It is a good reminder to not overthink some problems. These tenets have been created over decades as a way of reminding ourselves of the things sometimes overlooked.
- It's always DNS.
- When it’s not DNS, it’s MTU.
- When it’s not MTU, it’s BGP.
- When it’s not BGP, it’s LACP.
- Reboot, reinstall, replace.
- Rebooting is a band aid. Figure out why you had to.
- Under-promise, over-deliver.
- Plan for the worst, hope for the best.
- Always implement two-factor-authentication, no matter how loudly the users complain.
- Have the user show you the problem, often it is the user doing something in an unusual way.
- Fast. Cheap. Good. You may pick one, two if you're lucky.
- Never stop learning.
- The Six Ps: Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.
- It's always an emergency, until it incurs an extra charge.
- Everyone has a test environment, not everyone is lucky enough to have a separate production environment.
- If anyone can't find the documentation it's not documented, if it's not documented it doesn't exist.
- If you think it's going to be a disaster, get it in writing and CYA.
- Poor planning on a users part, does not constitute an emergency on yours.
- Fridays are read-only. (aka - no changes on a Friday)
- A backup isn't a backup until you've restored successfully from it.
- Snapshots are not backups.
- If a backup isn't off-site, it isn't a backup.
- If it isn't in a ticket, it's not getting done.
- Treat all users the same, regardless of their last name.
- It's never a "5 minute thing".
- Security and ease of use.. rarely walk hand in hand.
- "Not my circus, not my monkeys."
- Everybody lies.
- Never ask a user a question that you can easily confirm yourself.
- The fastest path to resolution first requires removing the user from the problem. (aka isolate layer 8)
- You are replaceable at work, no matter how highly you think of yourself. You are not replaceable at home.
- Never give a web developer/designer access to the DNS.
- Own up to your mistakes. That way, when it isn’t your fault, people will believe you.
- If you have to do something twice, automate it.
- Never spend 6 minutes doing something manually, that you spend 6 hours failing to automate.
- To make an error is human. To propagate an error to all servers in an automatic way is devops.
- Skilled IT professionals will continuously be given more work, until they can do none of it skillfully.
- Give me a new hire that is a blank slate and willing to learn, over a seasoned tech that hates this job and doesn't want to learn or change.
- IT time is relative.
- Yes it's free/cheap. No, it's not going in the server room.
- You provide the problem and business case, let IT provide the solution.
- IT's job is to solve people problems with technology.
- Technology can't solve people problems.
- Nothing is more permanent than a temporary expedient.
- Fix the problem now, it's just going to happen again when it's less convenient.
- If the network guys say it's not the network, there is an 80% chance it's the network.
- Traceroute is your friend.
- 80% of the time CAPEX becomes OPEX when you can get 0% financing. Accounting HATES CAPEX.
- If it doesn't log automatically make it log! Log's just spit out the answer for you!
- There are some jobs and clients you must walk away from.
- If you can smell the magic smoke, you’re already screwed.
- "Working just fine" and "too screwed to log an error" look an awful lot alike.
- The longer everything goes according to plan, the bigger the impending disaster.
- Sales Engineers are a gift from heaven, they prevent salespeople from over-promising.
- Printers have moods, most of the time that mood is 'Fuck you'.