Okay,
Vikki's good post on sysadmin consulting got me to thinking. I do a
lot of volunteer PC/LAN work at our local church. They used to pay someone a
good chunk of cash, so they do know what consulting costs.
Anyway, the church is moving their office to another building. The
office has 5 PC's on a LAN (6 after I cable another drop). They have a DSL
router, a wireless WAP and 2 wireless bridges. They will probably have
maintenance move the PC's, but I was thinking of helping my son (a
homeschooled 18 year old taking 2 last courses before hitting college) and
his friend (another homeschooled kid, 17 years old) put together a proposal.
I used to be a Telecomm project leader before settling down into a
non-travel job. (I MISS travel!!!). We did a LOT of office moves, and our
group moved the servers, routers, switches, PCs and printers - and put out
RFPs for voice and for cabling.
Anyway, on the low end I was thinking the following items should be in
a proposal (been a while since I did RFPs, and a while since I read
proposals):
1. Back up data on critical PCs
Payroll PC
Birth/Baptisms/Weddings/Deaths PC
Bulletin PCs (2 peoplewrite the weekly bulletin)
None of the above is currently backed up, so I'd have to look at
choices. I'm leaning towards setting up a Samba Server, backing the data up
then move the PCs. Data would either be kept for one month on the Samba
Server if I supplied it - or as long as the church wanted if they supplied
the hardware. I'd price out the time involved in setting up a Samba server
and doing backups. If it's on a PC I would lend short term, I'd have to
figure the cost in installing another drive (to keep the data separate).
A second option would be to back up critical data to CD-RW. I'd price it
by CD instead of by PC, as it could become time intensive.
2. Shut down and pack the PCs (a Friday afternoon activity)
This would include power down the PC. Remove cables and mouse. Keep
cables and mouse together (just tape or tie wrap them or put them in a
seperate box per PC). Move PCs to storage area to keep them secure while
office furniture is moved.
3. Move PCs to new building. This is just a short walk, so they could be
carried.
Insert floppy in drive to prevent failure. (is there a command to park
the hard drive?). Move the PC, keyboard, monitor, cables and mouse.
4. Set PCs up on desks.Power up and test.
Open items:
DSL line is to be moved to the new building.
BellSouth is to relocate and test the DSL router
Verify that LAN cable is installed. Test each drop. If LAN is to be
completely cabled, wireless WAP and Bridge not required.
3 LAN printers are on lease. Have leasing company move the LAN printers to
make sure we don't void warrantees.
Tests (after DSL is installed and LAN printers are installed):
Startup with no errors
Internet access
Print to shared printer
Print to locally attached printer
Access to records PC?
Payroll PC - connect to central location?
Documentation:
Document router configuration
Document LAN cabling
Document PC software
Document PC Hardware configuration
Options:
Set up spare PC as Samba server.
Configure backups from PCs to Samba Server
Ongoing contract: backup from Samba Server to CD-RW (monthly full
backups, weekly incrementals) OR backup to tape (if church buys tape drive)
Okay - if you guys were doing an office move, what else would you include?
It's a MS shop, so Linux would only play in there as a Samba server for file
sharing and for backups.
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