| location: |
| San Jose, CA, USA |
| site: |
| Cisco Systems, Inc. |
| servers: |
| 6000+ |
| workstations: |
| 30,000+ |
| sysadmins on staff: |
| lots |
| site overview: |
|
A homogeneous environment of Linux, Unix (mostly Solaris and a
smattering of HP/UX), and Windows servers and desktops scattered at over
a dozen major and hundreds of minor facilities across the globe.
|
| job title: |
|
Systems Administrator (although I do more architecture
work than actual day-to-day sysadmining)
|
| time at this job: |
| 7.5 years |
| | |
| years as a sysadmin: |
|
depends - under various labels, about 30 years - 15 of those in Unix
|
| first computer: |
|
First that I touched, a PDP8/E. First that I owned - Fairchild F8
|
| first OS: |
| Edusystem 30 on the PDP8 |
| favorite OS: |
|
I'm a gourmand - NeXTstep and Linux are probably the winners, though.
|
| first computer with root/administrator access: |
| IBM370/155 running OS/MVT |
| first programming language: |
| Ugh - BASIC |
| favorite programming language: |
| Plus. (No, you won't find it around anymore. ;-) |
| most often used programming language: |
| Today - Perl |
| first sysadmin job, computer and os: |
|
Simon Fraser University, IBM370 & PDP11/44, Michigan Terminal System
(MTS) and UBCNET (custom network RTOS)
|
| ideal sysadmin job: |
|
One that is sufficiently automated to permanently telecommute from a
beach.
|
| favorite sysadmin tool: |
| VMware, VNC, Perl, TOAD,... |
| most interesting sysadmin tool: |
| the next one that comes in the door. |
| sysadmin tool I couldn't work without: |
| curiosity |
| education: |
| Engineering Technologist (Electronics/Telecommunications) |
| when I was growing up, I wanted to be: |
| Systems Analyst (they didn't have Sysadmins back then
:-)
|
| If I wasn't a sysadmin, I'd be: |
|
working in some other high tech area, probably would have become an
Electrical Engineer. (Almost did.)
|
| when friends and family ask me to
“fix” the computer or
“fix the internet”, I say: |
|
Yes to family - any other answer only causes pain and suffering, and
even 'yes' to most friends, depending on the problem.
|
| when I first meet someone,
and they ask what I do, I say: |
| “I'm in IT” |
| system administration is ...: |
|
Not easy to define, and can include anything from hardware jockey to
programmer to architect to babysitter.
|
| advice to a junior admin: |
|
Hone your troubleshooting skills! Take things apart!
Try to put them back together again!
Learn to decode packets, traces, logs, etc.
|
| advice to a senior admin: |
|
Hone your troubleshooting skills! Take things apart! Try to put them
back together again! Learn to decode packets, traces, logs, etc. (Yes,
this is a lifelong activity! :-)
|
| | |
| favorite food/cuisine: |
|
I'm a foodie - and there's so much good food in the world, it's fun
trying it all. Ukranian, Greek, French, Indian, Californian... even
Scottish!
|
| pizza topping: |
|
I don't eat much pizza any more, but I like
pesto/cheese/garlic/prosciutto.
|
| work music: |
| Jazz, Canadian Folk, '70s and '80s Pop |
| crisis music: |
| Louder jazz, old Moody Blues |
| ___ gets me through the work day: |
| Our kids. Small amounts of caffeine. |
| hobby/other job: |
| More computers, electronics, photography, auto repair
(air tools rock!)
|
| | |
| my office is: |
| tidy, at the moment |
| co-workers say my desk is: |
| tidy, at the moment |
| learned the most from: |
| excellent coworkers over the years |
| wish list: |
| A continuing supply of excellent coworkers in the future. |
| daily web sites: |
| woot. |
| backups to tape or disk? |
|
For personal backup, DVDs or CDs.
I HATE TAPE. At work, get someone else to do it (which we do :-).
|
| editor: |
| gvim or whatever is lying around |
| mail user agent: |
| Thunderbird |
| web browser: |
| Firefox |
| gui or cli: |
|
Yes. Did I mention the gourmand part?
CLI for automation, GUI when appropriate.
Configuring 100 machines in a GUI is a pain. So is editing video with a CLI.
|
| computers at home: |
| 8 (currently running), lots (in various stages of
decomposition)
|
| (primary) home computer and OS: |
|
A Dell running Linux, and a generic running Windows XP. (There are no
decent video packages for Linux!)
|
| oldest hardware in your garage or basement: |
|
Oldest computer, about 1975 (with some parts from about 1970.) Oldest
electronic hardware, early 20th Century
|
delicious
digg
technorati