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"