not sure that we can do it at the school.  It seems that we don’t have routers at the school that can be configured for MPLS.  They want a live demo, not a simulated one, but when the equipment is older than the current technology out there (ex., not a single 64 bit PC in the building except the student’s laptops), they may need to loosen up the rules just a touch.  When I see my instructor this week I’m going to ask if we can do our demo through Packet Tracer.  Does anyone know if MPLS can be configured in Packet Tracer?  If the answer is yes, does anyone know how?

My next task is to turn Fedora 11 into our web server and integrate it into our network.  I feel many hours spent with SAMBA, SWAT and/or Webmin coming on.

Other than all of the problems caused by Microsoft’s brilliant (again, *sarcasm*) software, I’m feeling good about the progress we are making.  Al was here today working on the IP address scheme and finishing up the documentation that needs to be turned in.  Tomorrow Al, Trish and I will be meeting up at the school for a few hours to finish up the stuff that’s due later this week.  Also, we will be getting Tom back now that his medical woes seem to be coming to an end.  That will be fantastic!  Things are moving along.

More to come…

We have decided to use Microsoft Server 2008 R2 for our servers.  We were going to use Exchange Server 2007 but I’m having MAJOR issues getting it to install.  I’m not sure if its a compatibility issue with Server 08 R2 or if it’s a problem with VMWare 7.  I’m going to try to install Exchange Server 2010 and see if that goes a little smoother.  We may be switching to Server 2010.  Also, to make one of the instructors happy, we have decided to configure BIND DNS instead of Microsoft’s DDNS.  We may even get crazy and make our web server Linux based and make the sample webpage using Fedora 11 and WordPress.  I enjoyed working with Linux and spent half my time in class helping everyone else so it looks like I get to go a few more rounds with SAMBA.  WOOHOO!!

Again, wish me luck (I’m seriously going to need all I can get).

**Update**

I created a new page just for the posts about this Capstone project.  All future updates will be there.

**ANOTHER UPDATE**

I can’t post directly to a new page.  It seems all but one page in a blog are static.  So I have created a category called Capstone and deleted the page called Capstone.  If you wish to follow along with my progress please click that category.  Sorry for the confusion, but I’m a newbie at this.