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uniqs
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pkats
join:2003-02-13

pkats

Member

Vacation time

How many of you run your network as a one man show? For those that do how do you take a vacation? Do you know someone that can cover for you when you are gone?
raytaylor
join:2009-07-28

raytaylor

Member

I vacation for no more than 3 days at a time, and no more than 4 hours drive from where I live

Its best if I dont leave the region at all. Though in the last 12 months, I have been working heaps on improving reliability so I can go 3 days now without a fault call out.

Inssomniak
The Glitch
Premium Member
join:2005-04-06
Cayuga, ON

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2 man operation. But it's generally only me that can fix network related issues. . I can get away for 1-2 weeks a year, but it seems like it's a mad rush before than to get every possible thing fixed or improved.
LLigetfa
join:2006-05-15
Fort Frances, ON

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TheHox
join:2012-05-31

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Same here. 2 man operation, but I run the network, the other guy is mostly a grunt labor guy.

I left for a 1 week snowmobiling vacation in Wyoming last week. We drove from Wisconsin to Wyoming, 14hrs. We just get into Cheyenne, WY and had a network problem. Had a local guy patch it quick, but I had to get home to look at it in depth and make sure it was fixed for good. Took a cab to the Denver airport, and flew back home that night. No vacation for me. Maybe next year.

viperm
Carpe Diem
Premium Member
join:2002-07-09
Winchester, CA

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HA HA HA HA HA HA he said Vacation!

I would love to but as previous people stated building in reliability helps but you cant always anticipate everything.

I guess you could have spares pre configured for every router and device on the network that could break just so if anyone does have to replace something its ready to go?
Jeffster
join:2003-12-16
Lavon, TX

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Mostly one man show here.... But I have a business partner who has an IT background.

Backup your configs often (and keep in several accessible locations). Have at least one spare for every piece of equipment on your network. Walk your backup person through a restore so that have experienced it at least once. And then pray.....
landysaccoun
join:2008-10-10

landysaccoun

Member

I run a one man show and it seem that every time I have to leave town, something happens. So, I decided not to leave the area for a while until network is more reliable, which I'm currently working on.
rhaines
join:2014-09-16
US

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All good things mentioned indeed...
I've been working on my network for some time now, but there always seems to be room for improvement. I started off as one big flat network and 6 different locations and have built up from there to now 10 locations and still expanding.

Now everything is bridged, UPS powered, every location has a primary and secondary backhaul, and now I'm in the process of upgrading backhauls to get more bandwidth out of them. (EPMP Force 110's)
I actually go on vacation quite a bit, and the biggest thing for me is knowing when something is wrong before the customer does. I have monitors in place for bandwidth utilization, router utilization and all of my AP's and backhuals are on notification as well. Being able to reboot equipment remotely always helps too.

I think over the years I've built a pretty solid network and it has come a long way from when I started. The problem isn't going out of town, just as long as you have insight into the network and have some built in redundancies to help mitigate those risks.

Semaphore
Premium Member
join:2003-11-18
101010

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Plan to minimize problems from the start. You'll still get nailed by the odd act of God but not by your own fault. Think of it this way: If you can't do it right, don't do it. Period.

- Build a reliable, redundant, standardized core network. VRRP, BGP and OSPF are your best friends (most days at least)
- Invest heavily in backup power and check it regularly. Invest in Grounding and Lightning protection as well
- Keep a very tight rein on the "minimum" numbers for signal quality before you connect a customer
- Deploy multiple redundant monitoring systems in different locations and checkout Pagerduty to control your escalation policies
- Make sure you have at least two geographically separate sources of Bandwidth with dynamic failover (one of our 3 fibre feeds has been down since 4AM and none of the customers have noticed yet - but that would be a different story if there was only one :-( )
- Install netbooters on ANY thing that hangs on you, The first time it hangs on you
- Have multiple ways to remotely access your network in multiple places, PPTP-VPN, RemoteDesktop, SSH, SSL VPN
- Implement a change freeze at least 2 weeks before you plan to go away. If it's not ready befor that time then you don't get to take a vacation because it's gonna fall apart on you when you're away isn't it?

Then plan to Work your ass off for at least 6 years, and maybe get to afford to hire a partimer around year 5. Once you get past the first 1500 customers you get to hire some real help... only took me 10 years to get there

S