So busy with the new job!

So I've been at the new job almost a month now. I'm a "Technical Analyst" now as opposed to a "Network Administrator", and before I took the job I was concerned with how my resume would look in a few years time (petty, I know), but I really couldn't care less at this point; I'm glad I took the plunge. I'm in a much bigger environment, which is intimidating, but I'm not really in charge of the network, so that's ok. I'm in charge of a few pretty neat projects right now:

• Implementing a patching procedure - these guys have been short staffed for a while, and we need to get caught up, the work needs to get spread evenly, and dependencies need to be better identified.
• Learning all about our SAN. I haven't ever really worked with a SAN, so this is kind of a biggie.
• Reworking the backups. They're failing too often and taking too long. I hate Backup Exec..... I'm going to implement Veeam for the virtual servers. Love Veeam!!! Long term, that'll enable us to easily replicate production servers into a lab environment, which is going to be necessary because.....
• Moving the domain controllers to Windows Server 2008 R2 from 2003. Most of my mad AD Powershell skillz are languishing because our DC's are so old and I can't talk to AD with Powershell. I know, I know, I could install some things and make it work, but my time is stretched so thin that if I'm going to spend any amount of time on it then I might as well kill two birds with one stone.
• That said, I did make a very nice Powershell script the other day that backs up a SQL database, moves it to another SQL server, restores it to the SQL instance there, and then runs a database consistency check on it (emailing the results of course). I might write out what I did in a subsequent blog post, but the script's a doozy. I'm also working on consolidating our SQL servers. They've bred like rabbits here - every app needs it own SQL box. Not on my watch!
• I'm in charge of our VMware infrastructure now. The first thing I did was to run vCheck, which is an automating powershell script (a ton of them actually) that I picked up here to check for common misconfigurations and looming problems. Then, I got a 30-day trial for Veeam ONE (Veeam's monitoring and alerting software) to get a handle on performance and other issues. I'm finally getting a handle on the enormity of the stuff I need to clean up. Here's a tip: when you create a new VM, don't give it a ton of CPUs. I have a server with 8 vCPUs that isn't doing jack, except slowing everything else down. From what I've read, if your VM has X vCPUs assigned to it, it needs to wait until that many physical CPUs are free before it can get seom CPU time.
• I'm working on moving from our current helpdesk software, TrackIT, to Spiceworks, which just RTM'd version 6.0. We want to use Spiceworks for inventory tracking, helpdesk, and monitoring (although I admit to having my doubts on that use). I haven't dealt too deeply into this project yet.

So, I'll post again soon, and maybe I'll do a write up of that SQL script I mentioned above....