fighting the lack of good ideas
A few years ago, I ran into a known issue with one of the products I use that manifests when the Red Hat Linux server it’s running on has a low entropy pool. And, as highlighted in that question, the steps I found 5 years ago didn’t work for me (turns out modifying the t…
I have been in the world of automation for quite a while. Specifically in the realms of server, datacenter, and cloud automation – but I’ve been interested and/or involved in other tasks that tend towards automation (even for a short period of time) for far longer than just my post-college time in the world of…
After running into some wacky networking issues at a recent customer engagement, I had a brainstorm about a smart[ish] DHCPd server that could work in conjunction with DNS and static IP assignment to more intelligently fill subnet space. Here’s the scenario we had: Lab network space is fairly-heavily populated with static assigned addresses – in…
I have been working in the realm of “automation” – specifically data center automation – for several years. Merriam-Webster defines “automating” thusly: to operate by automation to convert to largely automatic operation <automate a process> Notice the subtle difference with M-W’s definition of “automation“: the technique of making an apparatus, a process, or a system…
Back in 2009, Joel Spolsky wrote an article called The Duct Tape Programmer. Of everything he has written, I think this is the very pinnacle, and it is summed in one simple sentence in the middle: “Shipping is a feature.” I’ve referenced this article twice before (in Feb and Sep of ’11). Why is this…
continue “delivering solutions – “shipping is a feature!”” »
I learned about the call command in Windows recently. Some context – was trying to run a command via HPSA at a customer, but kept getting an error that the program was not a recognized internal or external command. Very frustrating. Then one of the guys I worked with suggested adding a “call” to the…
Last time I talked about storage robustifiers. In the context of a couple applications with which I am familiar, I want to discuss ways to approach balancing storage types and allocations. Storage Overview Core requirements of any modern server, from a storage standpoint, are the following: RAM swap Base OS storage OS/application log storage Application…