1-Man IT Department

A Long and Winding Road

It has been awhile since I have posted here, and since I have been pinged a couple of times in the last couple of weeks, I figured that i needed to start posting here again. So a quick recap of things that have been happening to me since I posted last.

1. I have FINALLY released the bid for the server that will become our new Exchange 2007 Server at work. Working in local government, if I hit a specific amount ($7,500), I have to bid out the machine to at least 3 vendors. I released the bid on June 2, and I will open them on June 18, 2007. I am pretty excited aboout this moving on. This is the one project that needed to get going. We are using Novell Groupwise currently on a Novell 5.1 server that was not configured correctly (e.g. my SYS:Public dir is not at /sys/public it is in sys/mail/public…why, you ask…I have NO IDEA, but it has been this way for over 5 years). I had never spec’ed out an Exchange Server before so I severely underbudgeted for the project for this year. It may be that I get the hardware this year and the software next year first thing. I am getting the OS and Exchange Server software off of state bid, so there should not be any delay in getting it in October or November. (We start our FY in October.)
2. We are in negotiations with AT&T (formerly BellSouth) to move all of our network and telecom needs from our current vendor. Right now we are split on our telecom between our current vendor and BellSouth, and I figured that we would get better rates by having it all under one roof. It will be a two phase process where Phase I will be BellSouth mirroring our current services as close as they can to our current vendors offering (initial savings of about $870/month). Phase II will be a mass upgrade of most of our phone equipment. It will require a $10-12,000 investment from us, but then in the end, we should see a savings of over $1,800/month to what we are currently paying with our vendor. I am also very excited about this Project. If implemented in July, the City would see a savings of $2,600 for the remainder of FY07 and a FY08 potential savings of over $17,500.
3. I am in talks with one of the major computer hardware companys to look at leasing all of the computers for the city starting in FY08. One of the other agencies on our county is using the same vendor for his leasing of over 3000 machines, and they are very happy with them. I would figure that they caould handle out measely 90+ machines. This will relieve a lot of burden on me for replacements each year, and will allow us to purchase machines for $1.00 at the end of the lease.
4. I am finally building a dedicated server room down the hall from my office. It is not the ideal setup, but it will be a secure space for the servers to live out their days. I have gotten the room wired for ethernet and power, the racks and the main switch is in. I have received my UPS, console with 17″ LCD and 8 port KVM, two surge protectors and the rack conversion kit for my domain controller. Now I just have to get it all installed. I have set that up tentatively for this Friday.
5. Lastly (I think), I have been closely working with Martin McKeay at StillSecure to test their new Open Source Unified Network Platform (UNP) product called Cobia. They are blending the networking and security into one product. The UNP link is to a whitepaper that Mitchell Ashley wrote earlier this year detailing the UNP. It is a very good intro to what Cobia is going to be able to do. It has a very nice web-based configuration tool that is modularized so that you can use what you need. Shipping with the beta release is the DHCP, Firewall and Router modules. I have begun to get it up and running on my home network. We have run into a slight snag last night because my DSL provider is using Point-to-Point over Ethernet (PPPoE) protocol. The Cobia client is not natively ready for PPPoE connections to the Internet. Martin thinks that he has found a solution and posted about it on the Cobia blog. We will try it out tonight so that I can get the Cobia DHCP module to assign addresses to the machines on my network.

Well that cover most of the projects that I have been up to lately. I am also very excited that I will be able to attend the SANS Security Essentials Bootcamp in Birmingham, AL. This is the type of training that I was hoping to get to start my InfoSec training. It will be at the end of July so I will write about how it goes. It is supposed to be very hands-on (we have to take a laptop with us) so I am really trying to focus on learning as much as I can from the training. Right after the training, I will be going to the Alabama Chapter of GMIS Summer Conference in Orange Beach, AL. It is a group of IT professionals in the government/public sector. I attended the Winter meeting in February and had a lot of fun, met some really great folks and learned a lot from the vendor sessions. I have also ditched my efforts to get A+ Certification. I am going to revamp my efforts into either CCNA or Network+ now. I was growing very bored with the A+ content since it was all stuff that I already knew.

So, I guess that about wraps up what I have been up to in the last month and a half. I am going to try to make a point to blog more (both here and my other blog, Black Belt Productivity). Thanks for stopping by, and please come back as I continue down the road to Security Professional.

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I’ve always wanted to go to one of the SANS events. I’ve heard nothing but good things about their training.

Glad I found the blog, I’m a one man department myself.

@Ben
Thanks for coming by! I am glad that you found some useful info. I think that I may startup a group or something for us 1 man IT departments.

I am very excited to go to the SANS training. I want to start specializing in security so this is a GREAT stepping stone.

Please come back.

You will like the SANS conference. It is a LOT of information all at once, so be prepared to be overwhelmed. But don’t worry about feeling like you are missing some things. Just be prepared to review that info when you get home. Are you going to take the exam? I attended a SANS bootcamp a couple of years ago, and have also done a SANS @Home class. Very much worth the time, enjoy it.