Run to the Border(manager) and shoot it!

About 4 months ago, we opened up streaming media to the masses. This resulted in a terminal failure of our trusted and loyal Novell Bordermanager (v3.9sp2 on Netware 6.5Sp8, edir885 patch 5) due to their inefficient handling of streaming media. It was so bad that the servers would disappear off the network for up to 15minutes until the stream they were on was completed. Temporary solution was to restrict streaming media again until we could figure a way out.

We didn't.

Shifted gears and since we were already using one vendors filtering database we used our existing license key for their new shiny webfiltering solution. Much better reporting, much better "use and abuse" management as well.

The biggest change is in the licensing size for the management database. Under Bordermanager a user who had an computer, a laptop and came into a remote VDI session counted as "1" user. Under the new system, each devices counts as "1" user. We went from X thousand users connecting to 4X users connecting when you included are "Guest" wireless network (which seems to attract every iPhone in a 20 block radius). Once we got the licensing churn solved, it settled down into a nice pattern. One of the things that happened is that the filter catagories got more accurate. As example, twitter wasn't blocked under the old social media filter, now it is. On the upside we are now able to provide our users with streaming media and also tell their bosses when they've spent the day watching kitten videos.

Internet Cop, just another job for getting IT done

BorderManager, WebSense and Abends...Oh My!

Last week a BorderManager server abended, nothing new there, happens. When it came back up, checked that the internet was there, and case over right?

Wrong....

The Surfcontrol filtering wasn't working, free porn and facebook for everyone!

1. The ruleset was restored from backup, no change
2. Removed the surfcontrol db and redownloaded it, no change
3. Management panic because actually letting the employees make decisions on time management is bad.
4. Call to the vendor
5. 2nd Call to the vendor
6. Email from vendor
7. Troubleshooting ensues
8. change this file, reboot, no change
9. change this setting, reboot, no change
10. reinstall software, reboot, no change
11. downgrade Bordermanager to 3.9 SP1, reboot, no change
12. see a pattern here?
13. reupgrade to BM3.9 SP2, but keep the proxy.nlm from 3.9 SP1, reboot, no change
14. Apply the BM3.9 SP2 IR1 patch, reboot, well the rules load quicker, but otherwise no change
15. Escalated to 2nd level support, repeat most of above, no change
16. Boss emails sales rep, sales rep calls support, escalated to the real geeks
17. 10 minutes of technical jiggery pokery, corrupted filtprod.dat found in sys\etc\border\english, replaced corrupted file, no reboot just issue a "stopbrd and a startbrd" and everything works!

I hate this sort of thing, if you work frontline support and can't fix it in ten minutes send it the next level please. Holding onto it may make you look like a hero, but you aren't doing much to inspire confidence in the users.