November 18, 2011
I am very happy to announce that the first ever LOPSA Columbus chapter meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday, December 14th. We’re having the meeting at the offices of 2checkout.com (thanks Warner!). The address is:
2checkout.com
4350 Equity Dr. Suite G, 43228
Here’s a link to the Google Map: http://goo.gl/rafcE
View Larger Map
The meeting topic will be “PostgreSQL for non-Postgres Admins” presented by Andrew Rawnsley.
Andrew is the CTO of Investor Analytics, a New York City-based Risk Analytics firm. He has been a Postgres contributor for many years, and authored replication software for the database before it was widely available. Investor Analytics has used it in parallel with Oracle for over 10 years, and is currently in the process of converting all production databases to Postgres.
If the name Investor Analytics sounds familiar, it’s because that’s the company I sysadmin’d for over 6 years.
At the meeting, we’ll have socializing at 6:30 (with pizza and soda), and the presentation will begin at 7pm lasting until 8pm.
Please take this time to register at EventBrite (registration is free, but it lets me know how much pizza and soda to get).
Let me know if you need have any questions or concerns. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at the meeting!
Posted in Events 
4 Comments »
November 16, 2011
A bill is currently making its way through the United States Senate that effectively eliminates overtime pay for IT professionals. The important text of the bill is:
Section 13(a)(17) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 213(a)(17)) is amended to read as follows:
(17) any employee working in a computer or information technology occupation (including, but not limited to, work related to computers, information systems, components, networks, software, hardware, databases, security, internet, intranet, or websites) as an analyst, programmer, engineer, designer, developer, administrator, or other similarly skilled worker, whose primary duty is–
(A) the application of systems, network or database analysis techniques and procedures, including consulting with users, to determine or modify hardware, software, network, database, or system functional specifications;
(B) the design, development, documentation, analysis, creation, testing, securing, configuration, integration, debugging, modification of computer or information technology, or enabling continuity of systems and applications;
(C) directing the work of individuals performing duties described in subparagraph (A) or (B), including training such individuals or leading teams performing such duties; or
(D) a combination of duties described in subparagraphs (A), (B), and (C), the performance of which requires the same level of skill;
who is compensated at an hourly rate of not less than $27.63 an hour or who is paid on a salary basis at a salary level as set forth by the Department of Labor in part 541 of title 29, Code of Federal Regulations. An employee described in this paragraph shall be considered an employee in a professional capacity pursuant to paragraph (1).’
I think that I may have originally underestimated the importance of this bill to us SysAdmins in the United States…see, I was under the impression that we were almost all salaried and exempt – in other words, that overtime wasn’t an option anyway. I’ve been informed by a couple of friends of mine that this isn’t the case at all, and that there are a lot of hourly SysAdmins who get overtime.
Because I always want to be informed about the state of the industry, I built a really simple survey using Google Forms that’s embedded below.
The results have been posted.
Posted in System Administration 36 Comments »
November 14, 2011
I’ve been putting this post off for a long time…and not because I didn’t know what I wanted to write…I do. I just….don’t want to.
In fact, maybe you should just stop reading right now. The rest of the entry is really boring. Go on. Scroll to the next RSS feed – These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.
Still here? I was afraid of that.
Just for the record, it’s only out of the goodness of my heart that I’m doing this…
Red Gate (the company that published my Simple Talk Sysadmin writings) is doing something a little bit…out there.
Red Gate wants to send a DBA to space. Seriously.
Yes, it’s a corporate promotion, and obviously they want you to think well of them (and use their products), and it’s a tactic to accomplish that, but lets move beyond that. They are really going to send a DBA to space. For real. I just got off the phone with someone over there. They’ve already paid for the reservation, which is a significant chunk of the “substantial” price tag attached (to give you a ballpark number, Virgin Galactic charges $200k for an equivalent ticket). They’re completely serious about this.
Here’s the deal: You have to take a quiz, and you have to ostensibly be a DBA…which I take to mean Database Administrator. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve administered quite a few databases. OK, maybe not well, but I’ve done it.
The eligibility requirements are here:
Anyone can take part in the video quiz, but because of legal restrictions the following criteria apply to all applicants for the prize of a trip into space:
You must be over 18 years of age (19 in Canada).
Only residents of the USA*, UK*, Canada*, Australia, or Germany can win the prize.
*Excluding: Tennessee, Wyoming, Northern Ireland, and Quebec.
Chinese, Iranian, North Korean, or Sudanese nationals are not eligible to win the prize.
You must have administrated databases as part of your current or most recent job; your job title, however, does not affect your eligibility.
Entrants don’t need any particular skills or training. The winner will receive training and preparation for their spaceflight as part of the package, possibly including a ZERO-G flight and a centrifuge run.
The winner should also be in good health; a physician’s exam and medical waiver will be required before the flight.
So what’s the catch?
Well, the first thing is that even if you win, you’re not leaving anytime soon. The space flight is a suborbital flight aboard a Space Adventures craft, probably designed by Armadillo Aerospace. The final design isn’t done, and I’m not sure when it will be, or when it will begin tests.
Also, and this is probably a smaller matter, but according to the About page, you don’t need to purchase RedGate software to win (which I’m pretty sure would be illegal), but you do have to use trial portions, apparently. If that’s odius to you, then you probably shouldn’t take part.
All in all, it’s very cool. You get to go into space (which means 100km up) and be weightless for a while. You’ll get to see the curvature of the earth and the inky blackness of space, and you’ll instantly have way cooler stories than anyone I know, and I’ll probably ask for your autograph. If you can deal with that, then I suggest you forget all about this silly contest and move along so that I have a better chance of winning.
Disclaimer: I was asked to mention this to you, but I was considering it before I was asked. I have received nothing (nor will I) from anyone for mentioning it, and will, in all likelihood, only lower my own chances of winning by doing so (because yes, I am going to try to win, too).
Posted in Vendors 3 Comments »
November 12, 2011
I was asked recently whether I thought that, eventually, System Administration would require regulation, similar to how engineering and medicine require regulation.
This isn’t an easy question to answer, even though I think about it quite a lot. I think the right answer (as much as any answer can be “right”) is that, yes, eventually some of us may hold positions that need to be regulated in the future, but in my opinion, it’s for the best. Here’s my answer:
Yes, some regulation is absolutely necessary in certain segments of the industry.
There is a very good (but very hard to read) book called Risk Society written by Ulrich Beck that caused something of a paradigm shift in the engineering mindset in the 90s.
To oversimplify, society (and the world it exists in) has become complex to the point that you can not engineer risk out of the equation.
This idea is supported by the findings of people like Sidney Dekker in The Field Guide to Understanding Human Failure, who performs what could be considered root cause analysis of surgical and aeronautical accidents. The systems that he deals with are now complex to the point where there is no single root cause, because failure is an inherent operational condition of the environment. In other words, asking why something failed is exactly like asking why something didn’t fail – it was the end result of an impossibly complex web of interrelationships, all of which culminated in the eventual success (or failure) of the system.
There are a lot of scenarios where the tasks undertaken by system administrators do have life or death consequences, and in order to architect those infrastructures with adequate resiliency, a lot of education is necessary.
The path of a lot of system administrators from amateur to professional resembles that of a child who is exceptionally gifted at building erector sets being hired to construct a pedestrian bridge. Then, if the bridge doesn’t fall, the kid gets to build bridges designed to handle interstate traffic.
I don’t write this to disparage the upwardly mobile system administrator who has learned on the job, acquired a high skill level, and is successful in the systems that they engineer. Someone who does that should be justly proud.
When you start considering the potential loss of human life in such a system, however, you start to realize that “best effort” learning isn’t enough, particularly when there is no test to establish a safe knowledge level.
Why should you require a degree in civil engineering to design and implement a traffic control system, then not require the slightest test of the people who administer the IT infrastructure that it runs on?
No, I anticipate that in the future, “critical infrastructure” administrators will have certain requirements laid on them for the benefit of everyone who uses the system. The difficult decision will be where to draw the line.
What are your thoughts? Can you see the need to pass a test (or series of tests) to become a “Critical Infrastructure Administrator”?
Posted in System Administration 8 Comments »
November 7, 2011
You might have seen this on Tom Limoncelli’s Blog, but immediately preceding LISA’11, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is holding the 5th annual Symposium on Computer / Human Interaction for Management of Information Technology (CHIMIT).
That’s a very long name for a conference that you maybe haven’t heard of, but if you are at all interested in learning, not only how we do things, but why, and how we can do them better, then this symposium is something you will be interested in.
The ideas that are presented at CHIMIT are typically those which influence the people who influence everyone. We all interact with technology, even if we’re not aware of the extent to which we do. If you make, manage, or deal with technology, please check out their schedule and see what things might be of interest to you. Honestly, looking at it, the poster sessions alone may be worth it:
- IT Storage Capacity Management: Field Research and Software Design Principles
- Looking at Collaborative Problem Solving in IT
- Visual Analytics for System Administrators: A research agenda
Those are things I have a lot of interest in. And they’re just the poster sessions.
I’m not going to repost the entire announcement since you’ve probably read it (and if you haven’t, click the link up there to Tom’s blog, because he’s got it on there), but I did want to let you know about it, and that registration is now open ($175 for non-ACM members, and $75 for students).
The symposium is a single day of technical sessions followed by a day of workshops, and as usual, is timed to match LISA, so that you can come a couple of days early and make your trip even more valuable. Definitely consider it. Everyone that I’ve heard from that has gone speaks very highly of it!
Posted in Conferences No Comments »
October 31, 2011
Not everyone is fully aware of what I do at the moment, where I work, and where the money comes from. I need to remain forthright about it, particularly when I have been, do, and will be blogging about companies that have to do with my paycheck, however remotely.
Here’s the scoop. I’m currently acting as an independent contractor for Gestalt IT, which runs Tech Field Day. I perform duties specific to event management of the Tech Field Day events, and some very light system administration.
This is important, because some of Gestalt IT’s money comes from the vendors who appear at Tech Field Day. The way the event works is that there are eight slots over two days. Each of the slots costs a certain amount. The money paid by the vendors goes to fly the delegates from all around the world into whichever city the event is hosted in, it pays for their hotel rooms, for the transportation to and from any airports, plus around the city as we travel from company to company, plus all of the meals, including a party on Thursday evening. I am also paid, and Stephen Foskett, who owns and runs Gestalt IT is paid.
We try to run the events such that they don’t have a highly positive cash flow – the money is reinvested into the event for the most part, with some carrying over to help events in which we don’t sell all of the vendor slots.
Now, this brings us to the idea of disclosure. I am paid by Gestalt IT. Some of that money comes from vendors…vendors such as Gigamon or Brocade, both of whom I mentioned in posts recently.
Normally with Tech Field Day, delegates need to disclose that the vendors they’re talking about paid for the event, although they weren’t paid directly, and no Tech Field Day delegate has ever been told that they have to write about something specific, nor will they be, but most delegates see interesting things and want to write about them genuinely.
I, on the other hand, AM paid, but very indirectly, but most certainly not to write blog entries about companies presenting at Tech Field Day. If I write something about a company, it’s because whatever I’m writing about is interesting to me, and I think it may be interesting to you.
I was accused of filling my stream with marketing-related materials on twitter this weekend. I probably took that a little bit personally, to be honest. I am in a position right now that exposes me to a lot of new products – I am going to think that some of those products are interesting, because they are. The reason that Gigamon was at Tech Field Day was because I found them on the VMware show floor, talked to them, and was immediately enamored with the product. I didn’t write a blog entry about them right then and there because I would have a lot more information after a Tech Field Day session. So I waited, and the post came out last week. There’s almost no chance that HyperGlance would be a sponsoring company, but the product was so awesome that I lavished it with praise immediately following VMworld.
So here’s where we stand. I will continue to write about system administration-related topics, just like I always have. I will also get to write about interesting new products that I am exposed to, because I think that posts like that have some value. I understand that not all of you feel that way. I don’t want to lose you as readers if you feel this way, so I’m trying to make it easy on you.
I haven’t previously used WordPress’s categories like I should have, but I am now. If you want to only receive System Administration-related posts, then you should subscribe to my SysAdmin Category Feed. I will only be putting sysadmin-specific things in this category. The post you are reading, for example, will be excluded, as it goes to Administrivia. I’m in the process of going back through my nearly-700 posts and properly categorizing them, but this will take time. I will also encourage the various sysadmin planets which redistribute my blog to use my sysadmin feed. Those of you who want to get the full feed can continue with no change if you’re already subscribed.
Also, when I do write about a company in some way in which I imagine that it could be construed that I have given some sort of preferential treatment because they paid for an event, I will put the following disclaimer at the bottom of the post:
Disclosure:
This post mentions a company which paid my employer to partake in an event. I was not paid to write this post, nor was it requested of me. This company has provided me nothing of value besides things which would be considered normal conference swag, such as memory sticks, bags, or pamphlets of information. I write this entry of my own volition and stand by the contents. As always, if I say something is good, it is because I think it is good, not because someone asked me to say it is good.
I think that the combination of these efforts should be sufficient to placate people in general. But you know what they say…
Posted in Administrivia 2 Comments »
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