i'd add: a quick daily and weekly checklist of stuff you do (the simple act of making these lists may point out what the most critical items to document are, for in-house, as opposed to the extant vendor docs) general roadmap to the systems - how they interconnect, anything out of the ordinary hardware-wise internal contacts with escalation paths in case of problems and/or emergencies what is automated, what should be (but isn't yet)
you could also try having one of the junior admins on staff ghost your activities as you try to document, help you with documenting and getting a feeling for everything you do/know (if there's time/resources available for that). good luck with your project! ---pam ...thinking about what comes next... On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 8:21 PM, Mark Dennehy <mark.denn...@gmail.com>wrote: > On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 2:39 AM, Damion Alexander > <dam...@damion-alexander.com> wrote: > > If you were in this situation, on either side, what would you expect in > that in-house documentation? > > Well... > > _Why_ the system is set up the way it is (how is easy, why isn't) > What the most common failure modes are > What the most serious failure modes are > What the weaknesses in your disaster plan are > What future events need to be anticipated and how they should be dealt with > What the known bugs in the vendor documentation are > Who your contact points with vendors are and what they're like (do > they consistently underestimate delivery times, etc) > What your roadmap was for the development of the system architecture > and what your rationale was, and contingencies for things like budget > cuts or sudden ramp-ups in demand > > -- > Mark Dennehy > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lopsa.org > http://lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators > http://lopsa.org/ >
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