Think about the next three

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Jeffrey
Plan Ahead

Plan Ahead

My company recently purchased three shiny new 1U1 servers, some new network and SAN equipment and a new rack to house everything.

Just about as close to a true greenfield situation as you’ll find.

And while it’s easy to install three new servers in a brand-new rack, it’s harder to develop and implement a process that accounts for these first three and leaves you ready for the next three. And the next three.

Slow down

One difficulty is in overcoming the intense desire to rack them, cable them, and power them on. Oooooo…Shiny! New things just beg to be played with. Now. Continue reading →

  1. A “U” is a vertical unit of measurement for racked equipment: 1.75″ tall. ↩
Posted in Management, System Administration | Comments Off on Think about the next three

Be Curious

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Jeffrey
why and how

Why? and How?

Unless it’s incessantly coming from the mouth of a two year-old, “why?” is one of my favorite questions. And “how?” is right up there with “why?”—they’re practically cousins.

Why? How?

Why was it set up this way? How does this work? Why did you (or it) do that? Why is DHCP doing this? How does DDNS work? Why is the network set up with three subnets separated at the second octet (and not the third)?

Why does this work? Why does this not work? Is there a different way? Why are none of the PCs showing the same time? Why do the phones show the right time? How is that set? How do we make them the same? Where are the local NTP servers? (oh, wait…) Continue reading →

Posted in Leadership, Other Thoughts | Comments Off on Be Curious

Slight Deflection

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Jeffrey
Deflection of light passing near the sun

Deflection

You may notice a slight deflection over the next few months on these pages, not in theme and topic, but in perspective. Nothing major—I’ll still be posting on leadership, management and system administration—but the angle will be slightly different.

In early September I took a position as the IT Director at a local engineering firm. Clearly that has not just changed my available time but also provided a different view from which to observe and write about leadership, management and system administration.

So the topics will remain the same but expect a slightly deflected view as I see them past the gravitational pull of a small IT department.

Posted in Other Thoughts | Comments Off on Slight Deflection

Three top Business skills

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Jeffrey

Similar to top leadership skills and top management skills, top business skills may depend more on the situation than anything else. So picking three top ones (not the top three ones) remains a risky task but yet one I was asked to perform recently.

Here’s an expanded version of how I responded:

Continue reading →

Posted in Other Thoughts | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Three top Business skills

Three top Management skills

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Jeffrey

Similar to top leadership skills, a list of three top management skills may depend more on the situation than anything else. So picking three top ones remains a risky task but yet one I was asked to perform recently.

Here’s an expanded version of how I responded:

Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged , | Comments Off on Three top Management skills

Three top Leadership skills

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Jeffrey

There are dozens of skills that every leader should develop and each assumes a different importance in a different situation. So picking three top ones is a risky task but one I was asked to perform recently.

Here’s an expanded version of how I responded:

Continue reading →

Posted in Leadership | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Three top Leadership skills

If necessary, use your favorite tool

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Jeffrey
Editor War

Editor sometimes found in Unix/Linux

My “Emacs versus vi” post still brings in a significant number of page views each month.

Much to my surprise.

You see, I figured more sysadmins, programmers and users would recognize and emphasize the need to get things done over prolonging the great editor holy war.
Continue reading →

Posted in System Administration | Tagged , , | Comments Off on If necessary, use your favorite tool

Acting on a good idea

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Jeffrey
Acting on a good idea is better than just having a good idea.

Acting on a good idea is better than just having a good idea.

Earlier I mused on suits, haircuts and good ideas and opted to support “what’s between the ears”, those brains, smarts and ability to execute.

A day or so later my family were eating Chinese takeout when we got to the ritual of reading those little slips of paper you find wedged in fortune cookies. My son’s read:

Acting on a good idea is better than just having a good idea.

And of course I grabbed it for this blog post.
Continue reading →

Posted in Leadership, Other Thoughts | Tagged | Comments Off on Acting on a good idea

When “Free” upsets your model

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Jeffrey
Free Beer Here (tomorrow)

Free Beer Here (tomorrow)
( by Tom Morris, from wikipedia )

When something is free (free as in beer, not free as in speech1), how many of us are tempted to over-consume? What if we’re separated from the true cost of something by policy or tradition? Do we find ourselves over-consuming something that is perceived as “free”?

At a previous employer some years ago, we found ourselves having to combat physical server sprawl, that data-center condition in which new servers proliferate faster than old ones are being eliminated. Several factors were at work in this case Continue reading →

  1. See Gratis versus libre and Richard Stallman‘s many thoughts on this. ↩
Posted in Management | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

It’s not the haircut, but what’s between the ears

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Jeffrey

I was at a tech Meetup, talking with an Android developer about how he writes code to handle background processes on that platform when he stopped abruptly and asked me about my work experience. I briefly explained my history in Unix ops, etc. (since that’s what seemed relevant) and he replied:

Oh, so you do understand; it was your suit that confused me.

Apparently we’d ducked down into a space so geeky he didn’t expect someone in a suit to really understand it.

I’d been profiled based on how I was dressed.

And I couldn’t really blame him. Continue reading →

Posted in Other Thoughts | Tagged , | 1 Comment