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Hi all,

I am a bit of a newbie here. I just got my first IT job, yay me! However, after reading through a lot of different websites and community posts, I have an idea of what I need to do to start out: audit the network. The problem is…I don’t know where to really start. I have been looking for a beginners guide to starting an IT job and was a bit surprised to see there wasn’t a sticky about it. Not complaining though, still love all of the answers here!!

We have spiceworks set up so I can see all of our inventory and IP addresses. Does spiceworks provide a mapping service? Should I have a spreadsheet of every piece of hardware in our repertoire? Or should it only be devices that connect to the network? Do I need a network map, or can I just work off of the equipment numbers and what not.

In other words, what should be my top priority for the next couple of weeks as I get to know this job field better.

Thanks in advance for any advice and help!!

79 Spice ups
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are you on your own?

when you got the job, was there some sort of list of duties?

there are plenty of videos and tutorials on sw just search, but use google and prefix with spice works seems to work better

8 Spice ups
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I wouldn’t worry so much about auditing until you know what your day-to-day will look like. Be proactive and try and find what users complain most about (common issues can point to a bigger issue), how their day-to-day looks, etc.

30 Spice ups
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I advise highly to build up a network map. You need to know everything that touches the network, and probably even devices that don’t. Anything you can and could be responsible for, you’ll want to know about and track. The Spiceworks inventory tool will be a good start to that. You might also consider going around and physically checking devices as well.

I would also suggest looking into @Netwrix 's free tools. They’ll help you get a good grasp of what’s going on. I also suggest CJWDEV AD Info and a few other CJWDEV tools. The more information you have, the better.

You might also want to consider a syslog server to help keep an eye on things as they happen so you don’t have to go searching for them.

Lastly, welcome to the community and the fun of IT! You’ll learn a lot being here, so that’ll be the last piece of advice is to stick around, follow some people and start learning as much as you can!

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I work alongside the IT manager. The list of duties was fairly much whatever needs done, with a focus on help desk.

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Have you talked to the IT Manager on what information is already available? No point in re-inventing the wheel if it’s hidden in a closet somewhere.

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I have and we don’t have anything in depth. Just a small list of computers that log in to the network. I am also viewing this as a good learning exercise to get to know the network that I am working in.

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spiceworks does mapping, but its not great.

spiceworks inventory is excellent though. if you have managed switches it will tell you what devices are plugged into what switches and the port name. That will give you a good start on mapping

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Know your co-workers first then the infrastructure.

Spiceworks Inventory is awesome! (can’t live without it but I still keep spreadsheets.)

Yes. Spiceworks provide some kind of network mapping.

Welcome to the community!

6 Spice ups
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First thing I did when I started here over a year ago was to Inventory everything in my server room. From servers to switches, which switch are servers connected to, which UPS are they connected as well. So yeah… a lot of running through the cables to figure out where everything was.

We had a Baytech set up to manage our UPS so I updated them and created a server inventory spreadsheet. Once that is done, You can start looking into Spiceworks and search for those servers to see their roles and such. If you are to inventory or make a network map, think about the OSI model. Hardware first, cabling after, OSes and roles, software installed. Youll have a pretty good idea of whats running and where. And I`m sure your manager would appreciate you do it. Make sure to ask him though, he may already have such spreadsheet.

6 Spice ups
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The first thing that I would do (and did) was to make sure that your users are happy by solving all the pending tickets the guy who you just replaced never did. Happy users = silence. Silence = I can now focus on the macro part of the IT.
Never forget that the users are the reason that you have this job.
If you can’t solve it right away make sure to let them know. Show them that you care. That there’s a new guy in town and he actually wants things to get better.
And then go and get things better…

13 Spice ups
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The first thing that needs to be done is introduce yourself to your users! Start building a good relationship now, walk around talk to the users and find out where everyone sits and get the layout of the building. Grab a pencil and paper and make a rough map of the building with the location of major items, printers, switches, control boxes, odd equipment, etc… I recommend doing this by hand so you actually have to go to the location and see the stuff, making a scanned map shows you the interconnects but not the physical location.

Much to the dismay of many in this industry, you are there to support the business and the users, not to support the computers and the network. You maintain the devices and the network to make sure the business and the users can do whatever it is they need to do. The equipment is easy stuff, get to know the people.

11 Spice ups
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A few more things you may want to add to your list:

  • Track down all contracts for everything you’re responsible for. Software maintenance, printer leases, extended warranties, cloud services, etc. Find renewal dates and billing dates.
  • Make a list of important contacts. This will include third party contractors, consultants, account managers, sales reps, etc. as well as info for your utilities and service providers. Any way you can get a hold of the old IT guy if you have questions?
  • Collect and organize documentation. If your IT manager already has docs, make sure you know how to find what you’re looking for and how to edit them. Might be easier on you to set up a web-based Wiki or something, or you could combine it all in OneNote or EverNote or something. Also, print out hard copies of things that will be important in a disaster, such as recovery instructions and contact info for utility providers. Identify holes in your documentation and make plans to fill them as your write your own docs.
  • Inventory your hardware. Start with infrastructure and shared resources, then get end-user equipment. Find out status of warranties and find out who to call if it breaks. Identify equipment that is outdated, broken, inadequate, etc. Might be an idea to make a road-map or timeline for replacing old equipment if you have a lot of it.
11 Spice ups
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I would second this. I’ve been working on rough hand sketched maps myself. I’ve got all of our printers on them, and eventually I’ll get all 120 users mapped out. I know where most everyone is, but there are still times where new users call my desk and I have to play the game of 'wander until someone looks up at me like they’re waiting".

2 Spice ups
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Wow! Thank you everyone for the support here. I did not expect to see this many responses in such a little amount of time! Awesome.

Everyone seems to agree that people skills are a major positive, and I agree. I am lucky in that my manager is great with people and has a very quick ticket turn around time (less than an hour). Everyone here seems nice so far, I am only about a week in though…Who knows how everyone will react when something goes wrong! Lol. I feel like I am lucky coming into an establishment that actually has a decent IT department to start off…

What I have been doing is going around and writing down serial numbers/mac addresses/IP addresses and creating a spreadsheet of all of this info, along with location. Eventually I would like to create a Visio diagram to really get to know the logical layout of all of the equipment. I am also trying to match everything up with Spiceworks because I am seeing several unknown devices in the inventory, but I haven’t had a chance to ask the boss about those yet. I have tried to search by mac address and ip address in the spiceworks inventory to find out what each device is called in here but that is not bringing anything up for me. Guess I Have to do it manually?

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For me manually is better because you have to go around, It will help you be more familiar with the locations of things and users.

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It sounds like you have a pretty good plan. Another thing you may want to look into is mapping your patch panels/wall sockets. My boss and I did this shortly after I first started and it has saved us hours in troubleshooting where the problem was. It can be very tedious, but once you knock it out, it will definitely pay off.

5 Spice ups
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Are you the only IT guy or do you have some team members to work with and help you learn? Do you have past experience or schooling or just have a passion and tinker around at home (That is what I did before this job.)?

Here are a few bullet points of things that I think will be important as you move forward and get into IT work.

  • Get organized! I put this as the first one on my list because it is soooo incredibly important. I know it probably sounds cliche, but there is nothing more valuable than being organized. Make yourself indexed good clear and easy documentation OF EVERYTHING. I take notes that I want to add into my documentation on my phone throughout the week and then at the end of each week I go through my notes, add, organized, and build upon the documentation that I already have. I cannot stress how important this really is.
  • Put a good solid naming and addressing scheme into place for all the devices on and off your network. I have an IP Scheme based on device purpose, and then a naming scheme that follows that. make sure you are remaining UNIFORM in the things and procedures you implement. I would much rather support 1000 different desktops, that are all uniform than 2 desktops that are different.
  • Put together information in your documentation about all the devices you have in place with specific notes and information about it, that way when you receive calls or have a question, you can quickly look at your documentation and know everything about that device.

Those 3 things will help you most of all. I know they are not super IT involved things, but they are generally good principles that will make the new IT part of it all a lot easier to deal with, work with, and move forward with.

4 Spice ups
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I was in your same situation a few months ago, just use the time to get to know the layout of your place of work. What really helped me was mapping all the network points and then relating them back to the switches. This way you get to meet people around site and also makes it far easier to understand where/ what is being affected if things start to go wrong.

I’ve also used network inventory to pretty much this same end, using initially spiceworks and now after some research Lansweeper. I’ve also managed to integrate a helpdesk solution among 1 or 2 other things.

Just don’t worry too much and you’ll be fine, you’re not expected to get everything right first time and it’s a bit of a learning curve but you’ll get there.

2 Spice ups
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Account for EVERYTHING in ActiveDirectory. If its a user and they are not on the staff list. Check with HR/Payroll and then if they don’t work there anymore, disable it. Check users and privileged groups. For DomainAdmin make sure only IT has it.

Add a device manager to all computers. Before installing, make sure it complies to the user handbook. If not, you’ll need to update and have users sign off before adding it to their computers.

Do you have a inv list? Make some stickers. http://www.myassettag.com/inventory-tags , if you did the prior step, grab the info from the device manager and put it in a spreadsheet or inv manager.

Not sure if you are 1Man shop on this or not, but make sure you can login to everything you need to. That includes VMWare, All services, Local admin for all computers, firewall, switches, ESXi…

Goes without saying, put in a helpdesk system. Users might not use it every time, but they seriously appreciate that you put for the effort to run a solid reliable ship.

5 Spice ups