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Working From Home During a Worldwide Pandemic #Covid19

Working From Home During a Worldwide Pandemic #Covid19 #WFH #workingfromhometips

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IR35 & the Off Payroll Protest

IR35 & the Off Payroll Protest

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Why everyone should be worried about IR35?

Why everyone should be worried about IR35? #contractors #IR35 #taxation #workers #rights #employment #CEST #mondaymotivation

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The Monitoring Archetypes

Here they are, the monitoring archetypes. See if you recognise any of these traits...

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The Origin of the Alert

The Origin of the Alert

When I was five years old, I loved tales about soldiers.

So, settle down and let me tell you a story about some soldiers.

In the late 16th century or thereabouts, while journeying through Mont Blanc, an Italian infantryman saw a band of invading French men and shouted to his comrades “All’erta.” The Italian soldier’s comrades swiftly responded by moving to a high lookout point, where they could…

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Data Centre Standards

Data Centre Standards - A Finely Tuned Engine at the heart of your organisation. #cabling #data #patching #labelling #testing #fibre #communication #cabinets #environment #network #monitoring #project #costs

Ever walked in to a data centre and thought?

“Wow this looks impressive!”

– Data Centre Engineer

or

“How have they managed to hold that server in, with a piece of string?”

– Data Centre Engineer

or

“How does that cabinet stand up with all that hardware hanging out of it?”.

– Data Centre Engineer

I know which feeling I prefer, when I walk in to a data centre…

Nobody likes to…

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The 5 W's Process for Communication.

The 5 W's Process for Communication. Making a change? This is a good way to let people know... #change #communication #monitoring

Why, Who, What, Where, When?

When technical work or changes are carried out it is useful to have an email template to send out to staff to tell them what is happening. As long as the distribution list used contains all the people who need to know it works well.

Why are we doing it? What is the problem we are trying to solve?

First of all we start with why are we doing it? Why are we…

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Safeguarding, Monitoring and Providing an Automated fix for a Controlled Messaging System

Safeguarding, Monitoring and Providing an Automated fix for a Controlled Messaging System. #Solarwinds #Monitoring #Alerting #Automation #Tyrell #Service #Infrastructure #Environment #Application

I had a request this morning to monitor a bespoke application, the Tyrell Control Messaging application.

So I thought i’d document the application monitoring process for you all to see.

The server names and IP addresses have been sanitised to protect the innocent.

Monitoring is required to let the engineers know that there has been an application failure and provide an automated fix.

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The Keys to Success Vs Toxic Cultures

The Keys to Success Vs Toxic Cultures

Starting a new project is fun. Making that project a success can be a challenge. A project becomes a greater challenge when a company has few or no processes in place to support it. There are undoubtedly technologies that you want to learn about, people you want to meet and new places to visit.

The first task for any new project is to agree upon the prerequisites :

Purchasing.

Timescales,…

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Do you have a slow SolarWindsOrion database?

Do you have a slow SolarWindsOrion database? See how to fix it here... #monitoring #SQL #database #performance #Orion #Indexes #fragmentation #Solarwinds

The Orion database can on occasion run slowly, despite running automatic database maintenance tasks every night.

This slowness can often be caused by fragmented indexes. I have seen this fragmentation happen at a few of my customers recently.

To find out which indexes are causing this slowness add the Solarwinds Orion database into Server and Application monitor.

When the database is…

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A free Solarwinds MVP consultancy day for a UK charity.

Does your UK charity run Solarwinds and you could do with some free Solarwinds MVP help? #monitoring #solarwinds #help #infrastructure #technical #MVP #consultancy #health #check #procedures #dashboard #introduction #networking #

I have been running ACMTIX LTD since September 2013. Running my own consultancy has been a great experience and I’m looking forward to doing more great infrastructure monitoring work in 2019.

I have worked with some amazing people who have inspired me, supported me and presented me with some tricky technical challenges.

I had an idea over Christmas that I should use my Solarwinds MVP…

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Creating Vector Images using Adobe Photoshop.

Creating Vector Images using Adobe Photoshop. You can do it too! #vector #image #art #photoshop #infrastructure #Network #logo #monitoring #engineer #technical #creative #saturdaymotivation

When I stay away from home in a hotel, I like to get creative. I create vector images using an old copy of Photoshop on my laptop. It can be tricky working on a small screen.

Whats the difference between a vector image and a normal image?

Raster (bitmap) image: At 100% the image looks almost the same as the vector version (below). Notice that as soon as the image is scaled, the pixels on the…

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Monitoring Request Forms

Monitoring Request Forms for Solarwinds - #Solarwinds #Monitoring # Infrastructure #reports #alerts #transactions #requests #share

Whenever I start a new Solarwinds monitoring project, companies and organisations always ask me about methods of tracking monitoring requirements.

The best way to track these requirements is with request forms. Hopefully one day Solarwinds will incorporate these kind of request forms into their products but until then these forms will act as an aid to understanding the monitoring process.

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Designing the Ultimate Network Map

Designing the Ultimate Network Map - Solve issues in seconds, rather than days... #Solarwinds #infrastructure #monitoring #network #design #architecture #operations #NOC #sysadmin #map #atlas #engineer

Network maps are something that everyone needs.

The ultimate network map allows a system admin to find information about an organisations environment/infrastructure easily, solving problems in seconds rather than days.

When systems go down, some system administrators are forced to spend hours reading through endless technical manuals, written by previous engineers. When an engineer…

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Solarwinds Orion Design Proposal

Solarwinds Orion Design Proposal

I was asked to write a document of 2000 words to provide a proposal to an organisation in need of a new monitoring system.

Here is my solution, let me know what you think in the comments below the article :

Proposed Approach

The new Solarwinds monitoring system will replace all other monitoring systems and give the Service team full visibility and control of all required environments.

Co…

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MSP's don't work.

MSP’s don’t work.

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Combining Dynamic Groups with Custom Properties in Solarwinds.

Combining Dynamic Groups with Custom Properties in Solarwinds.

Custom properties are great for recording information in fields that Solarwinds doesn’t provide by default.

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