The Fundamentals of building Client Networks

Recently I've been thinking a lot about the best way to help my clients understand and engage with their IT networks and systems. I have also been thinking a lot about how to best manage and look after these systems for my clients in a sustainable way. In order to do this I've been looking at the fundamental basic building blocks of my client base and considering the commonalities. The reason for understanding these commonalities is to put into place simple guidelines for developing and maintaining a network. Each network will of course have certain unique circumstances but if the fundamental infrastructure is well understood, these unique aspects of each network will be easier to manage.

So thinking of all of these things, I've looked at the commonalities in my clients and found they can be grouped into several broad categories:

• sites with a single server, single location and a small (less than 30) number of users. They may have some mobility but generally only a small requirement.
• sites with multiple servers but only a single location and between 25 and 50 users. Again, some mobility but not a lot - potentially they'll want more.
• sites with multiple servers, multiple locations and 25 plus users. Requirements for mobility including file access and remote VPN access.

Although these categories are quite broad, they cover 90% of the small to medium business clients I tend to deal with. These clients are all important to me, and given I have a finite amount of time to work with them, its critical that understanding the fundamentals and underlying structure of the networks doesn't need to be re-discovered every time I'm on site. How then to ensure efficient support of clients?

Firstly by grouping sites into the broad categories I mentioned earlier, I have a quick higher understanding of each site. By building each network following standard procedures there is plenty of efficiency to be gained and also it's a lot easier to explain to a client what is on their network.

Secondly good documentation is key. It's not just writing stuff down, but having it available to review when you are onsite - and this means there are several things that have to be in place:

• data must be available via some sort of mobility
• data must be secure
• data must be organised and detailed

Having the data secure is incredibly important - if it's available using some type of web interface, it has to be SSL secured and the passwords have to be strong. Although this seems obvious, it doesn't seem to be well executed. Having data organised and detailed is the key to keeping client networks well looked after.

Thirdly using the same basic ideas to build each network type mean that if the key support staff member is not available, other support staff can easily work out what is where and how it's set up. These basic ideas also make it far more efficient to produce quotes and proposals, and, I've found anyway, that development of new ideas can be more easily implemented into proposals and integrated into networks.

Recently I've noted that lately I have been speaking with businesses that aren't currently clients of mine and I've found some over-complicated and under-documented networks. By applying some of the basic principles I've touched on in the post I'm able to start getting these networks back under control. I've found that the easiest way to do this is the following:

• determine what the client needs
• determine what the client wants
• determine what the client already has
• determine what the client actually can have
• document it all and discuss at length and in as non-technical a manner as possible

These are the fundamentals of building client networks and they are also the fundamentals of recovering a client network from a state of disrepair. The major difference is that the former causes a lot less pain than the latter.

Questions?

AB out.

Self Worth

What do you think of when someone asks you about self worth? Is it merely a financial thing? Or does it refer to an overall way you think about yourself, your values and value or where you are going in life?

I ask these questions because I have recently had great cause to question my own self worth. Someone I care deeply about lost a someone they love recently and I was helpless to do anything. I am still feeling this way as I cannot do anything to save the person in question. This naturally led me to question my own self worth, my self-esteem, and confidence in myself. I've learned a few lessons and I'm not sure if they'll help others if they go through this, but I'll offer them anyway.

It's not always about you
This is something I've struggled with. When something bad happens to someone else and you can't help them, it's not about you. It's their grief, pain and anger that is shaping the situation. All you can do is offer support and if they choose to take it, then so be it. If they don't then that is their choice and you have to accept it, hard as it is.

Some of it *is* about you
Questioning your own self worth, feelings of inadequacy and jealousy in this sort of situation is about you. These things spring from internal conflicts or problems, not external ones. My challenge has (and still is) to move through these feelings without allowing them to impact on my loved ones. Jealousy in particular is dangerous. Sometimes it's warranted and sometimes it's not. When it isn't, then it is critical it can be controlled because it may very well develop in control issues. I refuse to allow this to happen - controlling someone in a relationship is the antithesis of why I'm in the relationship.

Focus on your blessings
Put the positive thoughts and images back into your life. Our thoughts shape the way things happen. Fear, jealousy and the like are negative influences on our life and shape things in the way we fear. Replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts is a key factor to moving past these problems.

Seek help
Find a therapist, or a kinesiologist, or whatever to talk to about this. They will offer (if you get a good one) ways and means to work through feeling low self worth. Self Worth is tied up with lots of aspects of your life including (but not limited to):

• self esteem
• prosperity
• confidence
• love of self
• love of others

Of course, these are pretty big things for anyone. For me, it's been about how I feel about myself and what my life path is. In context with my life, the double hit of what has happened and the sudden and immediate requirement for me to address these problems has put me through a loop. Most of the time I don't know how I feel with the exceptions of pain, loss, confusion and frustration.

My final piece of advice is this: Once you start to build or re-build your self-worth it's a tough road. It is your choice walk it or to remain where you are. My choice is to walk that path. I recommend you do it too. Once you look at where you were and the changes you've made to get to where you are, it's pretty amazing. I don't think I could go back to being the person I was before. So much of the sweetness of life passed me by. Now I'm actively looking for it and finding a small measure of peace as I go along.

A ramble about stuff that irritates me

The internet seems to be a very US centric medium. Most of the news collected appears to be US related. We all know the US is the centre of the known universe (according to them) and I watch with no small sense of amusement as their political system collapses under the weight of incompetence, greed, malice and well, sheer stupidity. There are a lot of calls for impeachment, but while the Senate or Congress or whatever it is stalls and hums and harrs about things, it won't happen. That idiot Pelosi should be enacting the will of the people and making it happen and instead she is saying it's too hard. WTF? As I understand democracy if the people want something to happen, and they have a majority - why isn't something being done about it? In Australia we have a smaller population and while I'm not suggesting our politicians are any brighter than the US ones, at least we lack the resources to bring war to another nation. We just get dragged along by one of our trading partners who is probably ripping us off.

It's time for people to change their perspective about how to deal with other nations. Why not trade with them instead of trying to dominate them? I realise of course, that by trading one might have to pay for oil instead of just stealing it and how abhorrent this must be for certain greed driven folks. It seems to me that religion has a new contender for the cause of most deaths - GREED. Let's take control of oil - we can make a lot of money and it secures our national interest (which is making money). Why not say - keep your stinking oil and find another source of, say renewable energy that takes the power away from the oil providing nations. In 20 years, when there is no oil in the Middle East is anyone going to give a damn what is happening there? If we use sun, or wind, or tide, or nuclear power (which isn't quite renewable but works for a long time) then there is no country or people with a lot of power that can manipulate everyone else. What will this do to the Muslim extremists who are causing such grief to the United Nations Council for Human Rights? Guess what - women are equal to men. Let's move out of the Dark Ages and into the modern times where women are equally recognised for their intelligence, skills and knowledge. Let's take away such stupidity as head coverings, segregated buses and other such stupidity.

I don't want to get into a rant about religion - any religion, but it strikes me that perhaps if people could just take a bit of a step back and think or question what they are being told, we might see some changes take place. Then again, I've read a quote saying that religion takes away the responsibility to have to think. "My religion says this so that's what I'm going to do!" It brings me back to the ramble about the US that I started on. I think it's appalling to see religion getting in the way of day to day politics and decision making. Hearing about an archbishop saying that someone who votes for stem cell research can't take communion is nothing but blackmail pure and simple. Yet we allow it to happen. What's happening in the US is worse with religious figures becoming actively involved in subverting the political process.

And just while I'm on it - Intelligent Design is the biggest load of crap in the world. Anyone who believes in that shit and says that evolution is wrong needs to have their genes removed from the pool. Guess what - we're not descended from monkeys. If we were, there wouldn't be any monkeys. Descent implies they would be us now. We might have a common ancestor (divergent evolution - look it up) but we are not descended from monkeys.

It's unfortunate that the course of natural selection is diverted now - there are a lot of idiots that make the gene pool very shallow.