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Hey all,

So a little bit of background, I’ve recently taken over as an IT manager as the previous manager decided to leave. I’ve been at this for three months sorting our IT systems issue reporting and general processes, however now I would like to look at getting some proper IT infrastructure set up.

We are not set up like any other business that I’ve seen, or that any of the IT tech I know have set up. We have no windows server, no active directory, No real infrastructure for asset control/recovery (A lot of our employees are not in the head office). we are basically starting from scratch and I’m just not sure where I should be starting with improving the IT infrastructure here.

With on-going and post COVID looking as though all employees will be working from home indefinitely, is it worth setting up an AD server?

Any help would be much appreciated

Edit - Just additional info, we have around 75-100 employees, we have a custom built CMS that is handled by a third party development company that we are the primary contact point for, we use google apps for business as our email hosting client, but don’t use any of the other applications that come along with it (google docs, sheets, meetings etc). From what I can tell the IT structure has been really poorly handled here for quite some time

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I would think the first things is to give details or think about what business the organization is in, how many users, how many machines, what applications etc.

Not every Organization needs servers or Domains etc but would be a good thing to have.

Then how spread out are your users and how they operate ? Then what is your annual & one-time budget etc.

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you should add how many users. where to files live? data? what about email what is used now?

standardize passwords, computers, file sharing which all could be cloud based. if you’re MS shop you could start by getting O365 for everyone, that would standardize software/emails etc.

azure ad could start the formalization of passwords and security.

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First thing, start where you are find out what you have ; where is it; what it is being used for and most importantly what are the major challenges that are effecting users, business and productivity.

Many companies not longer have on site infrastructure , especially smaller ones as most of this can be taken care of by cloud providers. I work for a large global firm and we are going for a hybrid approach , with cloud being the preferred option.

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I would also look at policies? Are there any?

It is difficult in times of COVID to do, especially with people working from home, but you really need to do an audit of what you have, what sort of infrastructure do you have in place?

Switches, routers, firewalls, servers etc. Employee devices (company or private?), location, what is installed, where are the licenses, are there enough licenses etc.

VPN? How is it controlled? Can anybody with the right password gain access? How do you lock ex-employees out of the systems?

Can employees use their own devices? How do you control them?

Here, it is very simple. No private devices allowed in the network, no private data on work devices and no work data allowed on private devices. That makes the starting point simple. We have full control over all devices.

If there are private devices allowed, that makes a domain more difficult to control, especially if they have Windows 10 (non-Pro). There you need some additional sort of MDM.

Document as much as you can, even if it is just a series of Excel tables and Word documents to start with. At least you have it documented and can refer to it!

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If you have any critical data, make sure that it is backed up and recoverable.

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So, before you get your nose to the grind stone on building the right infrastructure… figure out what the right infrastructure is for your company.

Sure active directory is an easy tool to manage logons, policies etc. Does your business need that overhead? There is a cost to setting up AD, servers, Licence cals, etc. Before you go down that road, figure out what you are trying to accomplish.

You said your are a google centric company already for email, well you can use google to control PC logins. If you are just looking to control basic permissions, file access,etc. you can do that with google as your lead. some details here: Overview: Enhanced desktop security for Windows - Google Workspace Admin Help

You can set up a Linux Samba host to manage your logins etc: An appliance you can play with for it here: Domain Controller | TurnKey GNU/Linux

You can set up Virtual domain Inside AWS for a reasonable cost.

That’s logins, about the rest of the environment. What do you have on site for hardware, networking etc. Start documenting everything you have before you start on what’s next. Get spread sheets of PC’s Laptops, mobile devices. Draw up a network diagram marking physical locations, trunks, IP’s, access points, everything. Create list of all the software that’s used, what you have for licenses, who owns the billing, make lists of contact info for every technology vendor you deal with.

Spiceworks Helpdesk and asset management is actually an awesome tool to get you started. Get it installed on EVERY workstation, it will report back hardware and software details for all the machines. Use the network monitor to do the same for your network infrastructure.

DOCUMENT EVERYTHING!

Does your company have any established policies such as acceptable use?

Now that you have a good understanding of what you have, start looking at what your company does? what is it that IT needs to provide the company as minimum, as an ideal, etc. What are your acceptable risks, what is not acceptable. do you need to comply to any specific compliance requirements (or is the near future need to) such as HIPPA, SOX, ISO, etc.

Ask what kind of budget you have to work with - this is SUPER important, without knowing what you have to work with there is no way to set priorities or plan for tools and equipment.

You now have enough information to start planning and building your new environment.

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Josh! Great 1st post! :slight_smile:

You will get a lot of good intel from your peers on this thread for sure (got to love Spiceworks) but just to add a few things to think about if starting from scratch. You will definitely want to be looking into your internal and external communication flows, i,e, Voice, Collaboration, Internet Access and WAN. I am not sure how have handled the WFH situation in that regard, but first stop on this quest is your phone system (which hopefully for your sake is already cloud based). If not, or even if already so, what has been the most frequent discussion is how do we simplify and streamline our communication stack. Aside from the phones ringing, how do you communicate internally and externally with your clients and/or customers etc? Call/Contact Centers / Queues, Collaboration/Web Video Meetings. And then how do you connect those WFH users to your apps etc?

So let’s have at it…

  • You mention Google Apps for Email but not using that for anything else? I assume you have some form of 0365 for the rest?

  • How are the phones managed today? Onsite PBX? Cloud? If prem based, SIP, PRI POTS etc? Any call center requirements? There will be some interesting discussions with voice for sure.

  • Collaboration… MS TEAMS? Google? Zoom? What you have going on here? This will tie into the previous question quite a bit as today many of our clients are utilizing one stack for collaboration and voice, with mobility and other WFH benefits.

  • What is the current network design? I assume a single location, do all WFH users VPN in today? SD-WAN and other WFH tech may be worth looking at here…

  • What applications are your users accessing aside from the CMS? Where are they stored? Local/Cloud etc?

  • Any Compliance Standards (SSAE 18, PCI, HIPAA etc?)

  • What is your current data center design? On-Prem, Colo, Private/Public Cloud? This will be another place to focus if WFH is the go forward…

  • DR Strategy? Good time to take this into the discussions as you think about where and how your data will be stored.

  • And finally… security. This is a big one for WFH and again will play into the discussions from the above as well. Firewalls, SIEM, AV, DDoS etc.

I know that may sound like a lot (it is!) but if you really are able to look at this as a “blue sky” then these are great conversations to start having, especially if you have an AGNOSTIC trusted advisor by your side. If you don’t (and even if you do!) happy to just bring in some of our engineering resources to talk through all of these items to help you prepare, budget and price out a truly well thought out plan across the best and most cost effective suppliers, from Voice, to Collab to Cloud to Security.

That is what we do for thousands of SpiceHeads around the world :slight_smile:

Shoot a PM if you would like to connect. We partner with hundreds of Coud, VoIP, ISP, Security Providers Globally, all with better pricing and better support than trying to contract with them on your own. Also being 100% agnostic means no sales pitches, a full understanding of the pros and cons, good, bad and especially the ugly about all these overhyped, overmarketed and oversold IT products and services.

Here if you need me, or you can request help on our website: www.commquotes.com/spiceworks

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@stopthenoise ​ I can’t spice you up enough for “DOCUMENT EVERYTHING”. I said it without caps, but that is the A&O of managing IT infrastructure.

At one employer, they decided they didn’t need an IT manager (well, I was the whole IT department). A few months later, they backtracked and hired somebody else, a week later he contacted me, to thank me for all the documentation I had done!

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Thanks @wright-is . I have the battle scars from lack of documentation over the course of my career. some if it my fault some of it inherited. Documentation is like lawyers and Insurance, everyone thinks its a waste of resources till things go wrong… then those who have it are thankful for it and those that don’t suffer through and hopefully see the other side.

I did an linked in article a while back about how riding a motorcycle helped me be a better manager. I compared documentation to safety gear, it’s a hassle till it saves your bacon.

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I think first concern is getting a good handle on the system there. If most employees are remote what are they doing remotely with IT hardware and software? Sounds like you might also need to work on a budget to handle future purchases to right the ship.

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you should start by clearly establishing what it is that the company wants ?
Your perception of what they have and what is needed may differ completely to what the company thinks they have and what they need.
These two things need to be aligned before you attempt to move anything forward.

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Figure out what data to back up and make sure it is. Find out where security is lacking and resolve. Chances are that when you are done with those two things, you’ll have half of the other stuff you need accomplished as well, and the rest of what you need to do will become much clearer.

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