HELP - Maintenance Plan

  • Thread starter Thread starter Eric
  • Start date Start date
E

Eric

I'm wondering if someone can help steer me in the right
direction. I'm currently changing my role at work from a
developer (web/SQL Server) to that of a Network Admin.

I've been asked to develop a maintentance plan for our
network. We have two web servers, two db servers (SQL
Server 2000), several file servers and a print server
(all running 200 server or Adv. Server). We have
approximately 30 desktops. We are currently running
under one domain but have two subnets and four DNS
servers.

The aim of such a maintenance plan would be to provide a
proactive vs reactive approach to the overall performance
and reliablity of the network. I thank you in advance
for your help.
 
Hi Eric, are you sure you want this job?
Let me give you a quick outline to get you started:

Backups
Is every server backed up? What is the overall backup/disaster recovery
strategy? Is it documented? Could you recover data TODAY should you lose
it?

Security
Has Baseline Analyzer been run on every box?
Antivirus
Firewall
Patch Management (see Software Update Services)
Group policies in line with corporate policies?
ACL's (who has access to your systems? should they?)
Actually, security is a very long topic best addressed in another forum,
but start with the basics listed above.

Change management
Is every change documented/communicated/tested/approved with backout
plans in place?

Asset management
Hardware inventory
Warranties/support numbers documented?
Do you have spare drives on hand?

Network Health
SNMP alerts/pages set to notify you at home at 2 AM on a Sunday when a
system goes down?

Sorry about that last one. Welcome to my world! BTW, don't think of it as
proactive vs. reactive. Sometimes servers have a life of their own and how
quickly you are able to react to a problem is what will make you a hero or a
villain. But you are smart to be as proactive as possible in trying to
prevent problems in the first place.

Good luck!
 
Thanks for your response. In response to your outline:

Backups:
Currently using Veritas Backup Exec which I configured
myself. Mission critical data is backuped daily to tape.
I'm also keeping weekly backups that are then overwritten
on a monthly basis. The recovery process is a weak one
that needs to worked on though.

Security:

Firewall installed by third party verndor. I have no
knowledge of how to tweak or manage. We're using
Watchguard Firebox.

Baseline Analyzer not run. I will add this to the list.

Antivirus installed and configured by myself - we're
using Symante Antivrus Enterprise 9.0 w/the Filtering
Agent for Exchange.

Patch management - needs imporvement. Seems like we've
been handling this haphazardly.

Group policies in line with corporate policies? - I have
no idea. Again, network installed by 3rd party

ACL's (who has access to your systems? should they?) -Do
you mean internally and externally?

Change management
Is every change documented/communicated/tested/approved
with backout plans in place? Major weakness here is
documentation.

Asset management
Hardware inventory - Some documentation
Warranties/support numbers documented? - This area needs
major organzing.
Do you have spare drives on hand? - No. However, our
database server is clustered. Our webserver is not nor
is it load balanced (but usage is low so I don't see this
as being necessary).

Network Health
SNMP alerts/pages set to notify you at home at 2 AM on a
Sunday when a system goes down? No, and I don't intend
suggesting this to my boss!

Thanks again for your input and I welcome additional
comments/suggestions.
-----Original Message-----
Hi Eric, are you sure you want this job?
Let me give you a quick outline to get you started:

Backups
Is every server backed up? What is the overall backup/disaster recovery
strategy? Is it documented? Could you recover data TODAY should you lose
it?

Security
Has Baseline Analyzer been run on every box?
Antivirus
Firewall
Patch Management (see Software Update Services)
Group policies in line with corporate policies?
ACL's (who has access to your systems? should they?)
Actually, security is a very long topic best addressed in another forum,
but start with the basics listed above.

Change management
Is every change
Click to expand...
documented/communicated/tested/approved with backout
 
Back
Top