I've recently went through a number of production planned outages of a group of systems we've recently taken over. I like these outages because of that magical word planned. This isn't planned like you put it in your planner and write down a time, no this is a concrete list with no surprises, no unclear roles, everything is laid out and everyone knows what they are doing. This doesn't seem hard and it really isn't, just takes some attention. Being my 2nd or 3rd one on this current project and I'm noticing some good stuff and possible fail routes that can easily be avoided. More...

After writing my last post on tracing the two items together, the magical lazy comment came about to -- there has to be a better way.  Of course there is, no one in their right mind would even THINK to do this by hand time and time again.  So I went hunting for a way to pull this info into something useful, like an application of some kind.  Sure enough, there is an API out there for SSH for .net called SharpSSH and it works, with a bit of thinking. More...

I've been off in Linux land for a while and I've ran into HBAs, fiber channels, SANs and volume groups.  Honestly, they're a billion times more complex than they EVER need to be but if you are unlucky enough to run across such things, here's how I did it, do it and will continue to find it was the professor in the library with the candlestick. More...

Right now I'm waiting on a QA person to verify the code push that just happened, which seems like no big deal ...until I mention that half the team was unable to connect in for most of the time  I've come to find out that things happen that you NEVER see coming and I'm talking about really odd ball things you can NEVER plan for.  This is a perfect example. More...