Experiences with working from home

[Chan 007]

George,

Few thinks I had gone under.

1. Your 3rd Party tools will take long time to load on your PC/Laptop. As it access its DB.

2. If the event of your Security (Gateway) goes down, you need to be dependent on your networking team.

3. Ensure that you have a complete documentation in hand with you, as few ports/GSP address may not be upto date.

4. Ensure that you are kept in all loop of communication/work. Otherwise all of a sudden someone will may you saying "Not Done"

5. Ensure that you have all importand Contacts updated often

Chan

[Steve Lewis]

I find that X-Windows is faster from home than on the corporate WAN...
I have problems with closed firewall ports from home, so to get around this, it helps to tunnel X through ssh and maybe set up a special ssh/X gateway server in your DMZ. Double-tunnelling ssh through VPN gives even more encryption security, but your home IP may change from time to time.

VNC may also be an option, if you can ssh/tunnel that too.

Sadly I cannot get my VPN to work with a Linux client, so I have to run an X server on MS Windows.

Local printouts need to be re-considered.

Ensure that your laptop anti-virus is able to update itself directly from the manufacturer.

As for day-to-day monitoring, it greatly helps to take detailed photographs of your machines, front and back, for when you are at home. I put them on the intranet server documentation, together with cfg2html output and general server notes, etc.

A web-cam in your server room might be a good idea.

Relying on a young inexperienced operator to change the tapes for you is a nightmare, believe me. In my experience, people underestimate the importance of getting the right tapes in the right servers, with the write-prevention tag off, labelled correctly, with the barcodes on the right way round, etc. The possibilities for messing up something so fundamental are numerous.

[paolo barila]

Basically IMO I think it's important to have console access to servers, i know it's quite obvious with HP-UX, but what about linux ( see http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO/Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO.html ) and winzozz?

[Geoff Wild]

I work from home sometimes - we have VPN setup so I can connect to work.

From there, I use "Windows Remote Desktop" and connect to my PC.

It is as if I'm at work - if my net connection drops, no worries - as any thing I'm running is on my work PC - just reconnect. Email - no problem - as you are "virtually" there - on your PC @ work.

You should have either a console server and/or your MP configured on all servers.

Rgds...Geoff

[OldSchool]

I'll second the ability to print-out at home. I used to do some of my dba stuff from home, as the wanted it done "off-hours" and still wanted me to be on-site during the normal business day. Used a product called "Remote Print Manager (RPM)" from Brooksnet (www.brooksnet.com). Allowed windows attached deskjet to be configured as a remote printer in windows.

[Rick Garland]

Must have that high spped VPN connection is my opinion. Also, with the kids in school this takes away some of the distractions. Get rid of any distractions.

I have my part of my basement (one little corner) setup just for the task of working from home. Is kinda nice. I am able to do everything except physically touch the systems. We have remote consoles setup so I can interact with the GSP or EFI. I can reboot a system and watch. etc.

Our backup libraries hold 500+ tapes so I am not needing to swap tapes on a daily basis. Yet I can still control the backups remotely. We have OV tools setup for monitoring and this is done on a 24 hr cycle, so monitoring is done if we are there or not. I am configured to have X displays when I need it.
I have lp spoolers configured to work at home as well.

As previously stated, I can do anything on the systems except physically touch them.

My biggest hangup is, you miss some of the interactions with your fellow team members. You miss some of the light-hearted times when jokes are flying around the office. I also believe that being able to physically "see" the environment helps in understanding the environment.

With me, I do go into the office on most days. I am able to work from home a couple a days a week and these will be mainly project days. Other times, gotta sick kid, weather/roads are marginal, kids have day off from school, wife is sick when kids are off school, etc.

Flexibility I find is the piece that ensures the successful ability to work from home.

[Rick Garland]

Must have that high spped VPN connection is my opinion. Also, with the kids in school this takes away some of the distractions. Get rid of any distractions.

I have my part of my basement (one little corner) setup just for the task of working from home. Is kinda nice. I am able to do everything except physically touch the systems. We have remote consoles setup so I can interact with the GSP or EFI. I can reboot a system and watch. etc.

Our backup libraries hold 500+ tapes so I am not needing to swap tapes on a daily basis. Yet I can still control the backups remotely. We have OV tools setup for monitoring and this is done on a 24 hr cycle, so monitoring is done if we are there or not. I am configured to have X displays when I need it.
I have lp spoolers configured to work at home as well.

As previously stated, I can do anything on the systems except physically touch them.

My biggest hangup is, you miss some of the interactions with your fellow team members. You miss some of the light-hearted times when jokes are flying around the office. I also believe that being able to physically "see" the environment helps in understanding the environment.

With me, I do go into the office on most days. I am able to work from home a couple a days a week and these will be mainly project days. Other times, gotta sick kid, weather/roads are marginal, kids have day off from school, wife is sick when kids are off school, etc.

Flexibility I find is the piece that ensures the successful ability to work from home.

As a matter of fact, I am working from home now.

[Rick Garland]

One thing I forgot to mention.

Our staff has IM (yahoo, AOL) as well. I can converse with anybody in the office without having to pick up a phone.

This is something I find very useful.

[Steven E. Protter]

Three thiings for you George.

1) In Israel we have a good VPN and can do everthing on our hp servers including console boot from anywhere in the world. The actual need to be in the office is minimal, but policy is we are there. The good news is at least when there is something wrong at night I don't have to navigate Jerusalem's roads to get back to work.

2) My little webhosting concern, which I'm in the US to do server replacement on is totally managed remotely. I have a https/ssh interface for doing the power switch when necessary. I support people in the US that run a couple of networks that are Windows or mixed Windows Linux.

3) The day a major data loss occured at my former employer, I was out sick that day (which means it could NOT have been my fault). When made aware of the situation, my first 14 or 15 hours of work rebuilding the servers was done from home, because I really WAS sick that day and felt too weak to travel. Again, with the right equipment I could have continued to work through the situation from home. The key is to configure GSP or web console so they are on the network and accessible, while keeping them password protected.

These are my stories. I hope it works out for you. The tape loading thing is never an issue. I've always had an operations department or a Mazkira or friend to load tapes for me in the above situations.

SEP

[Ranjeet A.]

Hi..Just gone thru your profile:

Certification: HP uncertified monkey

really??