@Carnival-Boy said:

@NetworkNerd said:

Have you ever told someone you'd work a ticket for them over the weekend because that's when you had time?

No, but I'll often tell them I'd ***try ***to work a ticket for them over the weekend. If I was unable to do to what I said I would (which happens regularly), I'll just let them know that something else came up and I didn't find the time. I never promise anything - either at home or at work. The best I'll say to a user is "if nothing else comes up then I will work on this at such and such a time". It's the same with my kids - instead of saying "I promise we'll go to the park this afternoon", I'll say "If we have time, we'll go to the park this afternoon". I never promise anything - life is too unpredictable.

As I was reading the OP, this is exactly what rang in my head - why on earth would you promise something to an end user that isn't your boss, and even then why do it? Best effort is the expectation that we should be trying to set, but not promises.

@scottalanmiller said:

Kansas City isn't exactly a major market.

In telecom, it's one of the major hubs of the country.

Sprint is headquartered in Overland Park. Google Fiber fired up there first. AT&T before remerger had a major operation there. Tons of telecoms peer within KCI because of that.

It is not a major television market, nor a populous place. But it has lots of braintrust and serious players in the market around there. Birch is one of the bigger players who have done well since their last Chapter 11.

@NetworkNerd said:

@alexntg said:

There's some info missing. How is this application being accessed? Are people going to be using RDP, PCoIP, or something else? Is this doing 3D modeling, or is it just the server component to a client installed on a local computer?

I had planned to have them use either RDP or VNC to access the VM. The application will be completely standalone inside a Windows VM (no client-server software) and will be either Windows 7 or 8/8.1 (whatever is supported by the software vendor). I believe they support 8 but not 8.1.

You won't get a rich end-user experience with RDP, let alone VNC, even if it doesn't choke on lack of graphics hardware. VMware Horizon View does support hardware-accelerated graphics with certain video cards. If you're considering VDI for a small number of use cases, consider going full-bore and doing it out fully.

As a side note, don't forget to address Windows licensing; VDI works differently from server licensing.

@scottalanmiller said:

Weird, they must have taken over a municipal LEC or something. Good to know that those are LEC areas to avoid putting an office. I'm original from the only LATA in the nation where no baby bell was the CLEC for the LATA and it was awful. It's also the home base of Windstream but they are not the CLEC for the LATA, just a coincidence that that is the LATA that they did their business in originally. Their reputation was so bad there that they had to change their name to Windstream to hide their shame.

It was bizarre. The project entailed plenty of fiber from TW Telecom, but had to go to the LEC for a pair of POTS, which fell to Windstream. One town over, and it's AT&T territory.

@scottalanmiller said:

We never use dedupe outside of the backup system. Good file system management gives you most if that value.

And for a VM you'll get more from dedupe at the storage layer than inside a single VM.

2012 dedupe works well. It is a good product. It probably makes the most sense on a very large file server.

Storage-level deduplication can be quite useful. However, with the modern push toward local storage, shared deduplicating storage isn't really seen except for in rather large environments.

@Bob-Beatty said:

@scottalanmiller said:

Someday, maybe he will find this thread.

that is exactly what I was thinking. "hey dude, we were concerned about you" In case he makes it here.

I thought about posting a link to his Facebook profile, but I think that might be crossing the line of professionalism. At least there would be a picture to go on the milk carton when he's considered missing.

We had repeated cold calls from AVG, no matter how many times we said no, they kept phoning and phoning...Not going to be using their products until they change their culture.

Got a spare Unifi AP hanging around the office? I'd go with a commercial device as a test. Also, make sure yo use various ports on the Verizon router

The key reason is safety. So that it is impossible for it to fall through and kill a person working inside the manhole.

@Dashrender said:

@scottalanmiller said:

CacheCade is a cache, it decides what stays there in the same way that the RAID cache has always decided that and in the same way that the OS decides what to cache.

Awww.. Thanks for that! CacheCade is Dell, what does HP have?

Up to 4GB on-controller Flash-Backed Write Cache (FBWC) - unless I'm doing some extremely large data moves, it feels like I'm writing to flash, even under typical VM workloads.

I refuse to talk about SEO with my board of directors now. I will only talk to them about good content. They're responsible for providing the content and that's where I want them to focus. I had a previous CEO badger me because we weren't near the top of Google rankings for the search term "Classroom heating". I said I didn't even know we provided heating for classrooms. He said we don't, but it's something he wants to get into. <bangs head on table>. "Give me good content and let Google sort itself out"

Google provides helpful guides on how to construct proper websites. I'm surprised by how few sites follow it.

@Nara said:

@Bill-Kindle said:

@scottalanmiller said:

It's the only install option that I normally use. I only install the GUI if there is a specific site technical deficiency making it necessary.

It's the default option and the option that is suggested with all new 2012 R2 installs thanks to the Server Manager and PowerShell. The really nice thing is that you can deploy Server Core, and if you so choose at a later date install the full GUI and even revert it back to Core. It's not a irrevocable decision now with 2012.

That has saved me a few times so far.

Up until about a month or so ago I was still afraid of doing this because I thought it was still irrevocable like it was in 2008 R2. After seeing how to switch back and forth with a few PowerShell cmdlets and parameters, I'm going to install and maintain more core systems because I always have RSAT and Server Manager now.

@JaredBusch said:

@NetworkNerd said:

Thanks to all who responded here. We're going to roll with PSX's idea.

I will also tell you I posted this somewhere else and did not receive as many responses as I did here.

What other device you going to use? If you buy the right thing you can shitcan the entire ASA

I already had a Cisco RV180 lying around and used it for the camera traffic. The only thing I do not have setup right now is static routes.

I've found that iOS calendar functions work better with push enabled, so I just turned of all notifications, sound, and such for email. Every couple of hours or so, I'll process my inbox, as well as make sure that I'm at zero before bed and when I wake up. During the workday, I process my inbox about every 40 minutes or so, but constantly work out of my "next" folder. The reason for this is that I found out that constantly trying to keep up with my email was preventing me from really getting into projects and tasks effectively. This way, I can still keep on top of email and address actionables, yet I can still perform non-email tasks effectively.

@NetworkNerd said:

There's almost no need for QoS when you have this kind of upload speed. It would be tough to saturate that baby.

Agreed. The best QoS is a great connection.

@JaredBusch said:

@alexntg said:

@JaredBusch said:

@alexntg said:

That's a pretty good piece of mind for $6k annually.

Not for the current clients I have, that is too much. The 1k price is solidly acceptable. the 3k would be a big maybe but likely not.

I looked down near the bottom line. @NetworkNerd , unless I'm missing something, the entry level one's manual reporting?

Manual report paid for by the hour it seems like.

Yep - they have to generate the reports for you.

DNS used to take 48 hours. Now it takes more like 4. But it is not your DNS provider that determines that, so be cautious.

@scottalanmiller Okay Mr. FancyPants Linux 😛

.... and now seeing a buried SW email from SmartDeploy about a 03/04 seminar for their "new beta project 'Serenity'". GG Spencer(sp?) was the sender.

Guessing it is a cloudy version of their product with some InTune-ish features. Not like InTune seems to be getting traction.

@scottalanmiller Say what?