Diary of a Network Geek

The trials and tribulations of a Certified Novell Engineer who's been stranded in Houston, Texas.

2/25/2009

Change Management Records

Filed under: Career Archive,Geek Work,The Dark Side,Things to Read — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Tiger which is terribly early in the morning or 5:19 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is Waxing Gibbous

It’s vital to good server management to maintain a change control log.

Really, it’s best for everything in an IT department to keep a good set of change control logs, but most of us don’t do it. Well, a great little blog called Ask The Admin has an article on the Importance of Change Management Record Keeping that is a “must read” for anyone who has to keep track of more than one system.

Now, I have to admit, I don’t do a great job of maintaining documentation myself, but that’s not such a big deal since I’m a one-stop IT shop. However, if something should happen to me, it would make things better, and easier, for the next poor schmuck who has to take over. Mostly, when I get somewhere new, I’m confronted with a jungle of systems and armed with little more than a password. Sometimes, it’s not even the admin password. When I leave, though, I always try to leave behind updated, accurate, useful documentation. My desk may be a mess, but my documentation is at least usable.
The first guy I used to work for always would ask me what I’d do if he were trapped under a rock. Check the documentation was often the first thing. So, I learned, whenever possible, leave good documentation for the next guy.

Think of it as the Golden Rule of Documentation; Document for others what you would have them document for you.
In any case, read the article. Then go forth and sin no more.

1/3/2008

IT Policy Documentation Templates

Filed under: Career Archive,Geek Work — Posted by the Network Geek during the Hour of the Tiger which is terribly early in the morning or 5:40 am for you boring, normal people.
The moon is Waxing Gibbous

Um, pretty self-explanatory, actually.

Yeah, so um, I think the post title says it all. I took some old documentation and removed the incriminating information (ie. the original company name) and saved it as a template, of sorts. Naturally, this is a starting point and will need to be customized for your company. In particular, look at the e-mail policy closely. This company specifically did not back up e-mail files so that later someone couldn’t subpoena those old files in a legal action. And, yes, that policy was made because it happened once, but, no, I don’t know if that stood up to any legal testing.

Anyway, here are the files, zipped for your convenience: IT Policy Templates

Enjoy!


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