After more than 20 years as a Linux server DevOps, I build the infrastructure that makes your business successful. I’m very sociable, personable and I explain everything in clear, easy to understand terminology. Please read below to see why.
Back in 1999, I was hired to be a sales rep for a small computer company that specialized in building super computer clusters called ‘Beowulf Clusters’. These were high performance parallel super computers that are used to this day to run enormous tasks like predicting the weather using programs like the MM5 Weather Modeling.
In those days, Linux had only been around for about 8 years, and most of those 8 years, Linux was more of an academic project that was more of an experiment, until … Red Hat.
When Red Hat released a commercial version of the Linux operating system in late 1994, the world suddenly started to take a serious look at Linux.
It would be years before Linux would be used for major projects like high performance parallel computing (HPPC), but that day would come. The Red Hat training I received came directly from the Red Hat company. In those days, using Red Hat for HPPC was completely experimental, and all of us, from the receptionist, to the sales reps had to learn the basics of Red Hat and Linux in general.
When I was hired, I had already been writing code since 1983. My first code was written on a Commodore 64! To me this was exciting and I knew computer programming would be huge!
The Commodore 64 introduced me to the command line, and I was immediately hooked. It’s not like there were any other choices, the command line was all that existed back then. There were no icons, graphical user interfaces (GUI), or even a mouse. Everything was done from the keyboard.
Fast forward to my time building HPPCs, and I was a natural fit for this small company. After Red Hat basically moved into the facility at NOAA, which was just up the road in Golden, Colorado, our training was relentless. For me to sell any Beowulf Clusters, we had to understand what they could do.
So you might be wondering, why a sales position? Why not a software engineer? Because back in the mid to late 80s, sales was where the money was. The attitude companies had towards programmers was one of, “Let’s hire a programmer for next to nothing.”
I don’t know why, but computer programmers were treated like a pariah. A liability that could not help the company produce revenues, but an endless expense to be “dealt with”. Programmers were outcasts and it was obvious by the way companies treated them.
To understand how poorly programmers were treated, keep in mind that Elon Musk couldn’t land a job with Netscape back in these days!
Thankfully today the mindset has changed dramatically, and programmers can earn a substantially great living, even from home.
It’s important to note that your business processes can and will change significantly when the focus is on implementing modern server technology practices. Practices like building a customer interaction flow that will streamline your customer’s experience, and more importantly, streamline the employee interaction with every order.
A prime example of this can be seen through a simple e-commerce website transaction. In the past, all companies had to have phone, fax and email to interact, create and complete a customer order. Today, this same interaction can be done through a website, and the warehouse can have an automated packing slip and shipping label printed just seconds after the order has been placed. No employee interaction until the warehouse needs to pull the product off the shelf. That’s real power!
The same goes for any service oriented business that needs to schedule and meet with clients. A website can easily handle the scheduling and take a small down payment to verify the client is serious.
The process of business has changed so dramatically in the last 20 years, the world has become a substantially better place to live. Even buying a Tesla takes less than 5 minutes!
What I Do
As mentioned above, one of the most common tasks I perform is rescuing servers. The most common practice of “buy a bigger server” is a guaranteed recipe for failure.
All servers, big or small, must be setup properly to function correctly. For example, a typical LAMP or LEMP web server is designed to simply serve a few pages of website content. It’s not built to run social networks, or handle high volumes of traffic. So the reaction most clients have is to “buy a bigger server”. Not only is this a waste of time and money, but it will fail almost immediately.
To enhance the performance of any server, that server must be setup properly for maximum performance.
The Linux configurations must be setup to handle a high number of open files, the Nginx must be setup to cache elements, the database must be configured to handle large SQL queries and the PHP must be setup to handle high volumes of processes.
Along with these custom configurations, there’s also the process by which a company runs it’s business. For example, sending a basic email about a new order that’s come in will never make my client’s more money. That email must deliver the right content to the right people, or the right machine.
Programming Languages
- Bash
- Awk
- Grep
- Sed
- Nginx
- Apache
- PHP
- Python
- MySQL
As you may notice, I work primarily with servers, however, that doesn’t mean I can’t push your website to it’s maximum speed. Need to be on the first page of Google? That’s what I do.
The only question I have for you, “What can I do today, to make you successful tomorrow?”
Your success is my reward.
Please keep in mind that I only work in Linux server environments.
Please click the link below and complete a small deposit to start your journey to massive success.