Wow. That's a lot of questions.
I suggest answering them over skype.... or a pint.... Or both.
Regards
Darragh Ó Héiligh
Fujitsu
Offices of the Houses of the Oireachtas,
Fredrick Building,
South Fredrick Street,
Dublin2
Telephone: +353 (1) 618 3559
Email: darragh.oheiligh@oireachtas.ie
Internet: http://www.oireachtas.ie
From: Barry Toner
To: Blind sysadmins list ,
Date: 31/10/2012 11:30
Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] PRTG Enterprise
Sent by: "Blind-sysadmins"
Hi Darragh,
Sounds like they keep you busy!
Cheers for the heads-up on the software packages.
My manager has a background in IT and also Disability. Having previously
worked for Mencap, a charity that deals with the needs of people with
Mental health conditions. he has a very proactive view going forward with
our ICT Strategy in-terms of Accessibility. He's wanting me to test any
new systems before we put them in place for Accessibility. He's thinking
is that if it won't work for a Screen Reader then it's not what we want
and we'll move on and look at another product that both meets the business
requirements and Accessibility. This is very encouraging!
My company is also very much about Section 75 of the UK Equality Act
compliance, which I can see is what's driving their attitude of inclusion.
We'll soon be implamenting an Intranet, and public web site update. My
manager wants me involved with the designers and performing accessibility
testing on these products. It's exciting to be here at the early stages,
instead of landing in somewhere where everything is put in place and it's
a case of, "Sorry that won't work with your A11Y". This in my experience
can be very demoralising to see your roles and responsibility's lessen.
I've no problems checking things out at home but unfortunately I don't
have a pair of eyes on tap as my partner is also Blind.
It's encouraging that we're getting work mobile phones and these are all
going to be iPhones. My manager was thrilled to bits when I showed him
Voice Over and explained I've been using IOS for almost two years now. No
Blackberry's!
Have you any experience in using Microsoft Link? This is a product we
will be installing shortly. We've also just purchased the latest version
of Sharepoint and while we were thinking of upgrading from Office 2K3 to
2K10, he's now chatting about going straight to 2K13. I've no idea about
it's level of Accessibility, do you?
Our infasstructure at the moment is Citrix. So the end-users are all
using a common desktop running off Server 2K3. I'm waiting on my Access
to Work stuff coming through which will be including a Citrix licence for
JFW. We own our Citrix Server which is nice in-terms of we've full
control.
I'm also getting a copy of Serotek's Remote Inncident Manager for remote
support of our 5 PC's and the PC's out in the housing schemes.
My manager I believe over time is starting to see some limitations of
Citrix and is talking about moving to Virtual machines for end-users. Any
thoughts on how I'd go about accessing these? I've experience of VMware
Workstation, but that's just at home running both clients and Ms Server
2008 R2.
Regards,
Barry.
-----Original Message-----
From: Blind-sysadmins [
mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of
Darragh OHeiligh
Sent: 31 October 2012 10:08
To: Blind sysadmins list
Cc: Blind-sysadmins
Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] PRTG Enterprise
Bary,
My role is becoming a bit of everything lately.
Backups... Again, even though I swore I wouldn't take them ever again.
Virtualization on ESXI.
administration of the full disk and removeable media encryption.
Software deployment and upgrades using SCCM and SCUP.
Hardware maintenance for Dell and HP servers and the HP SAN.
Administration of the various small applications. Password manager,
accounts package, CRM, CMS etc.
Administration of all the Linux servers.
Monitoring of everything from Cameras to air conditioning to UPS to
servers, to switches and more.
Obviously I don't look at the cameras, I just need to make sure their
working, recording and replaced when necessary.
SCOM is used for comprehensive reporting on server activity. It provides
alerts to a multitude of issues from bad hardware, Windows alerts and
application failures.
What's up gold is a service availability monitoring tool. It is probably
unusual to have both running side by side but every time I@m asked to get
rid of it I argue that SCOM is too verbose. At a glance, What's up gold
can give you a black and white picture of the availability of all services
on the network.
I also use a syslog server from Manage Engine. Stay away from this at all
costs. It's accessible but as reliable as a chocolate tea pot.
We used to have three system administrators but now we're down to two and
the other guy only started about two months ago.
I'd quite happily find another job at this stage. I'd love to move to
somewhere like Texas. Know of any openings?
Hahaha.
Seriously though, I envy you. The company I work for are of the opinion
that they get in the systems that suit their needs and accessibility isn't
a thing they should ever have to think about. It's my hard luck if a
system doesn't work as needed. This isn't a bad thing really. It's as
it should be in my opinion. They shouldn't have to facilitate one single
administrator. In saying that, I'd absolutely love it if just once or
twice they'd say to a company, no. we're not buying your baddly designed
software because it will put our main system administrator in an even more
difficult position. As it stands, I get my girlfriend to help me when I'm
at home with things like accessing KVM's using the Dell switch utility,
accessing the console of a VM in VSphere, analysing graphs from air
conditioning sensors and probably a lot more. I sometimes think the
difficulties of this job far outweigh the benefits.
That of course could be because I'm over worked and under payed though.
hahaha. Like us all I'm sure.
Regards
Darragh Ó Héiligh
Fujitsu
Offices of the Houses of the Oireachtas,
Fredrick Building,
South Fredrick Street,
Dublin2
Telephone: +353 (1) 618 3559
Email: darragh.oheiligh@oireachtas.ie
Internet: http://www.oireachtas.ie
From: "Barry Toner"
To: "Blind sysadmins list" ,
Date: 31/10/2012 09:44
Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] PRTG Enterprise
Sent by: "Blind-sysadmins"
Hi Darragh,
I was initially using NVDA with the client which resulted in "Computer
says no". JFW is reading the log-on screen a good bit better, I'm just
waiting on the Network admin setting an account. Currently for the network
monitoring it's not seen as a priority from the Net Admin, but the manager
disagrees. So the Net Monitoring software has had no security. There'll
be lots changing about here!
I've asked them if we have licences for Scom and What's Up Gold. What do
you use these for in your own role?
Cheers,
Barry.
-----Original Message-----
From: Blind-sysadmins [
mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of
Darragh OHeiligh
Sent: 30 October 2012 15:31
To: Blind sysadmins list
Cc: Blind-sysadmins
Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] PRTG Enterprise
I use a combination of SCOM and what's up gold. None of these are perfect
but they get me through.
I assume graphics labeling is out of the question?
Regards
Darragh Ó Héiligh
Fujitsu
Offices of the Houses of the Oireachtas, Fredrick Building, South Fredrick
Street,
Dublin2
Telephone: +353 (1) 618 3559
Email: darragh.oheiligh@oireachtas.ie
Internet: http://www.oireachtas.ie
From: "Barry Toner"
To: "Blind sysadmins list" ,
Date: 30/10/2012 15:29
Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] PRTG Enterprise
Sent by: "Blind-sysadmins"
Hi folks,
I'm not long started a new job.
As part of my role my manager would like me to monitor network traffic.
More in-terms of being pro-active than for any specific task at the
moment.
He has provided me a link to the monitoring software they are using. I
know he is open to suggestions if there's a more accessible solution for
someone with a screen reader.
Do any of you have experience with using PRTG Enterprise? The Web UI
isn't bad until you get to the monitoring stuff, then it's nice red/green
ticks and so forth to say if things are running happy or not.
So, er yeah, sorry can't access that information and there's no text I can
find to get the same information. I'm just about to poke around it's
settings and documentation to see if there's another way I can get a more
text-based view of things. There's also a Desktop client I can download
but I'd imagine that'll be pretty pictures as well. Hey ho I'll havea
look at it just in case.
What network monitoring software are you guys using?
BTW I believe this has an IOS app so that's another avenue I can look at.
Barry Toner
ICT Assistant
ICT Department
Clanmil Housing
Northern Whig House
3 Waring Street
Belfast
BT1 2DX
Tel: 02890 876000
Fax: 02890 876001
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