SysAdmins can be thought of as perhaps the medical doctors of the technical world – heroes in their own right. They are the silent protectors, the caped defenders of our electronic cities. Armed with nothing but their sharp wit and lightning fast fingers, they bring to life an otherwise lifeless world. They rush to the aid of ailing servers and networks. They build enormous arrays of redundant storage, take the pulse for an ocean of applications and keep a watchful eye on row upon row of blinking servers. Who are these masked crusaders and what do they seek, you ask? And more importantly, do they have any super-powers? Fear not, they do not swing from buildings or trees, nor do they fly through the sky or have super-human strength. No, they view their world through an electronic window; taking comfort only in maintaining order for all within their domain – ever vigilant.

At OpenSRS, we have a small army of Unix variety SysAdmin heroes. They work tirelessly day and night to ensure we maintain a detailed analysis for our diverse environments. Behind the scenes these heroes spend endless hours planning and executing preventative measures against our common foes: downtime and degradation. Working with developers and engineers to bring new products and services to life in a configuration that is the most resilient and scalable available. Pouring over millions upon millions of lines of logs each day, the tiny footprints in the sand left behind by each application, they ferret out problems before they surface. They build walls of fire to protect us from the ever-evolving number of viruses and exploits lurking in the ether. And they bring balance to the chaotic world of packets, TCP and UDP alike.

Their work, frequently so successful and seamlessly integrated, by design goes unnoticed. Their super-hero preemptive work is critical for the achievement of nerd nirvana (or nerdvana as we like to call it here.) In general though, we tend to recognize our SysAdmin heroes most when they bring incidents to resolution. Well, today is their day. So to all of the SysAdmins here at OpenSRS and out there; you know who you are: We salute you!

Some of Our SysAdmins demonstrating Whois Privacy (they are camera-shy)

Photo: Paul Tichonczuk, Senior Web Application Developer