>>Whether we're working in a global enterprise
or more modest SMB, IT folks know there's never enough time,
staff, or skills to get everything done.
>>But it's critical that we work as efficiently as possible,
not just so that we can keep our sanity intact,
but so we have the time and credibility
to be at the table with business leaders
to help guide their technical decisions.
>>Now, while it's true for organizations of all sizes,
for SMBs, the wrong technical decision can be lethal.
>>So, in this session Leon and I are going to explore
five types of tools that help IT pros
by enabling end-user productivity.
But doing so in such a way that creates more time, not less,
for you to focus on other tasks.
>>Now, just like you, we're kind of under the gun here.
We were told that we are limited to three minutes
to talk about each of these tools.
>>What? Are you serious?
>>Yeah, I know.
Blah, blah, blah.
Budget cuts, blah, blah, blah.
Maximizing revenue, not enough time, yeah.
>>Well, okay then.
Start the clock.
>>Here we go.
All right, first up, help desk and ticketing system.
>>Yeah, the help desk is a critical foundational element
for an IT organization.
Especially an SMB IT organization.
Because it's the central point of communication,
central point of contact.
And with that, you have to have certain elements
within a help desk to really make it effective
and get your time back.
One of the things, for example
is having templates for the ticket itself.
What are the minimum information that I need to capture
as part of any call or contact to the help desk.
We need a way to automate the flow of the ticket
within the organization.
So that way everybody knows who's doing what.
Having a place where we can have the private comments
around the ticket, as well as public comments.
So end users can not only check on the status
of the ticket for themselves,
but IT folks can talk to each other
and use those technical terms that we don't necessarily
want to share with the end user.
>>Right, and that's more than just the ID10T or PEBKAC.
No it's actually where you want to say,
"Yeah we've seen this problem, you know, 32 times."
But that's not something that you want out
in the user community necessarily, or whatever.
>>Yeah, exactly.
Because it can be misinterpreted
and even though we know inside of IT
what we're talking about,
it can be misinterpreted from the consumer perspective.
And then I think queues,
having the ability to route a ticket
to a particular work queue,
so that people that are working within that particular group
can find and work on a ticket as they need to.
But, maybe the most critical part here
is the ability to report.
How many tickets am I getting?
What kinds of tickets are there?
Are there certain applications or systems
that are causing more issue or tickets
than what we are really anticipating.
So, the help desk really is that foundational element.
>>And I would also say that reporting, one of the things
that I think a lot of organizations miss is
that you're gonna get what you report.
So, to think about in your reporting system
that if you're gonna report on ticket close time,
you're gonna get very fast ticket close times.
Even if the problem isn't done.
>>Good point.
>>So, think about what you want to report on,
and what you want to measure.
>>Right.
Yeah.
If measurement is the way to manage,
reporting is going to kind of influence how we do things.
So it's important to measure and report on the right things.
Not just things that you may be able to do.
>>Exactly.
Are we done here? >>I think that covers it.
>>Fantastic.
Tool number two, remote desktop.
What is it, why do businesses need it?
>>Well, remote desktop gives an IT technician
an opportunity to actually remote in,
hence remote desktop,
into a consumer's PC or laptop
and maybe remediate an issue that they're having with it.
The fact of the matter is,
there's never gonna be a one-to-one relationship
between the number of consumers,
and the number of IT technicians.
So, remote desktop is one of those critical tools
that gives you back some time that you need
in order to do the job you need to do for your consumers.
>>Right, I remember I was supporting 300 engineers one time.
And they were on third floor, first floor, third floor.
And I lost a lot of weight during that job
because I was running steps all the time.
But yeah, remote desktop would have fundamentally
changed the work I was doing.
>>Right.
Yeah, I think there needs to be a new metric: number of laps
on your pair of shoes if you don't have remote desktop, so.
But it's one of those things
that every IT organization needs,
but especially the SMB IT organization.
Some of the features that you want to look for,
is the ability to do a secure connection.
Not only do you want that connection
between the IT technician and the consumer to be secure,
but you also want the consumer to be aware of that
you're actually remoting into the machine
and they can give you permission.
>>Oh right, yeah you can't just sneak in there.
Most remote desktop tools now expressly don't permit that.
>>Right, right.
And it's an opportunity for the consumer to play along
as you're resolving an issue.
Then you also need something to chat with the end user
as you're navigating from screen to screen.
Here's the things that I'm doing now,
here's what I'm checking.
Have the ability to have that back-and-forth with consumer.
Not only does that help the consumer
understand what it is that you're doing,
but it also builds consumer confidence
and gives you that credibility that you need
that you do know what you're doing
from a remote perspective.
And then, one of the last things
I think you want to look for in a remote desktop tool
is the ability to do some kind of clip and paste
into the tool.
Let's say that you've got a script or something
to help you capture certain kinds of information
from the laptop, the end-user laptop.
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to clip that in,
cut it into the remote PC that you're connected to,
and then execute that script
so you can capture certain information
that might help you with troubleshooting.
>>Right, right.
Anything else?
>>You know, I think those are the big things that you want
with a remote desktop tool.
Remember, there's only one of you
and lots of consumers.
>>Okay, hit it.
Okay third tool, patch management.
Now I think a lot of people are asking,
"Why is this so important, what's the big deal about it?"
>>Well, patch management is one of those proactive things
that every organization ought to do.
But especially an SMB,
to get themselves some time back
by being proactive about insuring
that their systems are up-to-date and current,
reduce the risk of cyberthreats, and other,
you know, making sure that our software's up to date
is one of the most critical things
that an SMB IT organization can do
to insure that they get that time back that they need
to work with leaders.
>>Okay, but specifically which pieces
should people be looking for in a patch management tool?
>>Well, you know, that's a great question.
And what we have to realize is that there are
multiple parts within an IT organization.
Not only do we have to keep our PCs up-to-date,
but also network gear, servers, so on and so forth.
Every part of that infrastructure
has to be up-to-date and current.
And we have to be able to keep it up-to-date
so we can not only maintain it,
but ensure that we have the best reliability
and availability of our systems.
>>Okay, so making sure that you can do multiple parts
of the infrastructure, that's one.
What else?
>>Well, understanding what your inventory is.
What systems need what patches?
That's kind of a task to keep up with.
Especially when you have, you know,
a few more than a handful of devices on your network.
And knowing how many license that you're actually enabled
or entitled to.
That's kind of critical.
>>Okay, fine.
So license management, inventory management, what else?
>>Knowing what systems need what patches.
That's kind of a critical thing too.
Various systems have various life cycles,
and they go through different kinds of patching routines.
And knowing that, okay I got these last week,
these I need to get this week.
Because oftentimes we don't have necessarily the bandwidth
to patch everything with our environment,
nor do we want to at all the given times.
So, ensuring that we're staying out of the end user's way,
while we're patching on behalf of the end user,
is kind of an important thing.
>>Right.
And I'll also say that,
knowing when you have to make a variance.
So, everything isn't always going to be
patched up to the most-newest level,
but knowing that if there's a variance, why?
>>Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And then, you know, now and again IT people have to sleep.
So being able to schedule these things
and automatically patch the things in your environment,
like during the middle of the evening,
have some kind of exception report that comes back and says,
"Oh I missed this one because it was not powered on,
or this one failed for whatever reason."
But being able to automate that process
gives us back the time that we need,
so we can do the other tasks.
>>Right, and that's true of the network gear also,
because sometimes you have to patch,
or you have to update things in
what they've called a leaf and branch process.
Where you have to hit the furthest thing out
and then work your way back
or else you end up cutting yourself off from-
>>Exactly.
>>Whatever, okay.
Fantastic.
>>So patching helps you work smarter.
>>Wonderful, alright.
Next tool!
>>I think that's it.
>>Okay, we're almost at the end.
Tool number four is actually not a tool.
Alerting, it's more of a capability that should be available
in any of the other things that we're talking about today.
But we just want to pull it out,
because there's so much specific about it, right?
>>Yeah, the thing about alerting
is it gives you back time, because A,
if you find out something
before your consumer finds out about something,
you can work on that and proactively resolve it.
But even more important in my opinion,
you find out before your boss finds out.
[laughter] That's the worse thing that can happen,
is your boss comes into your office and says,
"Hey did you know so-and-so was going on?"
If you got that alerting capability,
you avoid that embarrassing situation.
>>Fantastic, okay so what are they key features
that a business of any size should be thinking about
with their alerting functionality?
>>First, is just the ability to define a threshold.
What is it that I'm wanting to alert against.
Full disk system, CPU utilization,
some of the basic kinds of things.
Even maybe transaction flow vs. transaction rates.
Might be one of those things
that you want to keep an eye on,
so that you can take action before things go south.
>>Okay, what else?
>>Well, having the ability to use some of the out-of-the-box
kinds of alerts.
Some things, you know, thresholds to monitor for,
that kind of capability might be a great thing to kind of
get a jumpstart on that.
>>Okay, so I'm gonna counterpoint here for a little bit.
We've talked a lot about it on Lab,
and THWACKcamp, and things like that,
that out-of-the-box alerts are suggestions.
They're not considered to be best practices,
but they're showing that a particular
kind of thing can be done.
You can collect the top ten processes
when a certain thing occurs.
So don't, my rule is not to take an out-of-the-box alert as,
let me turn them all on because these are perfect.
But, "Oh I see, I should be thinking about
these kinds of alerts and not modify them 'salt to taste'
for my organization."
>>Yeah, that's a great point,
because not even, you know,
having the ability to see what the tool can do
with some of the out-of-the-box is great.
And then, the last thing,
if you're gonna find it,
do something about it.
So being able to automate the solution
or the remediation of the issue.
>>Right. So I was at, when I'm setting up an alert I say,
"When this happens what are you gonna do?"
Oh I just type the grafrinkle command,
and then I wait to see what happens,
well can I type the grafrinkle command for you?
And then monitor for that,
and that way when the person gets the notification
they know that X occurred, Y was tried,
Z was tried, none of that fixed it.
So now you're getting information,
or a ticket, or what have you.
>>Right, absolutely.
So there gets you some time back.
>>Okay, speaking of time back,
I think we got a little extra time,
let's go to the fifth question.
>>Great.
>>Hit it.
Okay, fifth tool, we're almost there.
Syslog.
Now I'm curious, like why Syslog?
What is it about that, that a business needs to be aware of?
>>Yeah, I think Syslog is one of those overlooked things
within an environment.
When I think about Syslog,
I think about it as being like the flight data recorder,
or your black box within your IT environment.
>>Okay.
>>It captures lots of information and can be invaluable
when it comes to troubleshooting some kind of issue.
>>Okay, great.
But there is an issue with how chatty it is right?
>>Yeah, it can be a little chatty
if you're not careful with it,
so a good Syslog tool will give you the ability
to select or filter kinds of things.
Which is something you want to look for .
>>Okay, great.
Anything else?
>>Well, as you might imagine.
Every server, every device out there that does Syslog,
has its own Syslog.
You can suddenly find yourself overwhelmed
with all these Syslogs.
So, you need a way to consolidate Syslogs,
so you have just one place to go look.
Versus multiple places to go look at your Syslogs.
>>Okay, and this is where I get up on my soapbox.
I've talked about this a lot,
and I want to talk about it now.
Is that Syslog and Trap also
represent a huge pressure on the monitoring system.
If you send all your Trap and Syslog
to a single system, you're going to overwhelm it.
It doesn't matter which vendor or which solution you use.
So, what I propose is a Trap and Syslog filtration system.
And what it looks like is this.
Where you have all the devices sending Trap and Syslog out,
there over here, and then they're sending it in.
Now if you send it to the monitoring system,
like I said, you're just going to clobber it into the dirt.
So, instead you take a load balancer,
put one virtual IP, one VIP.
Which means that configuring your environment
is much easier, because you now can just configure
that single VIP for everything.
And then behind the load balancer,
which by the way doing UDP round-robin,
that's important.
So it's connectionless.
Behind that, you put as many virtual or physical servers
that are doing Trap and Syslog forwarding.
It has to be transparent forwarding
so that the original source IP
and source machine information is kept.
And that will forward the things
that have monitoring impact to the monitoring server.
If the security team says that they want the audit logs
or the firewall logs,
you can branch off and create a rule for that.
And finally you can throw everything into a database,
and then do the dumpster diving,
the flight recorder analysis that you need there.
So that's what I always propose people do,
so that they're not overwhelming the monitoring system
which is doing so many other things at the same time.
>>Yeah, I think that's a great suggestion.
And you know, back to the point,
Syslog is one of those things we often don't think about,
but can save us so much time
if we just know to go look at those things.
>>Right, and you have a way to get into it.
>>Absolutely.
>>Okay, fantastic.
Are we there?
>>I think that's it.
>>Excellent.
Okay, I can not believe
that we finished everything in 15 minutes.
>>Yeah, but there's still so much more
that we could talk about on each of these topics.
>>Right, well that's actually not a problem
because we have more resources in the show notes
that go along with this.
>>Yeah but, if we were so strapped for time
how can we just be sitting here chatting now?
>>Well, they actually probably haven't noticed
that we're still on.
So, we can actually probably sneak in a sixth tool--