CertTutor.net UPDATE, January 17, 2003

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6. INSTANT POLL

7. NEW AND IMPROVED

8. CONTACT US

1. COMMENTARY
(contributed by Dick Lewis, [email protected])

WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD SYSTEMS ENGINEERS

Your training-center instructor never told you about days like this. You're overseeing a large server upgrade, and all your preparatory work is finished. You have a detailed task list, a solid back-out plan, good data backups, hardware vendor support, and management approval. However, the bottom drops out when your servers suddenly fail. All hopes of any upgrade are gone. At this point, your lofty goal is to just get back to your original configuration. You work through the weekend trying to get your systems back online in time for the next business day, but as employees start to arrive, they discover that their email and main file servers are nowhere to be found. You finally get things back online, but not without significant productivity losses in the user community. Despite your most careful preparations, you now find yourself in the hot seat, trying to justify your actions leading up to and following the meltdown. You start to think about updating your resume in case things don't go well when you meet with management.

The meeting with management might be called a postmortem, a debriefing, or an inquisition. Depending on how serious the outage was and the size of your company, you might be facing your manager, several managers, or a committee that includes other technical people. Management will be intent on finding out what happened, how it happened, and what steps are necessary to prevent it from happening again. You've probably spent much of your training learning how to perform certain procedures successfully, but you must also learn how to react in the face of disaster. Perhaps your studies have given you the impression that if you click the right buttons, everything will go well. However, in the high-pressure environment of the data center, any mistakes or unforeseen problems can come back to haunt you.

Before you embark on any significant project, remember the old adage that you should hope for the best and plan for the worst. Assemble an up-to-date contact list with phone numbers, cell phone numbers, or pager numbers of any managers you might need to contact in the event of an emergency. Document procedures for contacting users and clients to describe how any outage might affect their work. Determine who will communicate with the organization about any outages. Have contact information for your hardware and software vendors ready.

As you work through a project, consider maintaining a list of the steps you take. This time line could prove invaluable if the event is a success and essential in the event of catastrophe. When you're putting out fires, your memory might fail you. But if you can provide a detailed time line during the postmortem, no one can accuse you of being evasive.

During the meeting, try to answer management's questions honestly. Now is not the time to try to fool anyone. If you made any mistakes, admit them. If you can provide evidence that you acted logically, took all the proper steps, called in the proper resources, and informed management in a timely way, you'll probably survive this crisis. No one expects you to anticipate the unforeseeable.

If you're a senior systems engineer, you might have to pose the tough questions to a colleague whose project went bad. Just remember that you were once in his or her shoes and that bad things can happen to good systems engineers. If you're in a management role, remember that the employees on the other side of the table are probably good at what they do. They might lack maturity, and they might need additional training, but if you support them in this difficult time, they'll work even harder for you. During one crisis I was involved in, our manager stepped in to tell us that she believed in us and knew we were trying our hardest to rectify the situation. Her demeanor was understanding, not confrontational. After that, she had our unequivocal support.

2. NEWS & VIEWS

IBM CONSOLIDATES CERTIFICATION OFFERINGS

IBM announced a reorganization of its Professional Certification Program. The company nowplaces certifications into particular roles: IBM Certified Specialist, IBM Certified Solutions/Systems Expert, IBM Certified Advanced Technical Expert, IBM Certified Developer Associate, IBM Certified Developer, and Professional Instructor. For more information about these changes, visit the IBM Web site.
http://www-1.ibm.com/certify/program/index.shtml

NEW MICROSOFT SECURITY EXAM GOES LIVE

Microsoft Exam 70-214: Implementing and Administering Security in a Microsoft Windows 2000 Network went live this week. You can schedule this MCSE elective exam through Prometric or VUE and take it in the next few days. For more information about this exam, visit the Microsoft Web site.
http://www.microsoft.com/traincert/exams/70-214.asp

3. ANNOUNCEMENTS
(brought to you by Windows & .NET Magazine and its partners)

WINDOWS SCRIPTING SOLUTIONS FOR THE SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR

You might not be a programmer, but that doesn't mean you can't learn to create and deploy timesaving, problem-solving scripts. Discover Windows Scripting Solutions, the monthly print publication that helps you tackle common problems and automate everyday tasks with simple tools, tricks, and scripts. Try a sample issue today at
http://www.winscriptingsolutions.com/rd.cfm?code=fsei262lup

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND—DON'T MISS OUR SECURITY ROAD SHOW EVENT!

If you missed last year's popular security road show event, now is your chance to catch it again in Portland, Oregon, and Redmond. Learn from experts Mark Minasi and Paul Thurrott about how to shore up your system's security and what desktop security features are planned for Microsoft .NET and beyond. Registration is free, so sign up now!
http://www.winnetmag.com/roadshows/security2003

4. WHAT'S NEW FROM CERTTUTOR LIVE!

CertTutor.net Live! is the Internet's number-one training and certification discussion board. Each week, CertTutor.net Live! receives thousands of posts about Windows XP, Windows 2000, Cisco Systems, and more. We've selected three of these posts to feature here in CertTutor.net UPDATE. To join in the conversation at CertTutor.net Live!, register at the following URL:
http://www.certtutor.net/registration/index.cfm

FEATURED THREADS

WHICH EXCHANGE EXAM?

Beoweolf is considering Microsoft Exchange Server exams but isn't sure whether to take the Exchange 2000 Server exam or the Exchange Server 5.5 exam. See this thread to voice your opinion.
http://certtutor.net/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=62&threadid=37230

PERMISSIONS

When preparing for the Microsoft workstation certification exams, you can't overlook the various permissions that pertain to file access. However, if you can answer the Question of the Day that this thread presents, you're in good shape.
http://certtutor.net/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=14&threadid=37116

RAMPING UP ON .NET

If you're considering using virtual machine (VM) technology to try out Windows Server 2003 Release Candidate 2 (RC2), don't miss this thread.
http://certtutor.net/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=10&threadid=37263

HOT THREADS

TAX SOFTWARE BEWARE OF ACTIVATION

http://certtutor.net/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=7&threadid=37038

AM I READY FOR 70-210?

http://certtutor.net/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=37&threadid=37280

PC VS. LAPTOP

http://certtutor.net/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=10&threadid=37256

5. RESOURCES

LINK OF THE WEEK: WINDOWS SCRIPTING SOLUTIONS

Windows Scripting Solutions, which is part of the Windows & .NET Magazine Network, is full of great information about scripting—an area in which every systems administrator should be knowledgeable.
http://www.winscriptingsolutions.com

TIP OF THE WEEK: GETTING HELP

An often overlooked but invaluable resource is the Help tool that ships with all Windows OSs. In fact, Windows XP's Help and Support Center includes not only the usual wealth of helpful information but also the Microsoft Knowledge Base. If you're connected to the Internet, Help and Support Center searches its own database, then accesses the Microsoft Web site and searches the entire Knowledge Base. By default, this search returns just 15 results, but you can click Options and change this value. The next time you're feeling stumped, turn to Help and Support Center first.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: 70-215

This week's question will help you prepare for Exam 70-215: Installing, Configuring, and Administering Microsoft Windows 2000 Server.

QUESTION
You purchased a new file server with a 380GB hard disk

for your company's 120 users, who work in four groups with distinct storage requirements:

You want to use quotas to prevent users from exceeding group storage allocations. Which of the following schemes limits group members to particular storage quotas? (Choose all that apply.)