From dannyman at toldme.com Mon Mar 6 09:48:13 2006 From: dannyman at toldme.com (Danny Howard) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 09:48:13 -0800 Subject: RT vs Bugzilla Message-ID: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> Hello, So, uhm, since Tom's awesome presentation (well, I caught the latter half ...) and I'm reading his book now "Time Management for SysAdmins" and I've got a new hire starting Thursday, who will DOUBLE the size of my one-man team . . . I am thinking that RT may be in my future. Back when I tried it in . . . 2000? Well, back then it was kinda crappy. Ultimately, since the developers were using Bugzilla, my group was told to use Bugzilla as well. And, we are using Bugzilla at my current gig as well. Well, I'm not really, but the developers are. Anyone who has experience here? Advice? Wisdom? Is RT sufficiently awesome that I can give a decent explanation to my boss as to why we are using our own tool? Or should I just suck it up and do the Bugzilla thing? I'm not looking for a flame war, more just advice on . . . well, political advice on relative technical superiority. So, I guess I am trolling up a flame war, eh? But maybe we can learn something. :) Thanks All, -danny -- http://dannyman.toldme.com From pmm at igtc.com Mon Mar 6 10:26:30 2006 From: pmm at igtc.com (Paul M. Moriarty) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 10:26:30 -0800 Subject: RT vs Bugzilla In-Reply-To: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> References: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20060306182630.GB18976@igloo.igtc.com> In short, and in my experience, bugzilla is well-suited to dealing with bugs and RT is well suited to dealing with requests. While there is some overlap in funtionality, using a bug tracking tool for request tracking is a lot like using a 40-ft RV for a daily 5-mile commute. It works, but there are more efficient solutions. There are a number of request tracking tools out there these days that work well. I am a fan of Double Choco Latte (stupid name, but good tool) at http://www.sf.net. As RT has migrated from version 1.0.2 in 2000 to 3.4.5 today, I'm sure it has improved remarkably since you last looked at it. - Paul - From jxh at jxh.com Mon Mar 6 11:14:17 2006 From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein) Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 13:14:17 -0600 Subject: RT vs Bugzilla In-Reply-To: <20060306182630.GB18976@igloo.igtc.com> References: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> <20060306182630.GB18976@igloo.igtc.com> Message-ID: <440C8A09.5050701@jxh.com> Paul M. Moriarty wrote: > In short, and in my experience, bugzilla is well-suited to dealing > with bugs and RT is well suited to dealing with requests. While > there is some overlap in funtionality, using a bug tracking tool > for request tracking is a lot like using a 40-ft RV for a daily > 5-mile commute. It works, but there are more efficient solutions. I concur. I use RT and have some some time. (I'm not running 3.4.5.) One major thing that request-tracking tools need to do (and which even RT won't do without some added effort) is to encode the idea of sleep/wake, or blocked/runnable, or (as we called it once) freeze/unfreeze. The idea is that at some point you can't make any progress on an issue (left a message, waiting for a part to arrive, etc.), so it blocks. You give it a date, and on that date it becomes available again to work on. If they didn't call you back by then, you call them again; if the package didn't arrive on time, you go hunting for it; etc. That, combined with some basic priority scheme, gives you a queue where you can truly work on the top thing on the list, not just cherry-pick which of the top 100 is the most interesting (thus guaranteeing that 80 or so of them will never get worked on). Priority schemes are weak in RT as shipped, but no better in bug-tracking systems I have seen, or in other commercial RT-like things such as Remedy. They all take significant effort -- and thought -- to set up. I have yet to spend the energy to get RT to automatically make things get "worse" with age. But here's how I dodge it, for a couple of queues: 5 8,18,22 * * * /opt/imap-partners/bin/getrttix -c 24 | Mail -E -s "New support tickets over 24h old" jxh at imap-partners.net 3 8,18 * * * /opt/imap-partners/bin/getrttix -c 48 | Mail -E -s "New support tickets OVER 48h OLD" -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: getrttix URL: From jac at panix.com Mon Mar 6 11:17:32 2006 From: jac at panix.com (John Clear) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 11:17:32 -0800 Subject: RT vs Bugzilla In-Reply-To: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> References: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20060306191732.GA21188@panix.com> On Mon, Mar 06, 2006 at 09:48:13AM -0800, Danny Howard wrote: > > Anyone who has experience here? Advice? Wisdom? Is RT sufficiently > awesome that I can give a decent explanation to my boss as to why we > are using our own tool? Or should I just suck it up and do the > Bugzilla thing? If your customers are primarily engineers, I'd use Bugzilla since they are already familiar with using it. If a big portion of your user base is sales/finance non-techie types, RT might be a better option. A system the users are familiar with, even if it isn't perfect, is better then a system that they will avoid using since it is difficult/different. At $WORK, one engineering group uses Gnats, another uses a combination of Bugzilla and RT. The corporate overlords have dictated that IT shall use Remedy, and the users (and IT) hate it since the local implementation sucks[1]. It is hard to convince users to open a helpdesk ticket if it crashes their browser. John [1] We've been trying to convince our PHB of Tom's rule that if it is difficult and something done once, hire someone to do it. So far, we've been unsuccessful. From dlc-bl at halibut.com Mon Mar 6 11:45:04 2006 From: dlc-bl at halibut.com (Dave) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 11:45:04 -0800 Subject: Engineering Datacenter environmental requirements? Message-ID: <20060306114504.B10629@halibut.com> Greetings, I'm interested to know what kinds of environmental standards people try to maintain for "engineering lab"-type machine rooms, compared with on- and off-site 24/7 production datacenters. We have a couple of megawatts worth of equipment running in various labs of various ages and designs, on which software development and QA is performed. Their rank in the scheme of things is low enough that they're not on UPS, redundant power or networks, etc. However, we're still negotiating with the facilities people on whether the HVAC and environmental monitoring they gave us (long story) is adequate. I don't have much experience in "real" datacenters, so I'm looking for advice. TIA-942 calls for 20-25 degs. C (68-77 F) at the intake of the gear, with a maximum rate of change of 5 C (9 F) per hour, and with 40% - 55% RH. How hard do y'all work to provide that in your engineering labs? Especially those of you who are here in California or other areas where Electricity is more expensive. Thanks. From conley at jeconley.com Mon Mar 6 10:43:28 2006 From: conley at jeconley.com (James "Mike" Conley) Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 10:43:28 -0800 Subject: RT vs Bugzilla In-Reply-To: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> References: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <440C82D0.20304@enteka.com> RT is definitely a better ticketing choice than Bugzilla. There are quite a few other options out there, but in my last position I implemented RT after a fairly long search of what was available at the time (early 2005). It worked very well, was simple to install and configure, was reliable, and had a long list of "3rd party" add-ons. --Mike Danny Howard wrote: > Hello, > > So, uhm, since Tom's awesome presentation (well, I caught the latter > half ...) and I'm reading his book now "Time Management for SysAdmins" > and I've got a new hire starting Thursday, who will DOUBLE the size of > my one-man team . . . I am thinking that RT may be in my future. > > Back when I tried it in . . . 2000? Well, back then it was kinda > crappy. Ultimately, since the developers were using Bugzilla, my > group was told to use Bugzilla as well. > > And, we are using Bugzilla at my current gig as well. Well, I'm not > really, but the developers are. > > Anyone who has experience here? Advice? Wisdom? Is RT sufficiently > awesome that I can give a decent explanation to my boss as to why we > are using our own tool? Or should I just suck it up and do the > Bugzilla thing? > > I'm not looking for a flame war, more just advice on . . . well, > political advice on relative technical superiority. So, I guess I am > trolling up a flame war, eh? But maybe we can learn something. :) > > Thanks All, > -danny > > -- > http://dannyman.toldme.com > From fabrice at life.net Mon Mar 6 13:57:05 2006 From: fabrice at life.net (Fabrice Nye) Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 13:57:05 -0800 Subject: RT vs Bugzilla In-Reply-To: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com > References: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.0.20060306135353.02150dd8@life.net> Danny, I am not familiar with Bugzilla, and have avoided it because I was not looking for a bug tracker. I remember looking at several packages, and because I wanted something that would support everything going through e-mail, I tried OTRS. I was pretty pleased with it, in particular the ability to customize pretty finely. I think I found it to have features that matched my requirements better than RT. For a variety of reasons, I did not go past the proof-of-concept phase. Fabrice At 3/6/2006 09:48 AM, Danny Howard wrote: >Hello, > >So, uhm, since Tom's awesome presentation (well, I caught the latter >half ...) and I'm reading his book now "Time Management for SysAdmins" >and I've got a new hire starting Thursday, who will DOUBLE the size of >my one-man team . . . I am thinking that RT may be in my future. > >Back when I tried it in . . . 2000? Well, back then it was kinda >crappy. Ultimately, since the developers were using Bugzilla, my >group was told to use Bugzilla as well. > >And, we are using Bugzilla at my current gig as well. Well, I'm not >really, but the developers are. > >Anyone who has experience here? Advice? Wisdom? Is RT sufficiently >awesome that I can give a decent explanation to my boss as to why we >are using our own tool? Or should I just suck it up and do the >Bugzilla thing? > >I'm not looking for a flame war, more just advice on . . . well, >political advice on relative technical superiority. So, I guess I am >trolling up a flame war, eh? But maybe we can learn something. :) > >Thanks All, >-danny > >-- >http://dannyman.toldme.com From cyrus.sage at gmail.com Tue Mar 7 11:20:26 2006 From: cyrus.sage at gmail.com (Cyrus Vesuna) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 11:20:26 -0800 Subject: RT vs Bugzilla In-Reply-To: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> References: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Danny, I went through this 3 months ago, in nearly the exact same situation. So I setup Bugzilla, & RT both and 'previewed' it to the users. Bugzilla won hands down.. why? 1. users already familiar with it 2. knowing how to use it, meant ppl actually used it and didn't take the easier route of a) Water cooler attacks b) Stroll up to his cube attacks :) 3. (2) in turn meant less of "Please use the helpdesk system, since I can't remember all your requests" etc. 4. (2) & (3) means we actually have a system in place which is used. Goal is accomplished. Now whether the tool does all that you need is a different question altogether :( Bad news: 1. Bugzilla is just that -- a bug tracking system it does not have the flexibility that RT has nor does it support the concept of multiple queue's. So if its a couple of ppl (like my case and your case) its ok, as you get more ppl handling the requests it will take a lot of discipline not to step over each others toes.. 2. There are a few more, but they are more of a personal opinion.. :) HTH Cyrus On 3/6/06, Danny Howard wrote: > Hello, > > So, uhm, since Tom's awesome presentation (well, I caught the latter > half ...) and I'm reading his book now "Time Management for SysAdmins" > and I've got a new hire starting Thursday, who will DOUBLE the size of > my one-man team . . . I am thinking that RT may be in my future. > > Back when I tried it in . . . 2000? Well, back then it was kinda > crappy. Ultimately, since the developers were using Bugzilla, my > group was told to use Bugzilla as well. > > And, we are using Bugzilla at my current gig as well. Well, I'm not > really, but the developers are. > > Anyone who has experience here? Advice? Wisdom? Is RT sufficiently > awesome that I can give a decent explanation to my boss as to why we > are using our own tool? Or should I just suck it up and do the > Bugzilla thing? > > I'm not looking for a flame war, more just advice on . . . well, > political advice on relative technical superiority. So, I guess I am > trolling up a flame war, eh? But maybe we can learn something. :) > > Thanks All, > -danny > > -- > http://dannyman.toldme.com > > From dannyman at toldme.com Tue Mar 7 12:35:20 2006 From: dannyman at toldme.com (Danny Howard) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 12:35:20 -0800 Subject: RT vs Bugzilla In-Reply-To: References: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2a5241e00603071235i49b9efd7m2c05e7d228c7cc6f@mail.gmail.com> Cyrus, > 2. knowing how to use it, meant ppl actually used it and didn't take > the easier route of > a) Water cooler attacks > b) Stroll up to his cube attacks :) > 3. (2) in turn meant less of "Please use the helpdesk system, since I > can't remember all your requests" etc. My understanding, and a chief reason why I don't favor Bugzilla, is that you can open an RT issue by just sending in a mail to support or helpdesk or whatever. If all the user needs to know is where to send an e-mail . . . how does "I know how to fill out all twenty Bugzilla fields" work any better? -- http://dannyman.toldme.com From cyrus.sage at gmail.com Tue Mar 7 12:48:38 2006 From: cyrus.sage at gmail.com (Cyrus Vesuna) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 12:48:38 -0800 Subject: RT vs Bugzilla In-Reply-To: <2a5241e00603071235i49b9efd7m2c05e7d228c7cc6f@mail.gmail.com> References: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> <2a5241e00603071235i49b9efd7m2c05e7d228c7cc6f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Danny, It doesnt. That is a limitiation of bugzilla. However I translate it into an advantage ... You do not get an email like "it doesn't work", since users are forced to make a selection for the type of issue, whether its a server/network/general etc , as well as other info, you as support get a better chance of fixing the issue w/o having to walk up to the user and ask them for all the details. (Ofcourse the user can select everything wrong just to throw you off, or to mislead you, however, if they do want to be helped {yes most do!} they try and reflect in the choices the correct issues they think are involved) Email gives you the liberty of unstructured data, unstructured data + lack of user discipline (in describing the issue) means you have a database full of bugs just that you need to spend 'x' hrs a day chasing down users via email, in person or via phone to figure out what the hell they meant when they said "it doesn't work" Finally, structured data means I can pull up through reports in bugzilla, how many server related, network related, desktop related issues were there in a period, helps mgmt get an idea of day to day ops as well as staff augmentation for overloaded areas.... C. On 3/7/06, Danny Howard wrote: > Cyrus, > > > > 2. knowing how to use it, meant ppl actually used it and didn't take > > the easier route of > > a) Water cooler attacks > > b) Stroll up to his cube attacks :) > > 3. (2) in turn meant less of "Please use the helpdesk system, since I > > can't remember all your requests" etc. > > My understanding, and a chief reason why I don't favor Bugzilla, is > that you can open an RT issue by just sending in a mail to support or > helpdesk or whatever. If all the user needs to know is where to send > an e-mail . . . how does "I know how to fill out all twenty Bugzilla > fields" work any better? > > -- > http://dannyman.toldme.com > From cerise at armory.com Tue Mar 7 12:49:57 2006 From: cerise at armory.com (cerise at armory.com) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 12:49:57 -0800 Subject: RT vs Bugzilla In-Reply-To: <2a5241e00603071235i49b9efd7m2c05e7d228c7cc6f@mail.gmail.com> References: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> <2a5241e00603071235i49b9efd7m2c05e7d228c7cc6f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20060307204957.GA15397@boogeyman> Not knowing anything about RT, I'd think that would prove the superiority of Bugzilla in getting information vital to troubleshooting. One really needs that sort of structure to force users to provide useful feedback. While that'll put people off at the same time, some pressure from the developers in question might do the trick to keep people in line and filing reports via bugzilla. -Phil/CERisE On Tue, Mar 07, 2006 at 12:35:20PM -0800, Danny Howard wrote: > Cyrus, > > > > 2. knowing how to use it, meant ppl actually used it and didn't take > > the easier route of > > a) Water cooler attacks > > b) Stroll up to his cube attacks :) > > 3. (2) in turn meant less of "Please use the helpdesk system, since I > > can't remember all your requests" etc. > > My understanding, and a chief reason why I don't favor Bugzilla, is > that you can open an RT issue by just sending in a mail to support or > helpdesk or whatever. If all the user needs to know is where to send > an e-mail . . . how does "I know how to fill out all twenty Bugzilla > fields" work any better? > > -- > http://dannyman.toldme.com > From dannyman at toldme.com Tue Mar 7 13:21:13 2006 From: dannyman at toldme.com (Danny Howard) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 13:21:13 -0800 Subject: RT vs Bugzilla In-Reply-To: <20060307204957.GA15397@boogeyman> References: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> <2a5241e00603071235i49b9efd7m2c05e7d228c7cc6f@mail.gmail.com> <20060307204957.GA15397@boogeyman> Message-ID: <2a5241e00603071321t3c8d9750u19b296c24f03e84f@mail.gmail.com> On 3/7/06, cerise at armory.com wrote: > Not knowing anything about RT, I'd think that would prove the superiority > of Bugzilla in getting information vital to troubleshooting. > > One really needs that sort of structure to force users to provide useful > feedback. While that'll put people off at the same time, some pressure > from the developers in question might do the trick to keep people in line > and filing reports via bugzilla. Ah, personally, I HATE any system that makes "reporting a bug" any more cumbersome than absolutely needed. You need to make it as easy as possible to record that "something is wrong" and then query your customer for missing data as needed. All these "customer service" forms that have ever forced me to supply 5, ten, fifty pieces of frequently irrelevant data, and then ask me to explain my problem in a tiny little window . . . No. Tools need to accomodate customer needs, and customer needs low barrier to entry. My cynical take on requiring the user to answer twenty questions is that you gain "efficiency" by making it sufficiently cumbersome for a user to report trouble such that the user will simply tolerate all but the very biggest problems, meanwhile cursing the jackasses over in the support organization with their "talk to our dumb*ss web interface" mentality. A good compromise is to capture the user inquiry, and then, if there's a standard questionnaire that needs filling out, have them fill it out. Just, ah, my 2c. :) -danny -- http://dannyman.toldme.com From jxh at jxh.com Tue Mar 7 14:04:58 2006 From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein) Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2006 16:04:58 -0600 Subject: RT vs Bugzilla In-Reply-To: <2a5241e00603071321t3c8d9750u19b296c24f03e84f@mail.gmail.com> References: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> <2a5241e00603071235i49b9efd7m2c05e7d228c7cc6f@mail.gmail.com> <20060307204957.GA15397@boogeyman> <2a5241e00603071321t3c8d9750u19b296c24f03e84f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <440E038A.3020200@jxh.com> >> One really needs that sort of structure to force users to provide useful >> feedback. While that'll put people off at the same time, some pressure >> from the developers in question might do the trick to keep people in line >> and filing reports via bugzilla. > > Ah, personally, I HATE any system that makes "reporting a bug" any > more cumbersome than absolutely needed. You need to make it as easy > as possible to record that "something is wrong" and then query your > customer for missing data as needed. An interesting dilemma, indeed. Somebody's got to do it, but who, and how much? This also affects how easily the "workers" can update tickets with the information, when and if they get it, and as they change things. What I call "ticket discipline" is high on my list[1] of important qualities for people in these positions. If you don't tell the ticket, it didn't really happen[2]. See also, "Spent 5 minutes filling out time sheet." I guess I should buy Tom's book and see what, if anything, he says about all this. -- [1] Well, OK, it's at the bottom: - Customer focus - Detail orientation - Ticket discipline But it's on the list! [2] http://www.jxh.com/slogans.html From cyrus.sage at gmail.com Tue Mar 7 15:26:20 2006 From: cyrus.sage at gmail.com (Cyrus Vesuna) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 15:26:20 -0800 Subject: RT vs Bugzilla In-Reply-To: <2a5241e00603071321t3c8d9750u19b296c24f03e84f@mail.gmail.com> References: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> <2a5241e00603071235i49b9efd7m2c05e7d228c7cc6f@mail.gmail.com> <20060307204957.GA15397@boogeyman> <2a5241e00603071321t3c8d9750u19b296c24f03e84f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Danny, Under your assumptions you are right, however you stated in your original email that most of them already use Bugzilla (the developers) so I don't see it more cumbersome than it needs to be... :) Am I missing something?? On 3/7/06, Danny Howard wrote: > On 3/7/06, cerise at armory.com wrote: > > Not knowing anything about RT, I'd think that would prove the superiority > > of Bugzilla in getting information vital to troubleshooting. > > > > One really needs that sort of structure to force users to provide useful > > feedback. While that'll put people off at the same time, some pressure > > from the developers in question might do the trick to keep people in line > > and filing reports via bugzilla. > > Ah, personally, I HATE any system that makes "reporting a bug" any > more cumbersome than absolutely needed. You need to make it as easy > as possible to record that "something is wrong" and then query your > customer for missing data as needed. All these "customer service" > forms that have ever forced me to supply 5, ten, fifty pieces of > frequently irrelevant data, and then ask me to explain my problem in a > tiny little window . . . > > No. Tools need to accomodate customer needs, and customer needs low > barrier to entry. My cynical take on requiring the user to answer > twenty questions is that you gain "efficiency" by making it > sufficiently cumbersome for a user to report trouble such that the > user will simply tolerate all but the very biggest problems, meanwhile > cursing the jackasses over in the support organization with their > "talk to our dumb*ss web interface" mentality. > > A good compromise is to capture the user inquiry, and then, if there's > a standard questionnaire that needs filling out, have them fill it > out. > > Just, ah, my 2c. :) > > -danny > > -- > http://dannyman.toldme.com > > From cyrus.sage at gmail.com Tue Mar 7 15:32:47 2006 From: cyrus.sage at gmail.com (Cyrus Vesuna) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 15:32:47 -0800 Subject: RT vs Bugzilla In-Reply-To: <440E038A.3020200@jxh.com> References: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> <2a5241e00603071235i49b9efd7m2c05e7d228c7cc6f@mail.gmail.com> <20060307204957.GA15397@boogeyman> <2a5241e00603071321t3c8d9750u19b296c24f03e84f@mail.gmail.com> <440E038A.3020200@jxh.com> Message-ID: The issue in Bugzilla is taht it has too many fields to be relevant, however, I have organized it as follows Product --> Location (we have offices in 3 countries) Version ---> Unused Component ---> What part of the system (Email, Server, desktop, network , don't know) Severity --> Critical, High, Normal, Low, RFE, Project The RFE helps to log requests which "extend" existing infrastructure which don't fall into a new project category.Project is for new requests. This also helps me put in stuff which I want to do and don't have time for (cfengine, load balancing etc) Users often don't use this correctly and I have to at times change the severity to reflect the correct classification, however, once that is done, I can see at any time, my unworked projects, my RFE's and buglists as different views so it doesn't confuse the hell out of mgmt who think the sysad is slacking ;) Another bonus for users is that they are seeing better response times to issues since they have taken the trouble to document them, rather than writing cryptic emails with little or no info and spending the time playing phone tag... On 3/7/06, Jim Hickstein wrote: > >> One really needs that sort of structure to force users to provide useful > >> feedback. While that'll put people off at the same time, some pressure > >> from the developers in question might do the trick to keep people in line > >> and filing reports via bugzilla. > > > > Ah, personally, I HATE any system that makes "reporting a bug" any > > more cumbersome than absolutely needed. You need to make it as easy > > as possible to record that "something is wrong" and then query your > > customer for missing data as needed. > > An interesting dilemma, indeed. Somebody's got to do it, but who, and > how much? > > This also affects how easily the "workers" can update tickets with the > information, when and if they get it, and as they change things. What I > call "ticket discipline" is high on my list[1] of important qualities > for people in these positions. If you don't tell the ticket, it didn't > really happen[2]. See also, "Spent 5 minutes filling out time sheet." > > I guess I should buy Tom's book and see what, if anything, he says about > all this. > > -- > > [1] Well, OK, it's at the bottom: > - Customer focus > - Detail orientation > - Ticket discipline > But it's on the list! > > [2] http://www.jxh.com/slogans.html > From dannyman at toldme.com Tue Mar 7 15:54:49 2006 From: dannyman at toldme.com (Danny Howard) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 15:54:49 -0800 Subject: RT vs Bugzilla In-Reply-To: References: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> <2a5241e00603071235i49b9efd7m2c05e7d228c7cc6f@mail.gmail.com> <20060307204957.GA15397@boogeyman> <2a5241e00603071321t3c8d9750u19b296c24f03e84f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2a5241e00603071554m99940ccm21c3450d735235f6@mail.gmail.com> On 3/7/06, Cyrus Vesuna wrote: > Danny, > Under your assumptions you are right, however you stated in your > original email that most of them already use Bugzilla (the developers) > so I don't see it more cumbersome than it needs to be... :) > Am I missing something?? Most of them. I was more responmding to the "oh, we don't really want to make it as simple as an e-mail" mentality that imho, is a big thing that's wrong with many network-based organizations. -danny -- http://dannyman.toldme.com From gwen at reptiles.org Tue Mar 7 16:21:31 2006 From: gwen at reptiles.org (Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 19:21:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: RT vs Bugzilla In-Reply-To: <20060307204957.GA15397@boogeyman> References: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> <2a5241e00603071235i49b9efd7m2c05e7d228c7cc6f@mail.gmail.com> <20060307204957.GA15397@boogeyman> Message-ID: <20060307191956.D83444@skink.reptiles.org> On Tue, 7 Mar 2006 cerise at armory.com wrote: > Not knowing anything about RT, I'd think that would prove the superiority > of Bugzilla in getting information vital to troubleshooting. > > One really needs that sort of structure to force users to provide useful > feedback. While that'll put people off at the same time, some pressure > from the developers in question might do the trick to keep people in line > and filing reports via bugzilla. I'm afraid that you're misspeaking. RT not only provides plenty of structure, it allows you to modify the structure via the web interface, rather than needing to dig into the guts of bugzilla to try and make what you'd hope were simple changes. As other people have said - bugzilla is fine for bug tracking. It's not at all good at trouble ticketing. cheers! ========================================================================== "A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to avoid getting wet. This is the defining metaphor of my life right now." From pmm at igtc.com Tue Mar 7 17:54:29 2006 From: pmm at igtc.com (Paul M. Moriarty) Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 17:54:29 -0800 Subject: RT vs Bugzilla In-Reply-To: <20060307204957.GA15397@boogeyman> References: <2a5241e00603060948pf48632ak9681f004f0057630@mail.gmail.com> <2a5241e00603071235i49b9efd7m2c05e7d228c7cc6f@mail.gmail.com> <20060307204957.GA15397@boogeyman> Message-ID: <20060308015429.GB28579@igloo.igtc.com> cerise at armory.com writes: > Not knowing anything about RT, I'd think that would prove the superiority > of Bugzilla in getting information vital to troubleshooting. > > One really needs that sort of structure to force users to provide useful > feedback. While that'll put people off at the same time, some pressure > from the developers in question might do the trick to keep people in line > and filing reports via bugzilla. > > -Phil/CERisE > Ahhh, but remember, the mission here is to make the end-user's job as easy as possible. That's why the support group exists. Making yours easier is much lower on the list. From sigje at sigje.org Wed Mar 8 17:16:55 2006 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 17:16:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: May 8 - LISA Regional Training Message-ID: If you have never experienced a LISA conference, if you haven't had a chance to go lately because of the economy, or if you actually just want some quality training on the calibre that LISA brings ..I'm letting BayLISA folks know about the LISA regional training in coordination with USENIX and SAGE: http://www.usenix.org/events/lisart06/ It's a one day training event with top notch quality tutorials on Regular Expressions, Perl, Active Directory unification with Unix environments, Project Management, Hot Swap File/Print Services, and Project troubleshooting. Date: Monday, May 8, 2006 Location: San Jose, CA Time: 9:00am-5pm Cost: $475 (BayLISA/USENIX members get $50 off) Optional Cost: CEUs $15 Registration: https://db.usenix.org/cgi-bin/Conference/lisart06/reg.cgi There are a very limited number of seats for this, so I'm giving BayLISA folks the heads up. If you are a BayLISA member who is interested in going, please contact blw@ for the discount code. Jennifer From sigje at sigje.org Fri Mar 10 11:36:59 2006 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 11:36:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: BayLISA General Meeting - Mar 16 - Meeting at NetApp HQ, Sunnyvale In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: BayLISA's March General Meeting When: March 16, 2006 Where: Network Appliance Building 3 495 E Java Dr Sunnyvale CA 94089 RSVP: http://www.mollyguard.com/event/25445107 or mail to rsvp at baylisa.org 7:00 Meeting starts 7:15 IP Storage Today and Tomorrow Speaker: David Dale, Network Appliance iSCSI Evangelist and Chair of the SNIA IP Storage Forum 7:45 The Kilo-Client 1000 Host Swarm Speakers: Gregg Ferguson, Laboratory Administrator, and David Brown, Engineering Support Manager, of the NetApp Engineering Pizza and Beer provided by NetApp before the meeting. (PS. I've seen some of the information for this. If you have wanted to know about having 1000 servers quickly repurposed with windows/linux/whatever os this is going to be an incredible _very_ technical talk. Even doing this on a scale of hundreds of boxes this saves a lot of time, and fuss. ) From sigje at sigje.org Fri Mar 10 14:36:55 2006 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 14:36:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: BayLISA Special Event - Mar 30 - Meeting at Yahoo HQ, Sunnyvale In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: BayLISA's March Special Event When: March 30, 2006 Where: Yahoo HQ Bldg C Classroom 5, 701 First Ave, Sunnyvale CA 94089 RSVP: http://www.mollyguard.com/event/26459140 or mail to rsvp at baylisa.org Topic: NSM and Argus Speaker: Rik Farrow Network Security Monitoring (NSM) is the technique developed by Richard Bejtlich (The Tao of Network Security Monitoring, AW 2004). In brief, NSM means to capture network traffic at four different levels, to provide a security analyst with the greatest, and most useful, amount of informantion for analyzing security events. In this presentation, I will outline how NSM works, its benefits, then focus on the one tool that Richard recommends using even if the rest of his system gets ignored. Argus is a session data collector, a tool that collects packet headers and converts them into succinct transaction records. Argus allows you to see which IP addresses communicate, how much data was sent, the ports used, and TCP states for the transaction. While argus itself is easy to use, it produces binary output which must be translate using ra (report argus). You can even start using argus after an incident has occurred, because the network traces will help you to identify involved hosts. I will demonstrate argus and show how you can use ra and scripts to uncover compromised hosts in your networks. If there is enough interest, we can end with a discussion about the future of network security. From sigje at sigje.org Fri Mar 10 17:47:04 2006 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 17:47:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: DTrace Certified Training Message-ID: Folks, I'm talking to Exitcertified in San Francisco with regards to a discount for their DTrace Certified training. They are an Authorized Sun Education Center. Right now I have negotiated them down 15% and I'm working on getting a bit more. Is anyone actually interested in this training? http://www.exitcertified.com/courses/details/sa-327-s10.html Please let me know by Tuesday next week. Please pass on as you feel appropriate, as the more people interested, the better discount we can talk them to. Thanks! Jennifer From guy at extragalactic.net Tue Mar 14 10:52:53 2006 From: guy at extragalactic.net (Guy B. Purcell) Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 10:52:53 -0800 Subject: Tools of the Trade Seminars In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1BADCE22-7373-4996-B9D7-458347445361@extragalactic.net> On Jan 20, 2006, at 13:43, Jennifer Davis wrote: > Given a choice of Scripting for Sysadmins (perl and shell), > Virtualization (Xen, VMWare, Sun, IBM,..), Network, SANS, NAS, what > would you like the next seminar to tackle? This is aiming for an > April Saturday event. Catching up on some old email :^) Wow, but January was a busy month for BayLISA! I like that list, and I'd add Monitoring & Trending (Nagios, Cacti, Orca, to name a few), and perhaps Building Uniform Servers (JumpStart, KickStart, Ports, etc.) to that list. My preferred order would be Scripting Virtualization Monitoring Storage (SAN/NAS) Servers (yeah--I need to work on my scripting :^D ). -Guy From sigje at sigje.org Wed Mar 15 11:18:22 2006 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 11:18:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: meeting tomorrow.. and discount to Dtrace class! Message-ID: Don't forget to rsvp at baylisa.org or the mollyguard if you plan on going to the BayLISA general meeting tomorrow _at_ NetApp. If you have to manage a lot of systems, this will be a meeting you don't want to miss! Additionally, Rik Farrow will be in town at the end of the month, and we will be holding a special BayLISA meeting at Yahoo!. Also, I have talked to Brad Silling and convinced them that offering BayLISA a 25% discount would be a good thing. In order to get this discount contact Brad Silling at (415) 975 3945 or brad.silling at exitcertified.com. http://www.exitcertified.com/courses/details/sa-327-s10.html. Tell him BayLISA sent you :) Please do pass on this to friends interested in the class. From jed2000 at gmail.com Tue Mar 21 13:14:39 2006 From: jed2000 at gmail.com (Jed McCaleb) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 16:14:39 -0500 Subject: New Tool for Sysadmins Message-ID: <69e1c3f80603211314j885e499k4d6190e231cd386d@mail.gmail.com> Hello we are developing a free cross-platform tool for system administrators of large clusters. It allows you to do all sorts of monitoring, notifications, and reporting. It has a graphical interface and is extremely easy to set up and use. We are looking for feedback from people who will actually use the software to know what we should fix or add. Please check it out: www.bixdata.com Thanks for any help, Jed. From dannyman at toldme.com Tue Mar 21 19:21:40 2006 From: dannyman at toldme.com (Danny Howard) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 03:21:40 +0000 Subject: Monitoring Software Message-ID: <2a5241e00603211921x3d362974kea2117b3be41cd7f@mail.gmail.com> Jed, I think that what a lot of folks want, or at least what I like, is to start with a quick and intuitive overview of overall system health, and then be able to drill down and eyeball long-term trends, as well as nice monitoring, and optionally, the ability to take a peek at system stats at an arbitrary point back in time. The screen shots on your web site don't seem to express that your product does this. The very first screen-shot: http://www.bixdata.com/node/89 You've got three panes, and a whole bunch of interfaces. The page layout is so busy that you can not see the graph legend. This seems representative of the screen shots you have to offer. My favorite graphs are from Orca. I LOVE that the way Orca does things, you can either look at a page of graphs from a particular server over a particular time period, or you can look at a page of graphs for a particular aspect of several servers over the same time frame. Graph legends are stuck right there in the graph, really legible. But Orca is not a monitoring program. I also like Big Sister, which is a non-commercial knockoff of Big Brother. A fairly simple overview: red-yellow-green lights in a grid, suggest what's good and what's questionable. It even has some trends graphing, through RRDtool, like Orca. Unfortunately, Orca puts BS's graphs to shame. My biggest gripe about Big Sister is that writing plugins is freaking complicated. Can't help that . . . though, I have found that you can connect to the server on port 1984 and send status information in. Anyway . . . . . just thought I'd put in my 2c. :) -danny From bill at wards.net Tue Mar 21 22:12:20 2006 From: bill at wards.net (Bill Ward) Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 01:12:20 -0500 Subject: PenLUG this Thursday: Matt Doar, Better Automation Environments In-Reply-To: <3d2fe1780603212210w70f4664brb30226e87ebd6405@mail.gmail.com> References: <3d2fe1780603212210w70f4664brb30226e87ebd6405@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <3d2fe1780603212212w40e9c5ct2846488bf9d8ecb9@mail.gmail.com> Please come to the Peninsula Linux Users' Group meeting this Thursday for another great talk! WHO: Matt Doar, Better Automation Environments WHAT: Better Automation Environments WHEN: Thursday, March 23, 7-9pm WHERE: Open Country, 1301 Shoreway Rd, Belmont, CA 94002 WHY: To learn and socialize with other fans of Linux and open source LOCATION: Starting in January 2006 we have been meeting at the offices of Open Country in Belmont, who are also graciously providing us with FREE FOOD and BEVERAGES so bring your appetite as well. We will be in the same room as last month: downstairs, just inside the main entrance and to your right. We plan to post directions at the entrance. RSVP: not required, but send a note to rsvp at penlug.org if you can, so we have an idea of how many people to expect. SPEAKER/TOPIC: Matt Doar, Better Automation Environments Automated environments are how you run your automated builds, along with automated tests and releases with generated lists of bugs for further testing. What should you look for when choosing an automated environment? Why can't you get by with shell scripts alone? Automated environments such as Anthill, CruiseControl and Tinderbox are discussed, along with what a good build report looks like, and how to decide when to build your products. SPEAKER BIO: Matthew B. Doar began writing code as a child in Yorkshire in the late 1970s, studied Engineering and then Computer Science at the University of Cambridge, and finished up with a Ph.D. in computer networking. He has been a professional software developer for over ten years at a number of different companies, writing C, C++ and Java code for large projects and tools. He also wrote JDiff, an open source tool for comparing the Java APIs of different versions of large projects. Matt currently works near San Jose, CA as a toolsmith by day. By night, he has learned to play the clarinet, and accidentally delivered his own son. He is the author of the O'Reilly book "Practical Development Environments." More technical information and contact details are available at Matt's web site: http://www.pobox.com/~doar SPECIAL NOTE: I will not be available to host the meeting, so Peter Knaggs will take over in my absence. -- Help bring back the San Jose Earthquakes - http://www.soccersiliconvalley.com/ From freiheit at SoCoSA.org Sat Mar 25 14:31:14 2006 From: freiheit at SoCoSA.org (Eric Eisenhart) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 14:31:14 -0800 Subject: Sonoma County SysAdmins April 5th: Disaster Recovery Message-ID: <20060325223113.GF22851@atlantic.devin.com> See our website at http://SoCoSA.org/ for more details, updates, to sign up for our mailing list, etc. Meetings are free and open to all. Upcoming Sonoma County System Administrators events: (All presentations start at 7pm; show up at 6pm for pizza and socializing) April 5th at Sonic.net in Santa Rosa: http://SoCoSA.org/meeting/2006/04 (address, map links, full details, etc.) Topic: What Disaster Recovery Plan? Speaker: Tina Amper, Blue Sky Solutions / ADIC Details: What if power went down or your facilities are flooded? How well can your organization handle and survive a disaster or business interruption? Best practices for business continuity and disaster recovery management are discussed in this talk. ADIC will be providing free pizza and soft drinks. May 5th at O'Reilly in Sebastopol: http://SoCoSA.org/meeting/2006/05 (address, map links, updated info) Topic: Nagios Monitoring and Groundwork Open Source Solutions Speaker: Taylor Dondich of GroundWork Open Source, Inc. Details: Nagios is an open source host, service and network monitoring program. GroundWork makes an enterprise-class nagios-based monitoring solution with a number of enhancements. June 7th at O'Reilly in Sebastopol: http://SoCoSA.org/meeting/2006/06 (address, map links, updated info) Topic: Storage Security Speaker: Shawna Meyer -- Eric Eisenhart SoCoSA Founder and President IRC: freiheit on irc.SoCoSA.org AIM: falschfreiheit From sigje at sigje.org Tue Mar 28 16:15:10 2006 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 16:15:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: March Special Event and LISA RT Message-ID: NSM and Argus with Rik Farrow this Thursday at Yahoo Inc! in Sunnyvale! Network Security Monitoring and more.. For more information http://www.baylisa.org. To RSVP: rsvp at baylisa.org OR http://www.mollyguard.com/event/26459140 LISA Regional Training - LIMITED SEATS!!! $495/$445 for Usenix or BayLISA members One day of tutorials on May 8, 2006 includes networking, vendor demos, and reception. Wireless and lunch will be provided. http://www.usenix.org/events/lisart06/training/tutonefile.html From sigje at sigje.org Fri Mar 31 15:53:20 2006 From: sigje at sigje.org (Jennifer Davis) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 15:53:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: ExitCertified discounts for BayLISA members Message-ID: If any class is a class multiple people want to take we can get a bigger discount. * Any Sun certified class taken at an ExitCertified facility in San Francisco or Sacramento - 15% * Any Sun certified class taken at any other Sun Education facility - 5% * Any Veritas certified class taken at an ExitCertified facility in San Francisco or Sacramento - 10% * Any Veritas certified class taken at any other Veritas / Symantec facility - 5% * Any IBM certified class - 8% * Any Oracle certified class - 5% To get the discount: Brad Silling Sr. Education Consultant :: ExitCertified 450 Sansome Street, Suite 600 San Francisco, CA 94111 [e] brad.silling at exitcertified.com [p] 415.975.3945 [f ] 415.975.3947