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Nguyen

"As Systems Architect, I am a very casual user."

Nguyen ["nuin"] is a family man in his early 30's who takes pride in his work. He works a 9-5 shift but does stay overtime when needed. He is motivated by success, providing good service and learning new things. Nguyen has been with the company for 5 years. He enjoys his team, and appreciates that the software development company he works for focuses "on quality rather than delivery dates."

Nguyen has an MS in Industrial Engineering, but got into software engineering shortly out of college, and has been a system administrator for 10 years. For the past 3 years Nguyen has been a System Architect with these two major responsibilities:

1) 75% - Plan rollouts of products and features, from inception to completion including training. This includes the design/set up for NW for their systems, which is handed off to operations to implement.

2) 25% - Provide third-level technical support in backup and recovery, that are escalated to him after Help Desk and Operators have tried to solve the problem. He uses NetWorker Windows Recovery GUI to recover user files, such as design diagrams, 1-2 per week, every couple of weeks. Says does it for users who are "clueless" but not for db admins who do it themselves.

Nguyen points out several times that projects are carried out with the help of the whole team.


"The underlying design of NetWorker is too complex - it does not follow patterns, and what I expect in the menu is not there. I have to keep the details pane open all the time to see what's going on."

 
Environment Work environment: There are family pics on the wall, along with a big poster of the Oracle 11i infrastructure. Cube includes 3 computers, 2 UNIX and one windows. Mostly on UNIX. 2 monitors present. Uses Gnome desktop - one set up with Redhat/Linux, the other XP. He stays in his cube most of the time, unless he's meeting with his team.

Software: Uses both NW GUI, for drive monitoring, to run test bu's, and to install NW client software on machines. Was an HP omniback user, likes its intutive interface. Uses the web/Google for projecct research. Also, MS project.

NetWorker setup:
  • Uses 7.12
  • Backs up 20-30 critical servers
  • Schedules are weekly
  • Configures 1 client per group, easier than having to stop all clients associated with a group, when one client fails
  • Has additional groups for quarterly and yearly backups
  • Pools are based on platforms, there are 4: 1) Linux, 2) db, 3) exhange, and 4) windows-based
  • 3 levels (skip, full and level 1) - incrementals for level 1
  • Use tape in jukebox, this preference lessens time to recover
  • Uses NW for installing NW client software on machines
  • Browse policy 1 mo, retention policy 1 year.
  • Group attributes that matter: Group Name and Autostart for Testing
  • Client attributes that matter: Name, schedule, Browse & retention, and directives for UNIX no-compression

Skills General Technology
  • appears to be tech-savvy, usees lot of tools
  • doesn't script anything though
  • UNIX user
NetWorker
  • Used 3 years
  • Receved some training, took 6 most - 1 year to be proficient
  • Not a Console user
Goals 
  • Deliver high quality products
  • Solve support problems in a timely manner
  • Support the team in any way possible
Tasks 
  • research and engage team in developing projects
  • download, install and configure new systems
  • test systems
  • write documentation
  • recovers users files ("they are clueless, where db's are not")
Daily Workflow

Has a cup o' joe in the morning - hangs out socially with the team.

1.  Checks email and calendar.
2.  Looks at project schedule, finds critical issues for the day.
3.  Day is then a pretty even mix of troubleshooting and researching/developing projects.

(We have limited workflow - Nguyen is not an everyday user of NW, although it would be prudent to follow his recovery workflow at some point).

Other key efforts and time required:

  • Spends 4 hours a day on Google research
  • Rest of 4 hours spent on tasks [shown on right]
  • Recoveries: 1-2 at a time, every 2 weeks
  • Does this for users, who are "clueless" not db admins
  • Tries to keep software versions up to date, to follow practices at company
Issues & Concerns
  • NDMP: Is fast when it works, but works less than 10% of the time
  • Wants additional drive monitoring detail
  • Says is comfortable with the resource model, though also says the interface is "unintuitive"
  • Recovery process in Windows recovery GUI is tedious: No progress indicators and confirmations
    • list of files might say "finish" or "15 files in 20 minutes"
    • no error messages to tell you something is wrong, except as list is rolling and in absense of that, also doesn't mean it worked - no clear indicator
    • he says this is WORSE in UNIX
  • No indicators in NW inventory and operations either
    • tape inventory shows no indicator that it was done
  • Can't push software to virgin machines like Omnivac (can)?
  • Would like to create a dynamic output of a report he now does manually (see Figure below)
    • Shows when groups are scheduled by device
    • Too hard to write a script for this