1. A message from the Community Manager
I've been Community Manager for LOPSA for nearly two months now. When I took the contract, I wasn't quite sure what to expect beyond the defined tasks of my position. What I have found though has been surprising.
Though there isn't a lot of visible activity among the Membership from the surface, nonetheless there is still a strong and vibrant community. LOPSA Members consistently surprise me with their true and strong sense of community and dedication to it. It is a relief and privilege to become acquainted with people of such rarefied quality.
It's no secret that LOPSA has been running at a low idle for some time. I'm excited to be your Community Manager and look forward to revving things up. The board and I have been hard at work solving long-standing issues. More than that though, we are looking towards the future of what LOPSA can be. Particularly, we've been diligently moving forward with new services and partnerships to expand our Membership and increase the value of it.
It's an exciting time to be involved with LOPSA, and I'm very grateful to be in a position to do so much good for so many. I hope you'll stay with us and work with us towards a new era for LOPSA.
Sincerely,
Roger Luedecke
community@lopsa.org
2. LOPSA Member Spotlight
LOPSA Volunteer of the Month
 Mark Stenglein is a new Member of LOPSA. He's updated our page on Wikipedia.
Mark is a student at George Mason University He also works for Bishop O'Connell High School as part of their IT team.
We interviewed Mark, and we're happy to introduce you to him!
Could you please briefly introduce yourself to our readers?
I am a student at George Mason University's Engineering School currently working towards a degree in IT. I have been working for Bishop O'Connell High School the last year as a part of their small IT team. In the spare time I have, I enjoy working with new technology, contributing to free software projects I use, and operating amateur radio under the callsign KN4IJZ.
How did you hear about LOPSA? Why did you join?
There was a post or a comment on a Reddit thread which mentioned the LOPSA Code of Ethics and thought that was worth investigating a little further. There are very large professional organizations for the engineering fields, but I have not seen a strong emphasis on these so far in my time at school.
How long have you been a member?
I have been a member since mid-February, so about 3 months.
What have you gotten out of your LOPSA membership so far? What would you like to get out of it?
I have not actually had much opportunity to do much yet. Ultimately I'd like the opportunity to both learn from those more experienced than I am as well as be able to educate others in turn.
How long have you been involved in system administration?
I've only been working for about the last year, but have been tinkering with, breaking, and fixing linux systems on my own for the last eight years.
What are your career plans when you finish school?
With the size of the field, I have not pinned anything specific down yet. Ultimately, I want to be working in a place that allows me to spend time looking for solutions to complex problems. I've also got it in my head that working in the area of disaster response would be engaging, though I've struggled in finding any job descriptions in that area that would make sense.
We understand you're an Eagle Scout. Was your final project IT-related by any chance? If not, could you tell us what you did?
You would be correct! The Noland Trail, in Newport News VA, has several wooden footbridges which were in poor condition from poor maintenance over a long time. For my project I organized the process of procuring materials and coordinating volunteers to replace the surface structure and clean out the debris underneath and around one of these bridges (map.what3words.com/look.lock.saints).
New Member from Nigeria, Omodolapo Victor Babalola
 We have a new Member from Nigeria who is working on establishing a new chapter in his city. Kano in Northern Nigeria is the commercial center for the region and host to the largest tech-sector in Africa. We interviewed the enthusiastic Mr. Babalola, and wish to introduce you to him.
www.linkedin.com/in/omodolapovictorb
How did you find out about LOPSA?
I got to hear about LOPSA while I was researching for best practices in the System Administration field.
What compelled you to join us?
I must say the Professionalism and Objectives of this Noble organization
What is the high-tech sector like in Nigeria?
The high-tech sector in Nigeria is undoubtedly the largest in Africa and continually evolving.
The IT industry is characterized by startups such as (Andela, Hotels.ng), Online Stores(Jumia and Konga), the Big 5 consulting Firms (KPMG, PWC, EY, DELOITTE & ACCENTURE), ISPs and Datacenters(MainOne, Glo1), Telecommunications Companies (MTN, 9mobile, Glo, Zain, IHS Towers, Huawei), Banks (GTB, UBA, SKYE BANK) and Fintechs (Interswitch, e-tranzact, remita)
The high-tech sector here is continually evolving with more opportunities to harness
Where are you working, and what do you do there?
I work as IT Support at eHealth Systems Africa, Kano, where I handle setup and 2nd & 3rd level support for users’ computer system, servers, network printers, multimedia devices, photocopier machine and network devices (Routers, Access Points, Cameras). I support Network Engineers in network device configuration, Point to Point networking, surveillance and network monitoring and preventive maintenance in a Cisco, Mikrotik and Ubiquiti environment. I also support System Engineers in systems/server configuration, patch management, data center management, antivirus management, Backup management, system monitoring andpreventive maintenance in a Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Chromium, and Android environment.
Could you tell us about your background?
Omodolapo Victor Babalola is my name, I bagged a Bachelor of Technology Degree in Computer Engineering from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, LAUTECH, Ogbomoso, an ITILv3 certificate in IT Service Management and a Project Management Professional, PMP certificate. My experience in the IT industry spans over 2 years as IT Support at eHealth Systems Africa, IT Analyst at Kano Electricity Distribution Company, Technical Manager at LS Crew, Ogbomoso, Google Apps Admin Intern at LAUTECH ICT Centre, Ogbomoso and IT Support Person at Digital Jewels Ltd, Ikoyi Lagos.
During my leisure, I read, research and volunteer with the Nigerian Red Cross Society.
What do you hope to accomplish as a Member of LOPSA?
As a member of LOPSA, I hope to be mentored into a seasoned system administrator, contribute my quota to the establishment and running of the LOPSA chapter here in Nigeria and to uphold the ethics of our noble Organization.
3. Call for Volunteers
LOPSA needs volunteers to accomplish its mission. Visit https://lopsa.org/Volunteer for the many areas where we need help. Email board@lopsa.org to volunteer. Your ideas and energy are vitally needed. Get involved!
4. 2018 LOPSA Board elections
 LOPSA-live was held on the 16th over the Freenode IRC network in the #lopsa-live channel. LOPSA-live gives everybody an opportunity to meet and ask questions of the Board candidates.
As there are four candidates for the Board and five Board seats, the candidates are running without opposition and we will not be conducting a ballot for this election. The candidates will be, as they say in Canada, elected by "acclamation" (that means without opposition).
5. Certifications
 LOPSA encouraged professional credentialing from industry recognized certification bodies. We've been researching some of the most sought-after certifications that employers look for, and have provided a page at https://lopsa.org/Certificates.
As part of this new initiative, we are working towards sponsorships and partnership to allow us to offer discounted certification to our Members.
We would like your feedback on what certifications we should add to our page to promote for our Members. Send your recommendations to community@lopsa.org.
6. Chapter News
General
There has been a lot of activity among Chapters in the last month. Most encouragingly there are efforts to revive three dormant Chapters. Significant efforts are being made towards some new chapters, most notably a European and Nigerian Chapter.
Chapters are one of the pillars of LOPSA, providing community networking and support in meat-space to Members. Many Members have forwarded their careers through participation and attendance in local groups. Whether through learning from one another and bringing their skills to a higher level, or finding job opportunities a LOPSA Chapter has been for many a key turning point in their careers.
LOPSA is actively working towards ways to provide new services and incentives to Members in general, and local groups particularly. We have begun using Meetup Pro as a way to subsidize local groups efforts and promote LOPSA activities. We encourage your chapter to join our Global Network on Meetup. Whether you have an existing Meetup group to link to our Network or would like to take advantage of the platform with a new Meetup group, we want you to succeed in building more populous and powerful local communities.
We need YOU to build the communities that we stand and are famous for. To elaborate we are working on ways to help local groups be empowered with better tools and services to minimize complexity and issues while affording local groups to leverage assistance from our Community Manager. Now is the best time to start a new Chapter, or resuscitate an old one. Please consider getting involved in building a local Chapter, knowing that you can count on us for assistance in your efforts. Without each of you, there is no community.
General inquiries and assistance requests may be directed to the Community Manager.
E-mail; community@lopsa.org
Los Angeles
Their next meeting will be in June, with Kirk Waingrow presenting on his tool KASM: "Operational Management Tools and IT KASM"
See https://www.meetup.com/lopsala/events/250133706
Columbus Ohio
They met on April 30th. "Mining Ethereum Transactions". Good attendance, good food. Thanks for sponsoring from TEKsystems.
Next event tentatively scheduled for May 29. Working out final details with the speaker.
East Tennessee ETENN
ETENN met on May 1st for a presentation "Azure Automation: What is it and Why Do I Care?" by Benjamin Mitchell of Discovery, Inc. (21 attendees.)
Next meeting will be June 5th, Jesse Trucks presenting.
Ottawa Canada OVSAGE
met on April 19th, for the first in a series of microservices builds. Next meetup on May 17th.
San Diego
Chris McEniry and Tom Perrine are spearheading an effort to revive the San Diego LOPSA Chapter. You can find them on Meetup at https://www.meetup.com/LOPSA-SD. Contact Chris or Tom directly through Meetup to get involved!
Seattle SASAG
Our Seattle chapter, Seattle Area System Administrators Guild (SASAG) needs speakers. Plus if anyone in Seattle area is able to host (even occasional) meetings where they work, that would be most helpful. SASAG meets evenings the second Thursday of each month. www.sasag.org
Their most recent meeting was on April 12th for a SCALE recap by Brian Globerman.
7. Mentorship Program
Our recently revamped Mentorship program is off to a strong start on stable footing! So far we have thirty proteges and nine mentors participating in the program.
We've also been getting a lot of wonderful feedback in excitement about the relaunch of our Mentorship Program. This has not only come from our Membership but from our well-wishing sponsors.
One of the pillars of LOPSA is education. Towards that end, we hope that you will participate in the program as a Mentor or Mentee. Particularly, we are assessing best practices for effective implementation of the program and how to leverage our new technology and your participation can help us work out that formula quicker.
Check out http://mentor.lopsa.org to get involved.
Meet our Protégé, Ionut Cadariu
To celebrate the successful relaunch of our esteemed Mentorship Program, we wanted to introduce you to Ionut Cadariu from Romania. Ionut is a Member of LOPSA who sought us out and joined specifically for the Mentorship Program. We interviewed Ionut and are proud to introduce you to him!
Tell us a little about yourself. What is your background and how did you get involved with LOPSA?
I'm currently an infrastructure & security engineer. I've started being a systems administrator back in 2008 and continued to learn and understand the basics of Linux systems since this is my passion for many years.
How did you first hear about the LOPSA mentorship program?
Searching over the internet for a mentorship program.
What did you hope to get out of it?
Have someone with higher experience guide me in my career.
What did you actually get out of the mentorship program?
Besides technical depth, I've met an awesome guy - Aleksey Tsalolikhin who helped me become a better person not just in my career but in life, so thank you again Aleksey for everything.
Is there anything else you would like others to know about the mentorship program?
I think having a mentor when you start your career will help you get better faster.
8. Events and Conferences
LISA 18
LISA18 will take place October 29–31, 2018, at the Omni Nashville Hotel in Nashville, TN, USA.
LISA is the premier conference for operations professionals, where sysadmins, systems engineers, IT operations professionals, SRE practitioners, developers, IT managers, and academic researchers share real-world knowledge about designing, building, securing, and maintaining the critical systems of our interconnected world.
The LISA18 Call for Proposals is now open! The Conference Organizers invite both industry leaders and people on the front lines to propose topics that demonstrate the present and future of operations. Start preparing your proposals for talks, training, panels, and demonstrations. Submissions are due by Thursday, May 24.
For more information about LISA 2018 visit https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa18
If you'd like to participate as a speaker etc. navigate to https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa18/call-for-participation
Big Data Day LA
LOPSA is planning to have a table at Big Data Day LA in Los Angeles, California. We need volunteers to help us. The conference will be held on August 11th, 2018 at the University of Southern California.
Big Data Day LA is the largest, of its kind, Big Data conference in Southern California. Spearheaded by Subash D’Souza and organized and supported by a community of volunteers, sponsors, and speakers, Big Data Day LA features the most vibrant gathering of data and technology enthusiasts in Los Angeles.
For more information, or to register visit https://www.bigdatadayla.com/
If you'd like to help LOPSA as a volunteer, e-mail rluedecke@lopsa.org
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