Tips for new IT Tech employee?

Hola,

Recently i have been promoted to the IT Tech for the industrial contracting company that I work for. It is a small company that is growing quite well and needed someone to maintain PCs and the company server, so I was chosen. I am currently taking classes for IT and physics, but I have never held a tech job before this. I am seeking any advice to monitor our server, employee PCs and anything else that could potentially help me out since i am the only tech for our company.

Thanks in advance! 

Google is your friend, also don't be afraid to ask questions/ take notes. It helps more than you think. 

When I first had to learn how our network works I took a whiteboard and drew everything out, that can help if you have a rather complicated system. 

Thank you. Luckily we only have 9 PCs on our network in the office, so I can learn as it grows. Google has most certainly been my friend so far.

Have a look at some of the free network and monitoring software that is available, it will be helpful to get that established now whilst you are small. This is the kind of thing I mean but look around as there are definitely others out there; http://www.spiceworks.com/app/

If all your current desktops are the same model you should also create a master image with all the base applications pre-installed. This will help you deploy new machines or repair old ones quickly.

You should also seek to set some basic patching and security processes if you have not already. Most small companies running Windows machines allow each user to be a local admin on the machine. This is a bad idea for a number of reasons but can be very difficult (politically) to move away from.

If you are able I would also recommend evaluating a Linux build for your server and workstations and then looking for a friendly local company who can help provide support at an agreed rate. You will likely get better support from them (than from Microsoft) for less than MS licences will cost you - this can be more difficult than you think - again mostly political rather than technical reasons.

Good luck and keep asking questions.

 

I work in IT as well and from what I have been told Spiceworks it a good free tool. I personally have used other software for company's IE ConnectWise with LabTech and Continuum for remote access and monitoring. This would be major overkill. I would say if you are looking to service the computers\server you are going to want to look at what you have. If it is Dell server look into the Dell Open Manage Server Administrator. This will give you access to a lot of information and weather the hardware is happy or not. Also If the server has a DRAC set that up it will be your best friend for getting the server backup in the middle of the night. To repeat all praise the google overlords. GPO's are your friend for setting up new users with printers and network drives and the access needed. I would if you have not already get a A+ and Net+ cert from Comptia it will really help with understanding what you are looking at. 

Thank you both for the advice! I will continue to research and learn all aspects that I can. I Just started this position last week so I'm still doing tedious cleaning, but now I have a better vision of what I need to achieve.

Be patient and calm, you will face stupid people making stupid decisions and then trying to blame you for them.

Don't be a passive support guy; educate the rest about how they should keep their systems clean.

Only stupid people there are are those who don't educate those that know less

I'm a passive support guy....

...no shame

PDQ Deploy and PDQ inventory are excellent tools that have free versions available. They also post frequently to their youtube channel with helpful videos.

I'm relatively new myself, albeit like most individuals that frequent here I've worked on computers in some form since I was a child. I graduated college and landed a job managing 15 severs (3 of which are HyperV), 100 users, specialty medical software, 20 some odd printers, 10 switches, access points etc.

Since I'm the only IT admin (my offical title is I.S. Coordinator) I'm also responsible for audit readiness, hippa compliance, replacing hardware (had to buy/configure a new cisco AP a few weeks ago). I tell you all of this to let you know that no education could have prepared me for the job that I have now.

Absolutely education helps, but the majority of what I've learned is from figuring it out, google, or spice works. I love the spiceworks community, there are so many people on there that are just oozing with information and can help you with almost any issue.

I knew almost nothing about Server 2003 (I have 8 (I learned 2008, linux, and Novell...yes Novell) coming into this job and Spiceworks/google has helped me tremendously with 2003 and the differences between it.

Also start learning Powershell. Powershell is amazing.

Thank you everyone for the tips and helpful advice. Google is most certainly my friend!

Ah, I remember my first days in the computer industry, very fun. Lot's of sitting around and quiet time. Now 15 years later I stuck with it, became a developer and almost want out of it...if it wasn't for the gigantic salary hah.

I use nagios installed on an ubuntu vm to monitor servers.

 

I also keep a text file with useful one liners that I used a lot with a description of what they do.

I've been in the industry for 15 years in both the corporate world and consultant firms, so if Google can't help you, you can always message me. :) Happy Trails on your new journey!