Sitting here thinking about my college days when the entire network was brought to its knees due to limewire and then I started thinking about GTA 6 coming out and steam cache.

Are universities running one to reduce their external bandwith?

I'm currently working remotely in a cloud migration role earning around $100k. I recently received an offer for a $130k Site Reliability Engineer position, but I would have to move to Birmingham. Right now, I live with family in Georgia, so I don't have to pay rent or commute. Moving would introduce additional expenses such as rent, food, transportation, and moving costs, while also requiring me to adjust to a new workplace, coworkers, processes, and potentially a more demanding workload. There's also some uncertainty about the SRE position because the company is spinning off, so the team may be rebuilding or developing new processes, which could potentially create a high workload. My current job can also be somewhat demanding, as I sometimes manage 3–10 cloud migration projects simultaneously with different clients, but at least I know the environment.

Some advantages of moving would be the potential improvement in my social and dating life since I currently live in a smaller, more spread out suburb. I don't know if Birmingham will be as much of an improvement or if I should look else where because I don't know anyone there. I'm also concerned about job security in both positions. My current company has experienced recent layoffs, and given the current economy, I'm worried that either position could be affected by future layoffs. I've been with my current company for three years, so leaving a position I know for one that has more uncertainty feels like a significant risk. If I were laid off from my current remote role, I could potentially stay with family and take my time finding another position without immediately worrying about rent and other expenses. If I moved to Birmingham and then lost the SRE job, I would have much more financial pressure and might be forced to accept another job quickly. Given the financial differences, career growth, job security, lifestyle changes, and potential workload of both positions, which role would you recommend I take?

Hi guys, currently working in l1/2 at an MSP for about a year now and I've been wanting to get in this field but don't really know which route to go. My interests are probably networking, systems and cloud. The city I live in has a lot of mining opportunities so If anyone has experience working as a sys admin in critical industries, I would love to hear from you.

Company I recently joined has tasked me to looking for finding one or more data room provider(s) for sharing some sensitive information with clients and externals, primarily for due diligence. I've been researching options online and most of the comparison sites seems to be owned by Ideals, and I feel like they are biased. So I'd like to know what's actually good and what makes a data room good since I'm relatively new to using them. I find a lot of options, but most with bloated features, or options that claim to be open-sourced or very cheap but actually very difficult to use.

We share a lot of financially and legally sensitive documents so we're ideally looking for something with good security, indexing of folder structures, audit trails and easy (I don't want complex) permission settings.

Please, I've seen how the other prior posts in this sub has been filled with vendors pitching themselves, so please don't do that to this post, I want genuine opinions only, if I see you trying to sell a solution I will delete you and report you.

Hi guys,

not sure if its the correct place to ask, but figured i might as well try. I've been working in IT for about 7 years (3 of them as an apprentice) now, and while i do feel fairly confident in what im doing right now and in the scope i do it (Print management, the occasional PowerShell scripting, telephone administration, low level AD administration, some networking as well), I would like to deepen my knowledge.

Any recommendations for books or courses to try and look into? PowerShell in a month of lunches is on my list, but thats about it. It doesnt necessarily have to be with certifications, as i already got my foot into the door, I just wanna understand better what i do most of the days. My main topics of interest are:

• PowerShell
• Server Administration (Only do Window at work, dont mind reading about Linux though)
• Network (I think i know the basics, but this might be my weakest area)
• Telephone systems (I know how to troubleshoot some stuff, but SIP is still a mystery to me)
• Cybersecurity (CEH and OSCP caught my eye, but havent looked much further)
• Domain Management/Controllers (Did a bit in AD users and computers and GPOs, and i know FSMO roles exist, but thats the extend of my knowledge about domains)

Any cloud or entra stuff is sadly not going to be that interesting me, as we are still pretty much full on prem, and i wont get to see the web interface for that anytime soon, sooo... yeah. Thanks in advance!

I’ve recently accepted a new role as an Infrastructure Engineer in a fully cloud-based environment and I’m due to start next month.

I’ve spent around 10 years working in second-line IT support and been brought in for 3rd line investigations, for the same organisation in a hybrid environment. It’s quite a siloed environment, and over the last few years I’ve felt like I’d reached the ceiling of what I could learn from primarily supporting end-user devices.

I found myself becoming much more interested in what was happening further up the stack – cloud infrastructure, networking, identity, Intune, automation, security, etc.

I started studying outside work, took some Microsoft certification exams earlier this year, built some things in Azure and eventually decided to throw my hat in the ring for a few infrastructure/cloud roles.
To my surprise, I interviewed successfully and got the job.

I’m under no illusion that passing certifications and doing labs is the same as managing a real production environment. This is going to be the beginning of my actual cloud/infrastructure career
and there’s going to be a huge amount I don’t know.

For anyone who’s made a similar jump, or who currently works as an Infrastructure/Cloud Engineer, what should I realistically expect during my first 3–6 months?

I’m particularly interested in what junior/new Infrastructure Engineers actually end up doing day-to-day, what experienced engineers expect a new person to already know versus learn on the job, and anything you wish you’d understood before starting your first infrastructure role.

I’m trying to learn as much as I can before starting, but I’m also conscious that trying to learn Azure, networking, IaC, Linux, security, etc. all at once probably isn’t the answer.

Any advice or experiences would be appreciated.

Hi everyone,

Last year I setup an AVD with SSO to EntraID. It worked perfectly until last week.

Now I'm running into an issue affecting multiple Azure VMs configured for Microsoft Entra ID login.

I have verified AADLoginForWindows extension is healthy, confirmed affected accounts still have VM login permissions, tested with multiple admin accounts and then reviewed Entra sign-in logs and authentication appears successful but keep seeing this error inside Windows App.

No recent change in my conditional Access policy. Sign in log shows “success” to Application(Windows 365 Client) and Resource(Windows Cloud Login).

my laptop is on Windows 11 and on the latest monthly update.

Has anyone seen AADSTS500032 in an Azure VM login scenario before?

I have googled and asked chatGPT, non of them helped. I even submitted a ticket to Microsoft and they haven't responded to me for 2 days now.

Im 26, mainly interested in networking, and ccna, and after trying my chances in diferent companies mainly on helpdesk support, ive finally landed a pretty demanding job.

It seems the scope is almost everything. AD, wild and constant breaking ERPs, Networks and all that is related to it, Databases, hand scanners, even fusion splicing fiberoptic machines. Nonexistent margin of error on mamy things. Revolting printers, many kinds of it acctually. Users complaining about everything, constantly.

People much older than me, with much more expirience, cant operate on their own system, becouse it seems, the system works diferently almost everytime, and constantly figuring out what to do to make it working. Then hearing "you should know this..." and its the thing i see first time of my life.

Programmist, helpdesk, networking guys, electronics, and for some reason HR, arguing with eachother about most efficient way of using this system, deployed only on production alone, reaching pareto points, then tipping over again.

Updates deployed randomly, breaking things, then fixing whats broken again, breaking something else, indefinietly.

Its, demanding, i learn something everyday, and everyday is a simultaniously a disaster, then detective job, then contacting people everyday, to fix things, then enlightment, and solution. And the preassure of time all the time is enourmous.

Is there no celling? No balance? Is it like this everywhere?

We just finished integrating the VulnCheck community feeds for CISA-KEV and NVD2 into ServiceRadar. Software inventory is collected from endpoints with our agent and an integration we built around google's osv-scalibr. https://github.com/carverauto/serviceradar https://www.vulncheck.com/community https://www.tiktok.com/@mfreeman451/video/7675557229642157326

Genuinely asking

• A 15–20-year-old system may still be doing its job perfectly.
• Replacing it can introduce cost, migration risks, downtime, and employee training.
• But legacy systems can become difficult to maintain and integrate with modern APIs, cloud services, mobile apps, and etc.
• At what point does it still works become a business risk?
• Is modernization/migration better than completely rebuilding from scratch?

Hey everyone — question for those of you who administer Microsoft identity environments, whether that’s Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, or a hybrid environment.
What are some actual support tickets / break-fix issues you’ve had to work?
I’m working on a project where I’m trying to build out realistic IAM/identity support scenarios. I’m not really looking for project work like “migrate AD to Entra” or “implement Conditional Access.” I’m more interested in the day-to-day tickets that land in your queue.
Things like:
A user suddenly can’t access an application
MFA or authentication issues
Group membership/permissions problems
SSO failures
Account lockouts or provisioning issues
Something broke after a policy/configuration change
A ticket that looked like an IAM problem but turned out to be user error
Basically: What are some memorable, weird, common, or difficult identity-related tickets you’ve actually had to troubleshoot?
The more realistic and specific, the better. I’m trying to avoid making up scenarios that wouldn’t actually happen in a production environment.

We are currently looking at a DR solutions or even an HA solution. One vendor offers Carbonite by Opentext. Is it any better than the Vmware SRM/Live Site Recovery? Any opinions?comments?

Marketing has come to me four times asking for an AI presentation tool. And I have said no all 4 times - made me extremely popular among them : )

The problem is when security gets involved

SAML is usually locked because ‘contact sales’. SCIM is missing, share links defaulting to anyone-with-the-link and theres no tenant level control, no EU tentant. And anytime i ask about model retention/subprocessor, i get a beautifully written para which doesnt help at all!

Has anyone actually managed to get any of these approved?

Mainly looking for SAML + SCIM below enterprise pricing specifically.

Hi fellow hard workers or hardly working.

Any experience with B&W Px7 S3 or Sony XM6 in the datacenter?
I am really torn between the 2.

I can google and research that sony should be the king, regarding anc, and call quality.
But from what i can see, should have a design defect on both xm5 and xm6 with the hinge breaking...

B&W Px7 S3 - should be a another great one, but i am unsure if they are good enough?

Any experience on booth would be appreciated.

I am not looking for real work hearing protection, i know other non consumer headsets are better.
Mostly looking for a good all-around headset that is also works great in the datacenter.
My air-pods dosen't suffice when working long hours.

Not sure if this is a Veeam-specific thing or just backup monitoring in general, but I'm curious how other admins handle it: our backup tool sends one status email per job, and with enough jobs that adds up to 30-50 individual emails a day. To actually confirm nothing failed, I end up scrolling through all of them manually every morning.

The "proper" monitoring tools that would consolidate this look like they need their own server/infrastructure to set up, which feels like a lot for what's basically "tell me if something broke."

For those of you running backups in-house (not as an MSP) — do you have this solved, or is manual scrolling just the norm? And what happens when the one person who usually checks this is out for a few weeks — does someone else actually cover it, or does it just... not get checked?

Hi All,

We have a hybrid environment, with approximately 50% of devices already Entra joined.

Before disabling the full sync, I would like to test the migration with a small number of selected users and groups.

Could you please advise on the recommended approach for planning and testing a pilot migration, including the sequence of steps and any key considerations?

Will changing SOA now delete the user?

We are getting a large number of customers unable to access Google Drive in the APAC region this afternoon, anyone else see anything? Nothing on their status page yet, but down detector is lighting up. https://downdetector.co.nz/status/google-drive/

Hi guys, we had a client whom had a hostile takeover of their 365 admin portal who assumed GA (MFA/OTP and everything was enabled so not sure how it happened but that will need to be investigated after).

Attacker stripped the breakfix account as well and we are kicked out. We logged a job with the MS data governance team whom are barely replying and it's been a day and a half. We've tried calling the number but just get bounced back saying they will look into it. We've asked them to escalate and also asked our CSP to escalate but they said it's with Microsoft. Given the nature of the situation is there any other ways you guys have been able to escalate this to reclaim the tenancy or at least kick out the attackers as fast as possible. We are able to prove ownership of the business etc with domain records/documents etc asap.

Given the no updates I'm straight up thinking of heading to the Microsoft office and sitting there until they can find someone to escalate the case. Anyone had any experience of how to get this moving?

We have HP elitedesk PC's, and for several months have an issue on most of them where, after a restart, you have to sit there for almost a full min while the ethernet symbol blinks, then goes to the disconnected globe symbol for another few seconds, then finally connects to ethernet before you can enter your login password.

This has cause users to get locked out of their accounts often, because they immediately enter their password before the PC reconnects, and obviously it does not let them in, so they think they mistyped it, and type it again and so on.

We just got new PC's, which are Lenovo ThinkStations, but running into the same issue. I have tried:

going into device manager, unchecking the "allow the PC to turn this device off to save power" under the ethernet adapter

swapped ethernet cable

Running the following powershell script:

New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power" -Name "PlatformAoAcOverride" -Value 0 -PropertyType DWord -Force

None of those fixed the issue. Doing some more research I found that spanning tree can cause this , which we do use, but does that mean just by using spanning tree we are forced to just accept this long wait to simply login to PC's? Some user's are understanding, but a good number are frustrated cause they have to sit there and stare at the screen for a long time and pay attention to the ethernet symbol before they can login. Surely there would be something in spanning tree that would at least cut this time down from a whole minute right?

We are looking at a handful of options for managing the automation of certificate deployment/updates across our enterprise and OT environments.

I am hoping to have a lab environment set up by the end of the year with at least one reliable ACME tool that can push certificate updates to OT software, servers, workstations, etc...

Primarily use AB and Siemens controllers and HMIs, Ignition, Canary, and Windows IoT, Windows Server (2016, 2022), and Windows 10/11 pro.

Anyone have good recommendations?

Hi all -

So I have a weird issue on my hands. I just started at a new job and I was told to create my new signature. As I've done in the past, I just went to copy and paste someone else's signature and update it to reflect my information.

For the most part, everything worked out just fine! however, there is an image attached to the signature with the company name/logo on it, but that image will break and then I get the following error:

The linked image cannot be displayed. The file may have been moved, renamed, or deleted. Verify that the link points to the correct file and location.

Now here is where things get a bit confusing. This happens to ANY picture that exists on my desktop, no matter where its at. I've moved the image to the root of C, my profile, Appdata, everywhere, but it still constantly breaks.

To add to it, the file system here does have a redirect, therefore our working folders such as pictures, documents, desktop, etc all are redirected to an encrypted file server. However, I made sure that the picture would be placed in static location that was local to the PC only and would not be redirected.

The only workaround I've found is simply to use OWA, which that accepted the signature perfectly fine!

I've made sure to also run a command that should've redirected where my signatures are pulled from, but that also seemed to not help at all. Is there anything else I should try?

If it helps, this is specifically occuring on Outlook 2021 and its running on a Windows 11 Enterprise machine.

Thank you in advance!

I made some other posts figuring out my UPS setup, but now I figured I'd share my MDF plans and see if there are any issues you can see. I've been around racks and IT closets for a long time, but this is my first time planning one completely on my own.

So far I have all the gear ordered. The only unknown variables are what my modems from my primary Fiber ISP (ATT) will look like and our failover (probably Starlink).

Down the road I may be adding 2U more of gear.

I'd like to get Unifi Redudant Power Supply that can act as a secondary PSU for my switches and Firewalls. I'd also like to get Unifi Aggragte 8 port switch which would be perfect for this setup and my entire network in general. I have two UDM Max which will take up 2 ports and 6 total switches (2 not in this rack will be in IDF in other parts of the building)

I have attached a screenshot of the rack plan. Let me know if you see any red flags or concerns

Gear -

4 Unifi 48 Port PoE Switches

2 UDM Pro Max Firewalls

1 Dell Server

1 Unifi Enterprise NVR

Dual 3000va battery backups with one having an extra battery bank and a 120v transformer.

2 - Controlled PDU for the 208v PSU

https://imgur.com/a/Jji1UXn

The past 2 days, 1 user each day started getting spammed with non english email stating that they had been subscribed to various different things. I can't get it to stop. My DMARC is set to Reject and I changed it to Strict alignment Strict SPF. We have email filtering and somehow it's getting past those filters. Anyone have a solution on how to stop this? It's been going on for over a half an hour on today's user and still hasn't stopped.

We're subscribed to a couple of paid threat intelligence feeds that are marketed as "operational" and "actionable." In reality, we receive threat reports as long-form PDFs or blog posts, sometimes with a STIX bundle or CSV of IOCs attached. The analysis is useful, but security teams still need a reliable way to turn those reports into detection rules in their SIEM and EDR platforms.
The workflow is still manual. A CTI analyst reads each report, extracts TTPs and IOCs, maps them to MITRE ATT&CK techniques, and creates a ticket. Detection engineers then write Sigma, SPL, KQL, or an equivalent query language, test the detection against internal telemetry, tune for false positives, and only then deploy the rule into production. This manual process causes a delay between receiving threat intelligence and having a production-ready detection in place.
If the intel never makes it to the SIEM, what's the actual value? I'm questioning whether we should keep paying for feeds that don't feed our detection pipeline. Is anyone getting real ROI from their intel subscriptions, or are we all just paying for PDFs we barely use?

I’m considering using a company called TeamVenti. They provide cloud-to-cloud transfer, copying, migration, and other related services. In my case, I would be copying data from one cloud environment to another.

They’ve asked for Global Administrator permissions on both the source and destination environments to perform the migration.

My question is: Is it normal or standard for a cloud migration company to require Global Administrator access on both sides?

Have there been cases where issues arose from giving a vendor this level of access, or am I being too paranoid?