| site: |
| www.constantcontact.com |
| servers: |
| ~120 production, ~50 corporate/dev/qa |
| workstations: |
| ~100 |
| sysadmins on staff: |
| 5 |
| site overview: |
|
We have 2 (soon to be 4) major DB2 servers (Sun V880, Sol8) with ~7TB
EMC storage arrays behind them.
The remaining production machines
break down basically into user interface web servers (mostly
win2k/websphere) and outbound mailers running (CentOS/postfix).
Our corporate machines are nearly all Windows servers, a mix of things
like Exchange and some callcenter/tech support applications. We also
have a rather hodge-podge set of production mockups for QA and product
development.
|
| job title: |
| Senior Systems Administrator |
| time at this job: |
| 10 weeks |
| | |
| years as a sysadmin: |
| 18 |
| first computer: |
| Apple ][e (That's if you don't count the TI58 or the PDP7 at school the year before we got the Apples). |
| first OS: |
| Apple ][ |
| favorite OS: |
| Flavors of *nix (SunOS 5.x, Linux) |
| first computer with root/administrator access: |
| HP9000/300 |
| first programming language: |
| Apple ][ BASIC |
| favorite programming language: |
| C (compiled), Python (scripting) |
| most often used programming language: |
make(1)
I don't get to code as much as I used to. I enjoy porting, debugging,
tweaking existing packages. |
| first sysadmin job, computer and os: |
| Draper Lab, HP9000/300, HPUX6 |
| ideal sysadmin job: |
| Installation and Maintenance Automation:
Automating system installation, maintenance and monitoring. Software packaging.
|
| favorite sysadmin tool: |
| PXE/kickstart/jumpstart and rpm/sun packaging |
| most interesting sysadmin tool: |
| tsort (thanks adamm!) |
| sysadmin tool I couldn't work without: |
| sudo |
| education: |
| Bachelor of Science (Computer Science), Northeastern University, 1988 |
| when I was growing up, I wanted to be: |
| A paleontologist,a meteorologist, an astronomomer. |
| If I wasn't a sysadmin, I'd be: |
| A waiter pretending to be a starving actor/musician. Seriously,
I can't think of anything else I'd like to do for work. I don't know if I could
do anything else in offices I've been in. I've toyed with the idea of being a bicycle mechanic (which I have done) or frame builder (which I haven't). If I get
layed off again, I may try to get a job as an apprentice electrician. |
| when friends and family ask me to “fix” the computer or
“fix the internet”, I say: |
| The first time: “Let me take a look.”
The second time: “That will be $100/hour, 4 hour minimum”
(I've had a couple takers). |
| when I first meet someone, and they ask what I do, I say: |
| “System Administrator...errr. I make people's computers
work together.” When I was at a large ISP (Genuity), I used to enjoy
telling people “I run the internet”.
|
| system administration is ...: |
| Providing the computational resources required so that other people
can do the “real work”. |
| advice to a junior admin: |
Throwing pottery is soothing.
- Never do anything (significant) for an engineer/developer until they've
asked twice.
- The answer to any question who's answer is “Yes, but...”
is NO! (especially for salesmen)
- No one gets fired for screwing up. They get fired for covering up.
|
| | |
| favorite food/cuisine: |
| Sushi, Sashimi |
| pizza topping: |
| Pepperoni “Pepperoni Pizza” was my CB handle back
when that was in fashion. |
| work music: |
|
500 years of music on “shuffle” one track at a time. |
| crisis music: |
“Brother Sun; Sister Moon”
- Cambridge Singers, John Rutter conducting. Music of morning and evening prayer.
|
| ___ gets me through the work day: |
| Dr. Pepper |
| hobby/other job: |
|
|
| | |
| my office is: |
| too small with cube walls only 3 ft high. |
| co-workers say my desk is: |
| A mess |
| learned the most from: |
| 2 years as sole sysadmin with ~20 machines running 13 operating
systems, each acting as both engineering server and user desktop. |
| wish list: |
| A Shuttle PC to replace each of the decrepit old boxes my family
are forced to use because they're the cobbler's children. |
| daily web sites: |
|
|
| raised floor: |
| Yes, but not traditional. 4-inch raise, Power goes under the floor.
Communications go overhead in cable trays. |
| editor: |
| Emacs for development, vi for single files, or as root. |
| mail user agent: |
| pine,
Evolution (when Exchange is required) |
| web browser: |
| Firefox, wget. |
| gui or cli: |
| CLI |
| computers at home: |
| 7 |
| (primary) home computer and OS: |
Not fair!
My computers run Fedora Core 4 (Laptop, server). My
family uses windows 98 (kids) and XP pro (wife) |
| oldest hardware in your garage or basement: |
| Ultra2 I just tossed my sparcstation 5/110 and two IPXs I'd used
as firewall and cold spare. |
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