Work over Christmas Break 2014

10 years ago, I wouldn't be complaining at all. I could live in a datacenter for days until the job's done. But these days, my back aches are more pronounced, and fatigue sets in more easily. This is why it's always great to have others helping out. Thanks to the CISO and PPO teams for making the migrations happen! I may have gotten older but the one thing that doesn't change is the thrill of the job.

My family isn't as thrilled, naturally. While it's the Christmas break, they spend each day mostly without me. And when I do get home, everyone's too tired to stay up; especially me. Sometimes I wished we could schedule downtime at work other than during holidays. But that's how a sysad's life goes. Meantime, there's going to be a ton of making up with the family in the next few days.

Check out some of the photos here. A happy and prosperous new year to all!

It's no longer about the number of monitors you have

Unlike in the late 90s to mid 2000s, desktop real estate is no longer constrained by the number of monitors you use. We now tout the number of virtual machines we have access to. In fact, my ailing MBP has managed to remain useful because remote access still enables me to work on all our VMs. Our applications and storage servers are all virtualized. Even some legacy systems have been replicated on VMs, allowing us to retire old and bulky server hardware.