Florida International University

School of Computing and Information Sciences

S. Masoud Sadjadi’s Home Page

 

IT Automation HOME PAGE


 

Tentative Class Schedule:

·        Week 1, Jan. 6

o       Topics Covered: Course Introduction, Objectives, and Outcome

§         Lecture Notes: Introduction to IT Automation

o       Student Introduction: Students will introduce themselves and provide a short background/bio.

o       Hands-On Session: Getting familiar with the course playground/testbed and machine assignment.

§         Role: Kaseya Master Administrators

§         Description: This session will teach you the basics of creating, deleting, and managing administrative accounts in the Kaseya IT framework. Instruction will cover best practices for developing and implementation of role-based administrative policy for securing your Kaseya Management Console followed by practical implementations of administrative roles. Students will each be assigned a number of Virtual Machines (at least one to be used exclusively and several to be shared in a group) to perform their assignments and to practice on their own.

§         Objectives: At the end of this session, you will be able to:

·        Access the testbet/palyground

o       Access the machines assigned to you

·        Create administrators and Admin roles

o       Create, delete, and disable administrator account

o       Assign administrators to administrative roles

o       Manage administrators’ permissions by machine group

o       Manage administrators’ permissions by function

o       Homework Assignment:

§         Login to the FIU-SCIS Kaseya Server Web Site

·        http://kaseya.cs.fiu.edu/

·        Username: your last name (first letter is capital); those with the same last name should try: lastnamefirstinitial (e.g., Masoud Sadjadi and Nima Sadjadi should use sadjadim and sadjadin)

·        Password: your PantherID

·        Change your password after your first logon (optional)

§         Play around with the Kaseya Console

§         Remotely accessing the machines assigned to you

o       Online Training Assignment:

§         Login to the Kaseya Online Training Web Site

·        https://training.kaseya.com/

·        Username: same as you fiu username (all lower case)

·        Password: your PantherID

·        Change your password after your first logon (optional)

o       There is a link labeled “Change Password” on the page.

§         Play around the web pages to get acquainted with them.

§         Watch the following courses at https://training.kaseya.com/ and practice them until you learn them completely

·        SPTT 100 Introduction to the New Portal 8 minutes

·        SPTT 113 Remote Control

§         Watch the following demo at http://www.kaseya.com/Demo.aspx

·        Remote Control Demos

§         Write down your questions and send me an email with your questions that remain unsolved.

·        Please avoid sending trivial questions as you will make a bad impression on me.

·        Interesting comments and tips may receive extra credits.

 

·        Week 2, Jan. 13

o       Topics Covered: Getting Familiar with an IT Automation Software, Agents, Agent Templates, and Deployment Strategies

§         Objectives

·        Agents, Agent Templates, and Deployment Strategies

o       Why do we need an agent?

o       Why agent should initiate the conversation and keep the connection alive?

o       Why a client-server architecture.

o       Why do we need to group agents?

o       Why do we need to create machine roles and templates?

§         What you would do for maintenance and management of one machine, you probably would need to do for other machines that play the same role.

§         To avoid repeated work and to promote IT-Automation, you should define roles for machines with similar functionality (e.g., same applications) and create a template for them.

§         Cookie cutter is a good analogy for an agent template. All the cookies cut by the same cookie cutter will look the same.

§         Unlike agent groups that indicate the local proximity of the computer in the same group, a agent template may crosscut geographical and administration boundaries as a machine with the same role may exist in different physical networks.

§         An agent template can be configured to have policies for patch management, remote control, audit, etc.

§         Using templates, you can perform change management also. Basically, you apply the required changes to the template and then you can reapply it to the target machines.

o       Why do we need to deploy agents in large numbers?

o       How can we deploy agents in large?

o       Why do we need to log the activities of agents?

o       Hands-On Session: Overview of How to Perform IT Management Tasks using Kaseya

§         Role: Technical support administrators.

§         Description: This session will provide an overview of the Kaseya tool offerings.

§         Objectives: At the end of this session, you will be familiar with :

·        Agent Managed Services

o       Understand and implement best practices surrounding the creation of machine groups

o       Modify the agent menu options

·        Agent Deployment Strategies

o       Identify best practices to configuring and deploying new agents

o       Conduct a LAN watch

o       Understand how to deploy agents using a logon script

§         Scenarios:

·        Manual install:

o       Installing an agent on the first machine (seed agent) in the target LAN or domain.

·        Using LAN watch for installing the rest of machine is a LAN

o       If there is no domain controller, it may be the case that XP and Vista machines have their “Simple File Sharing” enabled and in this case, you have to visit the machine in person.

·        Using AD to push agents

o       Using AD Group Policy to push agents

·        Groups

o       All the computers in one group are in the physical proximity of each other

o       Homework Assignment:

§         Agent Installation: Single & Multiple (using AD and LAN watch)

·        Direct Install

·        LAN Watch

·        AD Push

§         Deploy the agent at least to one system of your own, but you can use up to 3 more licenses with permission from the instructor.

o       Online Training Assignment:

§         Watch the following courses at https://training.kaseya.com/ and practice them until you learn them completely

·        SPTT 102 Machine Groups

§         Write down your questions and send me an email with your questions that remain unsolved.

·        Please avoid sending trivial questions as you will make a bad impression on me.

·        Interesting comments and tips may receive extra credits.

 

·        Week 3, Jan. 20

o       Topics Covered: System Audit and Reporting; Lab

o       Hands-On Session: System Audit in Kaseya

§         Role: Technical Administrators

§         Description: This session is designed to step you through the configuration and deployment of Kaseya agents to managed machines. The session will cover best practices for planning your agent management and defining groups. Focus will be placed on template design, best practices and remote deployment procedures.

§         Objectives: At the end of this session, you will be able to:

·        System Audit

o       Understand the basic of conducting a system audit

o       Schedule system audits to their managed machines

o       Utilize the single machine interface for system audit information and system management

o       Implement user defined audit and information fields

o       Understand what information is captured during a system audit

o       Create reports based on system audit details

§         Scenarios:

·        Inventory of our assets

o       Financial reasons

§         Asset management

§         Depreciation

o       IT Management reasons

§         License management

§         Making sure that you do not have things that are bad

§         Verifying usage policy (Bit Torrent)

§         System heath

§         Performance consideration

§         Knowing when to upgrade

1.      Software upgrade

2.      Hardware upgrade

§         Minimum requirements for upgrade

§         Report on cost/benefit when planning for upgrade

o       Homework Assignment:

§         Create reports based on system audit details and paint a picture of your environment.

·        Hints:

o       Basically, I need a fairly detailed network diagram of the computers that you have access to them through Kaseya.

o       Under the Reports tab, select the Machine Summary report and try to create different reports by adding removing information in your report to learn more about the computers that you have access to them through Kaseya.

o       In most of Kaseya pages, you see a dish icon with “Status” as its label. When you click on it, a window opens that shows machine online status. Play with this interface to get some information about how your computers are connected to each other and to the internet.

o       Under the Audit tab, you can learn more about the computers that you have access to.

§         Perform asset discovery, installed software, etc.

§         Figure out what kind of information would be of use to you as an IT Manager.

§         Create views for commonly used machine classes (e.g., server, vista, xp, etc.)         

·        Hint: In most Kaseya pages, in the upper frame, you can find the “Select View” pulldown menu. Right next to it, you see a button with “Edit…” as its label. Click on this button and explore different options.

o       Online Training Assignment:

§         Watch the following courses at https://training.kaseya.com/ and practice them until you learn them completely

·        SPTT 103 Audit  

·        SPTT 105 Admin 

§         Watch the following demo at http://www.kaseya.com/Demo.aspx

·        Audit Demos

§         Write down your questions and send me an email with your questions that remain unsolved.

·        Please avoid sending trivial questions as you will make a bad impression on me.

·        Interesting comments and tips may receive extra credits.

 

·        Week 4, Jan. 27

o       Topics Covered: IT Automation – Automated Policy Management & Basic Scripting

o       Hands-On Session: Basic Scripting using Kaseya

§         Role: Technical Administrators

§         Description: This session is designed to be an introduction to the fundamentals of deploying remote change management with the Kaseya IT framework. This session will teach Kaseya administrators the basics of automated desktop management, scheduling, and delivery of system management across their environment. This session will focus on delivering command line system commands and application deployment. This is the first class on scripting.

§         Objectives: At the end of this session, you will be able to:

·        Enforcing policy with Kaseya Protection

o       Protect critical files using File protection.

o       Restrict unauthorized network access by applications using Network Protection

o       Prevent the execution of unauthorized applications using Application blocker

·        Basic Scripting

o       Understand the basic of Kaseya scripting and create a simple system management script using If, Then, Else logic

o       Identify and script several practical applications of scripts in day to day IT related management activities

o       Schedule scripts to managed machines

o       Troubleshoot script failures using the script logs and basic debugging techniques

o       Report on custom services performed and automated through Kaseya scripts in the Executive Summary

§         Scenarios:

·        Develop scripts for different types of machines that we have created a template for them.

o       Things that you may frequently do on a specific machine or on a specific type of machines

§         Exchange scripts

§         Defrag scripts

§         Update this file

§         Install the latest adobe update

o       Patch management is a script but because of its importance, it has its own tab.

·        Application deployment

·        Packager

·        Etc.

o       Homework Assignment:

§         Try the scripts that are listed under your public scripts.

§         Create a script that installs either of the below two applications:

·        The latest version of Adobe Reader.

o       OR

·        The latest version of EditPatLite (http://download.jgsoft.com/editpad/SetupEditPadLite.exe)

·        Hint: You can use the “packager” at the “Scripts” tab, under “Custom Install” to create an executable that installs Adobe Reader/EditPadLite without asking any question.

§         Create a useful script that is not listed under the Kaseya Scripting tab (extra credit).

o       Online Training Assignment:

§         Watch the following courses at https://training.kaseya.com/ and practice them until you learn them completely

·        SPTT 107 Scripting

§         Watch the following demo at http://www.kaseya.com/Demo.aspx

·        Scripting Demos

§         Write down your questions and send me an email with your questions that remain unsolved.

·        Please avoid sending trivial questions as you will make a bad impression on me.

·        Interesting comments and tips may receive extra credits.

 

·        Week 5, Feb. 3

o       Topics Covered: Scripting Lab

o       Projects: Requirement Elicitation and Analysis

 

·        Week 6, Feb. 10

o       Topics Covered: IT Automation - Advanced Scripting

o       Hands-On Session: Advanced Scripting in Kaseya

§         Role: Technical Administrators

§         Description: This session is designed to review some of the interesting scripts developed in Kaseya.

§         Objectives: At the end of this session, you will be able to:

·        Write your own scripts in Kaseya

·        Use the available scripts listed under the Public scripts

o       Homework Assignment:

§         Write a script to install the Yahoo toolbar.

·        Hint: You can use the “packager” at the “Scripts” tab, under “Custom Install” to create an executable that install Yahoo Toolbar without asking any question.

§         Write a script to uninstall the Yahoo toolbar.

·        Hint: You may want to learn about the unistallString under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall in the registery.

§         Create a useful script that is not listed in the class material (extra credit).

o       Online Training Assignment:

§         Watch the following courses at https://training.kaseya.com/ and practice them until you learn them completely

·        SPTT 407 Wake on LAN

·        SPTT 307 Boot to Safe Mode

·        SPTT 207 Managed Variables

§         Write down your questions and send me an email with your questions that remain unsolved.

·        Please avoid sending trivial questions as you will make a bad impression on me.

·        Interesting comments and tips may receive extra credits.

 

All the homework and online-training assignments so far are due by Monday, Feb. 16, at 6 pm.

 

·        Week 7, Feb. 17

o       Topics Covered: Real-Time Monitoring

o       Hands-On Session: Real-Time Monitoring using Kaseya

§         Role: Senior Technical Administrators

§         Description: This three-hour course is the first in a series of monitoring courses designed to teach the basics of remote system monitoring using the Kasey IT framework. This course will introduce you to system-based monitoring using performance counters and remote monitoring using SNMP.

§         Objectives: At the end of this session, you will be able to:

·        Real Time Monitoring

o       Utilize the Kaseya monitoring dashboard as an effective monitoring console for their managed machines

o       Identify and utilize the various types of monitoring available in Kaseya

o       Understand how agent monitoring works

o       Create, modify, and assign monitor sets

o       Create, modify, and assign event sets

o       Implement external system monitoring

o       Understand the basics of SNMP monitoring

o       Create, modify and assign an SNMP monitor set

o       Create meaningful reports on monitored events

§         Scenarios:

·        Monitoring the health of different parts of system and then start analyzing the alerts

o       Filter the alerts and see which ones are more frequent.

o       For the frequent ones, study if they are real problems.

o       If they are fix them and come up with an automated way of fixing this problem on all the machines that have it

o       If it is not, exclude the alert.

o       Homework Assignment:

§         Setup some performance monitoring on all the systems that you manage.

§         Define purpose of a monitoring activity (what is the problem that you are addressing)

·        Develop meaningful event sets and alerts.

·        Study how you can keep the events and alerts to a minimum set that is both useful and sufficient for the purpose.

·        Automated prevention and/or remediation for the problem.

o       Online Training Assignment:

§         Watch the following courses at https://training.kaseya.com/ and practice them until you learn them completely

·        SPTT 108 Intro to Performance Monitoring (pretty old)

·        SPTT 208 Alert Monitoring

§         Watch the following demo at http://www.kaseya.com/Demo.aspx

·        Monitoring Demos

§         Write down your questions and send me an email with your questions that remain unsolved.

·        Please avoid sending trivial questions as you will make a bad impression on me.

·        Interesting comments and tips may receive extra credits.

 

·        Week 8, Feb. 24

o       Topics Covered: Real-Time Monitoring Lab; SNMP Monitoring.

§         SNMP Monitoring

o       Projects: System Design

o       Online Training Assignment:

§         Watch the following courses at https://training.kaseya.com/ and practice them until you learn them completely

·        SPTT 109 SNMP

 

·        Week 9, Mar. 3

o       Topics Covered: Patch Management

o       Hands-On Session:  Patch Management using Kaseya

§         Role: Technical Administrators

§         Description: This session is designed to step you through configuring your patch management methodology. This session will focus on best practices of patch approval and automated deployment. Topics will include patch approval process, best practices in scheduling and deploying patches, and detailed Kaseya system configuration.

§         Objectives: At the end of this session, you will be able to:

·        Patch Management

o       Understand how Kaseya patch management works

o       Schedule system scans on managed machines

o       Schedule updates to the Kaseya patch database

o       Understand patch deployment methodologies and policies

o       Understand best practices for managing the patch cycle

o       Understand best practices for setting reboot actions on managed machines

o       Create reports based on patch install levels and update actions

o       Homework Assignment:

§         Draft a patch management plan that ensures the 100% availability of mission-critical systems and provides security and stability to your infrastructure. Include how it would be implemented and executed considering the IT staff and other resources that you have at your disposal (you can make realistic assumptions for this).

§         Implement and execute your patch management plan on all the systems that you manage.

o       Online Training Assignment:

§         Watch the following courses at https://training.kaseya.com/ and practice them until you learn them completely

·        SPTT 106 Patch Fundamentals

·        SPTT 206 Patch Approval Policy

§         Watch the following demo at http://www.kaseya.com/Demo.aspx

·        Patch Management Demos

§         Write down your questions and send me an email with your questions that remain unsolved.

·        Please avoid sending trivial questions as you will make a bad impression on me.

·        Interesting comments and tips may receive extra credits.

 

·        Week 10, Mar. 10

o       Topics Covered: Backup and Disaster Recovery

o       Hands-On Session: Backup and Disaster Recovery using Kaseya

§         Role: Technical Administrators

§         Description: This session is designed to address the high-level business considerations surrounding Backup and Disaster Recovery, and fully discuss the technical aspects of your Backup and Disaster Recovery solution.

§         Objectives: At the end of this session , you will be able to:

·        Kaseya Backup and Disaster Recovery

o       Identify some of the top level business concerns surrounding backup and disaster recovery

o       Assess current readiness to deliver a backup and disaster recovery solution, including necessary hardware and bandwidth

o       Deploy Kaseya backup and disaster recovery solution

o       Configure managed systems to back up sensitive data on schedule

o       Understand and implement the various data restore options

o       Configure and schedule off-site data replication

o       Homework Assignment:

§         Draft a backup and disaster recovery plan that ensures no loss of critical data and availability of your mission-critical systems within a limited number of hours/days (you can make assumptions on the level of service agreement). You need to have an off-site strategy, a disaster recovery procedure (what steps needs to be followed), and schedule for backups.

§         Implement and execute your backup and disaster recovery plan on all the systems that you manage.

o       Online Training Assignment:

§         Watch the following courses at https://training.kaseya.com/ and practice them until you learn them completely

·        SPTT 110 BUDR

§         Watch the following demo at http://www.kaseya.com/Demo.aspx

·        Backup and Disaster Recovery Demos

§         Write down your questions and send me an email with your questions that remain unsolved.

·        Please avoid sending trivial questions as you will make a bad impression on me.

·        Interesting comments and tips may receive extra credits.

 

·        Week 11, Mar. 17

o       Spring Break

 

·        Week 12, Mar. 24

o       Topics Covered: Backup and Disaster Recovery Lab

o       Projects: Detailed Design Document

 

·        Week 13, Mar. 31

o       Topics Covered: Endpoint Security; Lab

o       Hands-On Session: Endpoint Security using Kaseya

§         Role: Technical Administrators

§         Description: This session will guide you through the setup, configuration, and deployment of the Kaseya endpoint security client. Course of instruction will include licensing management, deployment, updating and scanning of managed machines with a focus on security profile best practices and system performance.

§         Objectives: At the end of this session, you will be able to:

·        Kaseya Endpoint Security

o       Deploy KES agents to managed machines

o       Mange KES License by extending, retracting, and reassigning KES licenses

o       Review KES logs

o       Report on threat levels and remediation activities

o       Review of threats and threat remediation

o       Configure and implementing security policies

o       Schedule of security updates, scans, and notifications

o       Homework Assignment:

§         Develop a security profile and provide the rationale behind your choices based on performance/risk tradeoffs. Note that there is no definite right and wrong answer, but you will be evaluated based on the strength of your arguments.

§         Implement your profile on your systems using Kaseya.

o       Online Training Assignment:

§         Watch the following courses at https://training.kaseya.com/ and practice them until you learn them completely

·        SPTT 111 KES

§         Watch the following demo at http://www.kaseya.com/Demo.aspx

·        Endpoint Security Demos

§         Write down your questions and send me an email with your questions that remain unsolved.

·        Please avoid sending trivial questions as you will make a bad impression on me.

·        Interesting comments and tips may receive extra credits.

 

·        Week 14, April 7

o       Topics Covered: User State Management; Agent Template; Lab

o       Hands-On Session: User State Management using Kaseya

§         Role: Technical Administrators

§         Description: This session is designed to help you with the management of user state, power management, drive mapping, printer mapping, user preferences for backup and recovery, and how to migrate user preferences.

§         Objectives: At the end of this session , you will be able to:

·        Kaseya User State Management

o       ?

·        Agent Templates for Managed Services

o       Create and configure agent templates

o       Schedule management policy to templates

§         Scenarios:

·        Creating template for different types of machines that have the same role or functionality

o       For examples exchange servers, AutoCAD workstations, mobile users, etc.

o       You may need to identify what is running on a group of machines and creating a new type

o       Objectives

§         Scripts to be assigned

§         Schedules of management actions

§         Patch policy of the group that they will join

§         Agent logs collected and retention history

§         Configure agent

1.      Copy Settings

2.      Import/Export

3.      Suspend

4.      Agent Menu

5.      Check-In Control

6.      Temp Directory

7.      Edit Profile

8.      User Access

9.      Set Credential

o       Homework Assignment:

§         Study what types of user profile you would need to develop/consider for your environment.

§         Draft a standard user profile: explain what you include in this profile and provide reason on why you have included them.

§         Creating one or more agent templates for your environment

·        Document why you made the specific choices in your templates.

·        Deploy the agent at least to one system of your own, but you can use up to 3 more licenses with permission from the instructor.

o       Online Training Assignment:

§         Watch the following courses at https://training.kaseya.com/ and practice them until you learn them completely

·        SPTT 101 Agent Templates

§         Watch the following demo at http://www.kaseya.com/Demo.aspx

·        User State Management Demos

§         Write down your questions and send me an email with your questions that remain unsolved.

·        Please avoid sending trivial questions as you will make a bad impression on me.

·        Interesting comments and tips may receive extra credits.

 

·        Week 15, April 14

o       Topics Covered: Help Desk, Ticketing, and Remote Control; Reporting; Putting it all together

o       Hands-On Session: Help Desk and Remote Control using Kaseya

§         Role: End-user technical support administrators.

§         Description: This session will teach you how what are your responsibilities as a end-user technical support administrator and how to use the Kaseya help desk and remote desktop support to perform your job remotely.

§         Objectives: At the end of this session, you will be able to:

·        Help Desk and Remote Control

o       Setup and customize the Kaseya Ticketing system

o       Configure remote control security policies

o       Configure the E-mail reader to accept helpdesk tickets from email

o       Configure Email mapping to automatically assign technicians and status to emailed tickets

o       Create, edit, and close helpdesk tickets

o       Access managed machines securely via Remote control, Video Streaming, and FTP

o       Communicate with end user via chat

o       Produce reports on helpdesk activities

o       Homework Assignment:

§         No Assignment. Work on your projects.

o       Online Training Assignment:

§         Watch the following courses at https://training.kaseya.com/ and practice them until you learn them completely

·        SPTT 112 Ticketing

§         Watch the following demo at http://www.kaseya.com/Demo.aspx

·        Reporting Demos

·        Remote Control Demos

§         Write down your questions and send me an email with your questions that remain unsolved.

·        Please avoid sending trivial questions as you will make a bad impression on me.

·        Interesting comments and tips may receive extra credits.

 

·        Week 16, April 14

o       Projects: Implementation and Testing.

 

·        Week 17, April 20-25

o       Final Exam: 2 hours.

 

Last modified 2/24/2009