Monday, June 4, 2012

The born-again sysadmin

A few weeks ago, I decided to go back to my roots as a systems administrator. While being an architect was a fulfilling experience, I was missing a lot the technical work I used to do in my previous career.

So, I'll be transitioning from my current architecture duties to join a team in charge of a mission critical system that currently runs on - hold your breath - Tru64 Unix. This is a major real-time system for my company, which spans three sites and counts a plethora of servers. Can't say more due to security issues. Many in that team are due to leave for retirement this summer so I'll probably work as a Mr Wolf for a while, fixing what needs to be fixed (and strategically avoiding what doesn't need to).

This Tru64 system is planned to be upgraded to Linux (specifically RHEL 5.8) starting next year, with a go live in 2014. And I'm in the delightful situation of having been one of the architects to document that upgrade -- the difference being that it's ME who will have to live with it for years to come.

I'll be the first to admit that this blog has been slow going between 2010 and 2012. There was simply no content that was "generic" enough to be published here. Things might change over time.