Wednesday July 28, 2004

Deploying Solaris 10 We run our two internal factories infrastructures on Solaris - of course - and test all (except our linux products) our products using Solaris - of course - and are starting to plan our move from Solaris 9 to Solaris 10 - of course. Just looking at the list of features it's a no brainer for us to make this move a priority in our team. Just about all aspects of running a data center are tackled in some way and to some extent, and our factories are very large and dynamic data centers with products moving through them all the time. Since we perform testing here, I am particularly looking forward to the improved fault management features as these can only be beneficial to our customers as we improve the quality of our products as a result of improved diagnosis of failures during the manufacturing process. The software application and daemon monitoring will also play a key role for us as we manage the availability of not jsut the hardware but the services themselves that depend on the hardware. (2004-07-28 11:05:00.0) Permalink

Texas 2 Oregon in 16 Days - By RV I just returned from my vacation of two weeks during which time I drove my recently purchased diesel RV from Texas to Oregon. The first thing I will say is that 2800 miles is a little bit too far to go in two weeks. One more week would have been perfect. However along the way we saw and spent time in some of the most incredible countryside I've ever seen, between monument valley, Dead Horse State Park, Canyonlands, Canyon De Chelly, the Columbia Gorge and the roads in between. I experienced a sense of incredible awe to see the results of billions of years of earth activity and the results. Nowhere I have been before have I enjoyed that feeling quite so much.

That said, I also drove some of the most boring roads ever laid down; I10 from San Antonio to El Paso, I40 north into New Mexico, I 15 north out of Utah and some of the trip through Idaho.

Now I am back at work and feeling refreshed. (2004-07-28 09:00:00.0) Permalink

Tuesday July 27, 2004

Managers Blogging ? I wonder how many people managers are out there blogging? Not enough probably. So here is a pitch for more managers to blog. I certainly get one hell of kick out of managing my team and helping and then watching them deliver qrtr after qrtr on projects that are tougher, harder and more challenging than they have ever been. Certainly as a manager, it doesn't get any tougher than managing in a tough economy, need I say more. Either way, it's something I put a lot of passion into, I love helping people be productive and grow in their careers and look back at themselves every year and see how much they have moved forward.

I also believe that good managers are a key asset to Sun, I've had a couple of iffy ones in my career but many more good ones, who have done for me what I can now do for others.

Anyway, I though I would pay a public tribute to my team, in High End Operations Engineering who have just performed incredibly this last year, helping Sun back to get back on the path to profitability, in our small way. (2004-07-27 13:42:20.0) Permalink Comments [1]