| site: |
| PDI/Dreamworks (Dreamworks Animation) |
| servers: |
| 80 |
| workstations: |
- 400 desktops
- 1200 farm machines
- 10 NetApp filers (~75TB)
- 15 NetApp caches
|
| sysadmins on staff: |
| 12 (4 senior, 3 mid-level, 5 junior) |
| site overview: |
|
PDI/Dreamworks is a wholy owned subsidiary of Dreamworks
Animation, and one of the oldest computer graphics animation
houses in the industry. They are best known for
Shrek and Shrek 2 but also created
Antz and Madagascar.
|
| job title: |
|
Senior Systems Administrator / Backup Architect
|
| time at this job: |
| 3 years |
| | |
| years as a sysadmin: |
| 16 years |
| first computer: |
| Apple ][ |
| first OS: |
| Apple DOS |
| favorite OS: |
|
OSX. Although FreeBSD comes a close second.
|
| first computer with root/administrator access: |
| AT&T 3B2 |
| first programming language: |
| Apple Basic |
| favorite programming language: |
|
Perl -- although it drives me crazy
|
| most often used programming language: |
| Perl |
| first sysadmin job, computer and os: |
|
Straight out of college working for Dialogic Corp,
supporting their Engineering Dept. on System V 386
running on random Intel hardware
(mostly passive backplane 16 slot machines).
|
| ideal sysadmin job: |
|
One that includes enough time for research and training.
Too many sysadmin positions are focused only on keeping
things working and not providing any opportunity for growth.
|
| favorite sysadmin tool: |
|
strace/truss/par (depending on your OS)
|
| most interesting sysadmin tool: |
| Ethereral |
| sysadmin tool I couldn't work without: |
| strace/truss/par |
| education: |
|
BS CS and 1 1/2 years of grad school
(passed the comps but my job got in
the way of finishing my final project)
|
| when I was growing up, I wanted to be: |
|
I never really made plans....
|
| If I wasn't a sysadmin, I'd be: |
|
A performer of some type -- probably on the stage
|
| when friends and family ask me to
“fix” the computer or
“fix the internet”, I say: |
|
Sure (and then start swearing at Microsoft)
|
| when I first meet someone,
and they ask what I do, I say: |
|
I keep the Dreamworks Animation computers running
(at which point they usually ask if I worked on
Finding Nemo... :) )
|
| system administration is ...: |
|
a challenge / a pain in the neck /
a nightmare / a great career --
pick any 3
|
| advice to a junior admin: |
|
Learn how things work, not just the steps to
do a job. If you know how it works, you can usually
figure out what made it stop.
|
| advice to a senior admin: |
|
Know what you don't know -- no matter how much
we think it, none of us knows everything.
|
| | |
| favorite food/cuisine: |
| Japanese |
| pizza topping: |
|
Don't really have a favorite, I'll eat just about anything.
|
| work music: |
|
None usually -- hard to do with open cubes and
12 people in the same room. Does the “hhhuuummmm”
of the air handlers in the data center on
the other side of the wall count?
|
| crisis music: |
|
None here either -- although just about
anything with a beat will do
|
| ___ gets me through the work day: |
|
Having something different and challenging to do
|
| hobby/other job: |
|
Theatre -- whether it be acting or working back stage.
|
| | |
| my office is: |
Cluttered but decorative
(2nd place in our company cube decorating contest)
|
| co-workers say my desk is: |
|
Nicely decorated and a mess
|
| learned the most from: |
|
My graduate advisor -- he's the one who first
taught me to look at how things are put together.
|
| daily web sites: |
|
Long list of web comics (User Friendly,
For Better Or For Worse, Schlock Mercernary,
PVP and many others), LJ, random assortment of forum sites
ranging from software support to
Disney Themeparks, /., FreshMeat, wilwheaton.net.
I replaced a lot of my daily web sites with RSS a while
back (and then gave up on finding an RSS aggregator
that didn't suck).
|
| raised floor: |
|
Yes -- it makes it easier to manage cables, power,
and cooling as well as making the data center cleaner.
This is important when the investors come through to
take a look at things for some odd reason. However,
this is qualified “yes”, as it only makes sense if
you provide some of the same infrastucture under the
floor that you would normally have if you didn't have a
rasied floor, such as cable trays. It also requires
that you know what your cooling requirements are and
that you have a plan for system deployments.
|
| editor: |
| XEmacs |
| mail user agent: |
|
Thunderbird or pine or OSX Mail --
depends on what machine I'm sitting in front of
|
| web browser: |
| Firefox or Safari |
| gui or cli: |
|
Yes. It all depends on what I'm doing.
If I'm going to do it myself I'll probably use a CLI.
If it has to be supportable by others I'll
most likely make sure there is a GUI.
As an example, look at cacti vs. cricket for
SNMP data collection and display.
|
| computers at home: |
|
Working? 3 Dead? probably 6-8 (mostly in pieces)
|
| (primary) home computer and OS: |
|
Apple Powerbook with OSX 10.4.
|
| oldest hardware in your garage or basement: |
|
There's a Timex Sinclair in a box somewhere.
Oh, and my old Apple ][+ in the closet.
|
delicious
digg
technorati