@scottalanmiller said in What do you use to track client data and logs and more?:

We use OneNote a lot. It works great. We use it in conjunction with OneDrive for Business and SharePoint all on Office 365.

I happen to have an O365 Business account.

Do you consider OneNote a safe and secure option for storing credentials, passwords, server logins?
How do you connect OneNote with OneDrive for seemless project info? Just a folder by client name or something? Can you create links between the two services? Can clients upload files into a folder you create for them?

Might I ask how you set up information in OneNote? Like do you have a book for everything or do you break up books? What do you use the tabs and pages for?

@Dashrender said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:

@travisdh1 said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:

@guyinpv said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:

@tiagom said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:

@guyinpv Wow that's amazingly stupid.

And I couldn't get them to stop. They would just chuckle "ya ya ya I know I shouldn't put stuff there, but it's just easy and fast for me to work that way..."

It's easier and faster for me to just drop your paycheck into the shredder, I think I'll do that from now on.

and it saves on postage too

psshh, direct deposit yo. It's 2016.

It's my understanding that the main difference between relational and nosql is that relational is rigid and nosql is not.

If you design a relational DB, it's made up of tables, with certain data types, in a 2D structure of columns and rows, columns that are predefined for the table.

If you have a table with 50 columns, one row might have data in 25 columns and another row has data in 35 columns, but both rows have all 50 columns of data (even if blank, empty, null, etc)

In a nosql or "graph" type dataset, you don't necessarily worry about columns at all. One page might need 25 pieces of data and another page needs 35 pieces of data, no more, no less. More can be added later, or removed later. Not only that but each record may have completely different data.

I also think of nosql as somewhat 3D. You forgo the 2D relational style of rows/columns where multiple tables are linked by column IDs. Instead, ALL the data is stored in a 3D way in a single document, or graph. This is really the difference between something like CSV versus XML. Because XML can have sub-data and sub-sub-data all the way down.

In a relational database, if you have a "customer" table and want to allow that customer to have as many addresses assigned to them as they like, they you would be required to build a separate "addresses" table, then link records by user ID. If you wanted to delete addresses when a user is deleted, you'd need app logic or a foreign key relationship. But if you didn't delete the related data, you could have orphaned rows of data, lose those relationships, and the data starts to get ugly over time with bugs sneaking in.

In nosql, you just pull up the customer data and all their addresses are available in the record. They can have no addresses, or 30, doesn't matter.

If you have a ticketing system in nosql, then all data just gets stored in 3D like JSON or XML structures.

So the big question, what if you want to find all tickets by a certain user? Well that's what the nosql engine handles, you just search for the user and it finds all the records.

Should records be stored by ticket or by user? I would think it's by user, actually, and all the tickets and all the sub-information about those tickets get stored all the way down the line.

MongDB is essentially a JSON storage engine, that's exactly the type of data you store. It also means it's limited. If you have multiple nested levels, perhaps hundreds of bits of data, you can't just replace one small bit of data that changes, you have to write the entire document again.
MongoDB is perhaps the best choice for people who typically use relational but finding predefined columns a bit limiting.

Redis excels for rapidly changing data but limited DB sizes. It works best when the entire DB can fit in available memory space. The data structure is more aligned with key:value type data.

Cassandra for when you just need to store a bazillion records, like analytics, hit counts and logging. Data can have its own expiration date set.

ElasticSearch is also JSON but can save parent and child documents and has more advanced searching when relating records together.

CouchDB is good for accumulated data that doesn't change much and you want to run the same queries all the time. Master-master replication is possible for multi-site deployments.

And yes I got all this info from a nifty chart here which is pretty handy: https://kkovacs.eu/cassandra-vs-mongodb-vs-couchdb-vs-redis?

Personally I haven't found a project that doesn't very easily fit in the relational DB mold. Most data, I think, is still relational, where some list of stuff belongs to or relates to some other list of stuff. As long as the idea of predefined data (columns) applies to the "list of stuff", relational is still good!
However, if the "list of stuff" is terribly random, such as "list of stuff in a person's closet" versus "list of stuff intalled in a PC" then it makes more sense to go nosql.
List of stuff in PC -> defined columns ["cpu", "RAM", "HDD", "Video Card"......]
List of stuff in a closet -> undefined columns [ {name: "shirt", color: "black"}, {name: "shoebox", contents: "pictures"}, {name: "vacuum"}, ........]

It's all so magical!

@tiagom said in Burned by Eschewing Best Practices:

@guyinpv Wow that's amazingly stupid.

And I couldn't get them to stop. They would just chuckle "ya ya ya I know I shouldn't put stuff there, but it's just easy and fast for me to work that way..."

When I first started doing side work I found it was easiest to store data in Evernote. I just had a note for each client and some sub-notes for various details like work performed and various login data and customer details and project information and notes.

This only worked for so long before things were out of hand. I didn't have templates for similar data sets, I never considered Evernote very secure and didn't like storing passwords and such in there. I had limited room to attach files (free account). It always felt kind slipshod and forced.

With Evernote's recent changes I figured I'd move to OneNote. I fear it will suffer from all the same downsides and I still don't feel comfortable storing logins and such. OneNote also seems buggy, having sync issues, not quite working right on mobile, and I can't even access the online version, it just gives an error.

I've built a relational database to store data in a more structured way, which is real nerdy and stuff, but by creating my own database, I'm not as able to access it from anywhere, any time. I have to maintain a server and my own security, and can't attach files and the list goes on.

I've tried moving data into CRM software, but I find these limiting. They are not as easy to use when you want a type of universal data-capture setup. I want customer details, notes about work, login information, attached files for invoices and other documents, list of projects with their own todo lists and progress information, etc etc. Time tracking is also handy.

Another method I tried is just storing all flat files in a cloud drive. All information is just Word and Excel and documents the client send me. This is great for storing just files, but also feels insecure and less organized in terms of being able to search for things and quickly review information. Opening these files depends on access to cloud drive, and presence of Office in adequate version.

I'm sure there are 10,000 ways to keep track of information but I'm curious what other people who do freelance work, in home visits, remote work, etc, where they keep all this data.

I'd prefer all data to be in one location. It's really really really annoying to have to look up a project over here, and get the login from over there, and open some files from this other place. A universal store makes more sense, everything in one place. And with all the usual cloud-based access, from my phone, desktop, onsite, etc.

I like the idea of being able to share some data with the client. Usually this is in the form of letting them send ME files, or monitoring a project or sending messages/chats or whatever. This isn't absolutely required.

I'm open to ideas and services to check out. There are so many ways to gather information for free that, unless the system is extremely amazing, I think there are probably free options that will work well enough.

The system has to scale to be usable for all clients for all time. Evernote was ok until I started getting past 30 or 40 projects and clients for example. If it gets cloggy and cumbersome after dozens of entries, that's no good.

It needs to be flexible enough to store any kind of project. One client might be just going and fixing a computer, or it might be a huge website build with a migration and dozens of files passed back and forth and a full calendared project timeline.

Thoughts?

I've stopped emptying people's Recycle Bin because I keep finding out people "store stuff there" cause they "know how to find it" quickly.

One particular boss of mine used to "store" stuff in the Recycle Bin (same with email trash) because it was so easy to just click <delete> on a file and know exactly where it went to find later. She would eventually purge trash items over a certain age.

One too many times getting a deer-in-headlights look when someone found out I emptied the trash while cleaning up the system. "I wanted those files!!!!"

@StrongBad said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@dafyre said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

I'm like that... I want to help folks ge ttheir IT problems fixed... I really, really do. But I can't stand it when I'm working with a client and they take days or weeks to get back to me on something. Argh!

Just lets you move on to another client that is ready to work with you!

Says the guy using Lappy 486 to answer emails.

@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@guyinpv said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

That type of on-call situation is stressful. If I make one mistake and say I'm driving out the woods and don't have signal and don't realize it, then horror of horrors someone tried to contact me for an hour and now I have a black mark on my "performance report" for slow turn around time. It's just a horrid way to live as far as what I just described.

I used to have that happen all of the time, but normally because I was in the office where people would pull me into meetings away from my phone, email, IM, etc. Going home is what let me answer the calls.

It's certainly a paradigm shift.

Do you have examples of where it was necessary to point out an employee whose output was not up to par? Where does freedom of time end and "let's get some work done here fella" begin?

@dafyre said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@guyinpv said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

But more poignantly let me ask you, how do you do the same thing if you have people clock in and clock out?

Depends on the business I suppose. We have obvious issues like business hours of operation, where our shipping personnel and customer service has to be expected to be working. Shippers have to do their thing also based on the schedules of the shipping truck drivers for deliveries and pickups.
The phones have to be answered during set business hours.
People who need priority shipping or rush services, we have to be there.
Finance people have to do their work within a workflow so that they do their thing before order processing can do there thing, so it's impossible for the finance guy to do freeform schedule when other people depend on his work to be done first.

The list goes on.

All of that stuff up there, sure, you can call it blue collar, administrative, etc. But it all wraps up nicely when you can just say "everybody be available from this time to this time". That way all the workflows and processing happens when it's supposed to and work is performed at consistent times and schedules.

I understand you make the point that white collar professionals don't really work in these types of positions. But then again, is there no such think as a white collar professional finance manager? If their work has to be done by 8:30am, then it has to be done, whether set hours or freeform. This is a time constraint no matter how you slice it.

I can understand when a person owns a business and leases office space or a storefront, they want butts in the seats. What good is having a nice office if freeform employees don't spend much time there and prefer to do most work from home or even a coffee shop?
I can see why a boss wants to be able to call at 2:30pm and know without doubt he's got an employee in a chair who will answer and do what he says immediately.

I can see why it would be somewhat annoying if the boss wants something done and has to round-robin calling people to find someone who isn't indisposed on a date or at the movies in the middle of the afternoon and thus has to wait 2 hours to get a task done.

I'm not arguing cause I think the freeform way is bad, cause it actually sounds lovely. I work best at night for example, I'm a night owl. I'm crummy in the morning and need a kick to get in to gear. I would love nothing more than being able to break up my day with a family lunch or a matinée or hit the gym to get a refresh. I'd love switching to a night schedule where I can work from after-dinner to 11:30pm or something and wake up at 9 or 10. It's just the way my body works.

Anyway I guess all I'm saying is, there are perks to both, perks for both the business owners, or the employees.

I would love to work from home, but if I'm working for a local business and a boss controls my time, then I want that time slot limited and to unplug from them the rest of the time. I don't want to go from feeling under control from 9-5 to being under control ALL the time which is how our salaried people felt. This is probably the boss's fault.

Freeform would only work for me if I get to be self-directed and don't have to feel like I'm on call. I've done on call, it's nearly panic-inducing. Making sure my phone is charged at all times and is near me with the ringer loud. Never forget to have it next to me in bed. Leave on the buzzer instead of turning it off in the theater. Always a small worry that it will ring at any moment. Warning people "if I get a call I have to run", etc. Having it on the counter next to me in the shower even.

That type of on-call situation is stressful. If I make one mistake and say I'm driving out the woods and don't have signal and don't realize it, then horror of horrors someone tried to contact me for an hour and now I have a black mark on my "performance report" for slow turn around time. It's just a horrid way to live as far as what I just described.

I guess at the end of the day it all boils down NOT to how passionate someone is about their work, but rather how controlled they feel within the company. I actually have a boss who often belittles people and is condescending, but of course, they are the boss, you just put up with it. With a boss like that, there is no better thing than being able to "unplug" and ignore them for the next 16 hours, irregardless of how much I love the work. And no worse thing than to have to hear their voice at 7:30pm when I'm having dinner with the family.

I guess I need a new job, hahaha, but I still love the work.

Yes. I would suggest you start dusting of the Resume. I won't put up with that from anybody, I don't care if it's the Janitor, the CEO, or the President of the United States. Be nice to me, and I'll be nice to you. In the end, though, we're all people, and we're going to have bad days. I can let stuff slide a time or two... but if it becomes a habbit, it's time for me to go.

Absolutely.

It's an interesting study in psychology though. Other people's attitudes don't affect me that much but it's very annoying just the same. Some have suspected this boss is bipolar for example, cause other days they act awesome. Some days all the employees are whispering "stay out of the way, they're on rampage" and that sort of thing. Some days they are fine.

They also have an old school "boss pattern" that is all too familiar and ugly. The pattern of "better to fear me than love me". A patter than says you must exert yourself as powerful over the lowly employees and "show them who's boss". Where pushback is never tolerated, black marks all around, performance reports, dissenters will be punished and publicly humiliated, jobs will be subtly threatened if they don't get their way, it will sometimes be reminded that we can be replaced easy enough.

All these old school bossy bully tactics get very old. I would much rather work in a true team environment where everybody encourages greatness and nobody has to feel threatened about anything and lash out at each other. Where the boss doesn't feel threatened and have to show how powerful they are so they can feel in control.

My boss demands we come talk about any "issues" but invariably anybody who brings up an issue gets on the black list until further notice and it's quite obvious this happens. They've fired people for "bringing up stuff" that they didn't like.

Wow, I'm ranting like a disgruntled employee! But I love the work!

Now come on, is THAT not a sign of passion too?!

@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

But more poignantly let me ask you, how do you do the same thing if you have people clock in and clock out?

Depends on the business I suppose. We have obvious issues like business hours of operation, where our shipping personnel and customer service has to be expected to be working. Shippers have to do their thing also based on the schedules of the shipping truck drivers for deliveries and pickups.
The phones have to be answered during set business hours.
People who need priority shipping or rush services, we have to be there.
Finance people have to do their work within a workflow so that they do their thing before order processing can do there thing, so it's impossible for the finance guy to do freeform schedule when other people depend on his work to be done first.

The list goes on.

All of that stuff up there, sure, you can call it blue collar, administrative, etc. But it all wraps up nicely when you can just say "everybody be available from this time to this time". That way all the workflows and processing happens when it's supposed to and work is performed at consistent times and schedules.

I understand you make the point that white collar professionals don't really work in these types of positions. But then again, is there no such think as a white collar professional finance manager? If their work has to be done by 8:30am, then it has to be done, whether set hours or freeform. This is a time constraint no matter how you slice it.

I can understand when a person owns a business and leases office space or a storefront, they want butts in the seats. What good is having a nice office if freeform employees don't spend much time there and prefer to do most work from home or even a coffee shop?
I can see why a boss wants to be able to call at 2:30pm and know without doubt he's got an employee in a chair who will answer and do what he says immediately.

I can see why it would be somewhat annoying if the boss wants something done and has to round-robin calling people to find someone who isn't indisposed on a date or at the movies in the middle of the afternoon and thus has to wait 2 hours to get a task done.

I'm not arguing cause I think the freeform way is bad, cause it actually sounds lovely. I work best at night for example, I'm a night owl. I'm crummy in the morning and need a kick to get in to gear. I would love nothing more than being able to break up my day with a family lunch or a matinée or hit the gym to get a refresh. I'd love switching to a night schedule where I can work from after-dinner to 11:30pm or something and wake up at 9 or 10. It's just the way my body works.

Anyway I guess all I'm saying is, there are perks to both, perks for both the business owners, or the employees.

I would love to work from home, but if I'm working for a local business and a boss controls my time, then I want that time slot limited and to unplug from them the rest of the time. I don't want to go from feeling under control from 9-5 to being under control ALL the time which is how our salaried people felt. This is probably the boss's fault.

Freeform would only work for me if I get to be self-directed and don't have to feel like I'm on call. I've done on call, it's nearly panic-inducing. Making sure my phone is charged at all times and is near me with the ringer loud. Never forget to have it next to me in bed. Leave on the buzzer instead of turning it off in the theater. Always a small worry that it will ring at any moment. Warning people "if I get a call I have to run", etc. Having it on the counter next to me in the shower even.

That type of on-call situation is stressful. If I make one mistake and say I'm driving out the woods and don't have signal and don't realize it, then horror of horrors someone tried to contact me for an hour and now I have a black mark on my "performance report" for slow turn around time. It's just a horrid way to live as far as what I just described.

I guess at the end of the day it all boils down NOT to how passionate someone is about their work, but rather how controlled they feel within the company. I actually have a boss who often belittles people and is condescending, but of course, they are the boss, you just put up with it. With a boss like that, there is no better thing than being able to "unplug" and ignore them for the next 16 hours, irregardless of how much I love the work. And no worse thing than to have to hear their voice at 7:30pm when I'm having dinner with the family.

I guess I need a new job, hahaha, but I still love the work.

I have a Ubuntu server up on VULTR which I use as a web server and it runs Vesta Control Panel, which I do really like and want to keep using.

The problem is Vesta has lost its mind with its backup system.

What is happening is that Vesta "thinks" there is one backup in progress, but it thinks this endlessly and it never stops. If I try to manually create a backup it will error saying that one is in progress.

The "in progress" backup never finishes, and fills up the entire drive space of the server with /backup/tmp.* folders until the server runs out of space and everything stops working.

I can delete all those tmp.* folders and gain 50% drive space back, but it will fill up again within a number of hours.

I've restarted the Vesta service and it doesn't work. I've gone as far as restarting the whole server and that doesn't stop it either.

My question is basically how can I FIND this script that refuses to stop and is filling up the drive with tmp folders? Why is it kicking right back up when the server is restarted?

I'm not the best when it comes to dealing with running processes and what is doing what. Am I able to figure out what specific service/process is responsible for creating specific files and folders? Can I monitor what process is accessing that /backup folder?
Obviously the script is connected with Vesta but I still don't know how to use that info. Like where is the script running from or what it might be called. Maybe it's even part of the larger Vesta service and I can't even stop it individually?

Any ideas how to find this script and fix it? Or at least stop it. I've reported to Vesta on two different web channels but no response. I haven't found anybody else having this runaway backup script issue.

And just in case anybody asks, it is not the case that the script simply needs all this room. I used to have multiple backups stored and it never used this much space. Now, all backups are deleted for all accounts, it should definitely not need this much temp storage to do a backup of some small websites.

I just need some way to make the connection of THIS script keeps writing to THIS folder. Is there a way to find this out? Not sure what my options are.

@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@guyinpv said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

I don't think there is anything inherently "wrong" with that, in fact it's scientifically healthy to do so.

I don't agree with the science there. They can't measure what we are talking about, you'd have to produce some pretty significant research on that one. Remember, we are looking for people who feel like they never go to work. It's accepted science that the need to cut loose and go home is itself a problem, a problem that we've solved by and large. The science you are talking about is people needing to disconnect from the stress of work. Instead of letting people disconnect, we look for people who never have it. Which is even healthier still.

Needing to disconnect and go home is a band-aid... a means to making the negative of work not so bad. We don't want to band-aid, we want to avoid the problem altogether.

It sounds a bit like you're saying that people who feel the absolute need to cut off work and make clear delineations between work and home life, are perhaps not meant for that work in the first place?

Like if someone doesn't enjoy doing the work and tinkering with no real lines between work time and free time, then perhaps they don't really like the career?

---

Also this brings up a side point. Perhaps some people feel the need to cut off, not necessarily from IT or tech, but from the demands of a boss? If my job is "you do this stuff for 8 hours a day" and I'm somehow made to feel like I need to continue doing more of the stuff on my free time, there is this sense that my boss is still controlling me in some way even after I leave the office.

I think when people say they need to unplug, it's unplug from the company/boss/control of the work environment, rather than unplugging simply from tech and learning things. It's unplugging from customers and demands and tasks lists and emergency emails with ALL CAPS subject lines.

When you talk about how NTG does things, you earlier mentioned being salary. Regarding that, how do you gauge "on the clock" hours from off the clock? How do you know when there seems to be too much "home life" and not enough "work life"?
This can perhaps be rewritten as, what do you expect from employees as far as time required for their pay? Are there days where they just play games all day and put off menial tasks for after dinner? Do you expect certain turnaround times if a person happens to be out? What if they are out ALL the time and it's a habit that they are always immersed in family life when work comes calling?
How do you control, or perhaps encourage that proper work/life balance so NTG gets their fair share and personal stuff gets its fair share?

I'm asking because the major benefit of the 9-5 that we know exactly what's expected of us. We know exactly what is meant by being lazy or late or unproductive. And it's within certain hours.

In a free-form job where times are all over and work/life mingle all day long, how does one gauge their performance? See if there were a "slow" time and I didn't have much to do, I'd probably go nuts thinking I was being paid for nothing. On the flip side if it got super busy and the wife didn't like me up till midnight all week, I'd begin to feel overworked. How do you play out that balance so employees don't feel "controlled" or under pressure, but also you get out of them what is required for the job?

@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@guyinpv said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

Do you think that a person may reach a point in their career where they are greatly skilled and have no need for tinkering in a home lab?

Not really. IT always needs to keep learning, growing... even just to stay doing the same position. The amount that you need to do decreases over time. But growth and exploration is an important part of IT.

I agree. I just think there is a difference between a person "learning" and a professional who is just doing "maintenance" on their knowledge, in proportion to time spent in home lab. There is a difference between a "learner" who tinkers and rebuilds their lab all the time, and a professional who set his up and never needs to touch it. One "does" the lab, the other "has" a lab, in other words.

Also, does this concept transfer to other professions or is it just a technology thing? Is it required that a dentist spends his free time fixing teeth of all friends and family who ask in order to show his passion? Is it required that a doctor spend his free time helping everybody who shows up at the door in order to show his passion?
Does a person who programs in .NET all day need to come home and keep programming in .NET all night to show he's really passionate about it?

The only real push back I see with this home lab requirement are basically people who lack the time or money to spend on one. Who basically do not feel any need to take their work home and thus never unplug from their profession.

You can't deny the validity of the position of wanting to cut loose and leave tech out of personal life to some degree, friends and family and kids and social life are also very important. I don't think there is anything inherently "wrong" with that, in fact it's scientifically healthy to do so.

On the other hand, there are other professions where it is CLEAR you have to spend considerable free time on the craft and not just when working, such as in sports. A basketball player who only does his sport when playing actual games or practices, is almost unacceptable. The real pros live their craft.

Anyway, interesting topic.

Do you think that a person may reach a point in their career where they are greatly skilled and have no need for tinkering in a home lab?

For example at the peak of my "computer repair" days, I was sufficiently skilled enough to fix nearly anything with only the most obscure problems requiring a lot of Googling to figure out. I had no need to fill my house with broken computers from Good Will to fix on my own time. I used to work on 4 to 8 computers at once by having tables all around me and KVM switches so I could cram as many towers on the table as possible.

Staying up to date on the latest improvements in CPUs and the latest RAM specs and motherboard sockets and video card benchmarks had much more to do with reading tech websites and magazines and news, than anything that could be done in a home lab.
At one job interview I had, they asked me not about a home lab, but asked me "how do you keep up to date on the latest technology advancements?" In other words, they were asking what blogs I read, subscriptions, newsletters, magazines, etc.

So my point is, if you are an amazing small engine repairman, do you really have to fill your house and yard with engines and parts to prove your passion? Or can a person just be really good and keep up to date on the latest advancements via publications?

All I'm really asking is whether you change this requirement at all based on whether the person is inexperienced versus older/experienced etc. Surely there is a type of performance curve that shows when a person is learning, they would be far more into hands-on lab stuff, versus experienced where their home lab is just something they've already built and works great and doesn't need tinkering.
It's one thing if a person has a lab they are constantly destroying and rebuilding and tinkering with and learning on. It's another thing if a person built a complete home automation network that works and requires no rebuilding or tinkering or destroying at all. One says "yes I have a lab I'm always tinkering with!" and the other says "I have a complete home automation network and I rarely have to touch it, I spend my days floating down the river."

So in summary, it would seem you cannot be passionate about technology without a home lab. And if they don't have one, they aren't worth hiring.

Not being facetious here, just seems this is still the position. No other good contenders for determining a candidate who loves/is passionate about tech?

@JaredBusch said in Anyone ever use Phone.com or similar products:

@guyinpv If you want to talk about soemthing for you, start a new thread so as not to derail this one any more than normal around here.

Sure. Well it's pretty much the same question, but since only FreePBX was mentioned, I wondered about other common players.

What about other common options?
I'm looking for the exact same thing to replace an aging Avaya setup. Some of these players are coming up:

8x8
ooma
RingCentral
3CX
1-VoIP

@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

Not everyone works remotely, but mostly everyone does.

If you don't only provide cloud services, I take this to mean that you guys end up doing a lot of traveling to local businesses?

How much do each of you end up traveling to clients in a given month, or the whole year? Do you outsource and hire local tech shops to do physical stuff like networking or replacing machines?