I spent my day working on deploying software in our company's private cloud. It may sound complicated, but isn't really once you get past a few basic concepts. Remember that "The Cloud" means different things to different people, but generally means computer servers running in an environment that is accessible on the Internet. We have all sorts of security to keep the wrong people from being able to do bad things to our computers and so that adds a level of complexity to install software. Furthermore, we are still testing our cloud and that means servers need to be easily configured even with all of the added security.
There are several open-source tools to help with this type of software deployment. We have started using Chef and it is supposed to make our life easier. At first glance, Chef looks fairly complicated. There are recipes and cookbooks with all sorts of different options and bits to twiddle. Today I worked with another one of our software engineers and we worked on getting MongoDB up and running on three different servers. If you go to the Opscode website for Chef, you can see that there is already a cookbook for MongoDB. We just downloaded it and made simple modifications for our specific environment. Now if we need to add a fourth MongoDB server, it is just a matter of running a single command on the server and everything is ready to go.
Sir Isaac Newton once said something along the lines of, "All that I have achieved is because I have been able to stand on the shoulders of other great men." He didn't worry about recreating work done before him, he just made sure to add to it. Open-source software and Chef are good examples of that principle in action today.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Annoying Software Updates
This morning I was minding my own business and going through e-mail when the Microsoft Office Auto Update program decided to take over my computer. I was typing mid-sentence when a dialog box appeared on my screen and stole the focus from a very important e-mail I was composing. I was slightly annoyed but decided that it was probably a good idea to get the update and let it continue. That was a mistake. The installation program decided that it didn't want any other programs running while it updated the Microsoft Office software. Now I can understand the need to shut down other Office programs like Outlook and Word, but why did it need to shut down my non-Microsoft Browser?
At this point I did what I should have done when the auto update program first appeared, I put it in the background and ignored it until I finished what I was working on. I sent my e-mail and then allowed the update to take place while I went and got a drink of water. When I got back, my computer was ready to use again.
I don't know who writes these auto update programs, but I am sure they lack any form of social skills. You know the type. Those people that interrupt important conversations with mundane and routine comments that should be kept quite until the grown-ups are done talking. I wonder if they started their careers as telemarketers calling people during dinner?
At this point I did what I should have done when the auto update program first appeared, I put it in the background and ignored it until I finished what I was working on. I sent my e-mail and then allowed the update to take place while I went and got a drink of water. When I got back, my computer was ready to use again.
I don't know who writes these auto update programs, but I am sure they lack any form of social skills. You know the type. Those people that interrupt important conversations with mundane and routine comments that should be kept quite until the grown-ups are done talking. I wonder if they started their careers as telemarketers calling people during dinner?
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
A Case For Wearing A Wrist Watch
Recently I had the chance to help provide radio support for the Salt Flats 100 Endurance Run. My radio buddy and I got to our assignment at aid station 13 just after 8pm as the sun was setting. The road we traveled was more of a nasty Jeep trail that was impassable in any vehicle without high ground clearance. We'd been given this spot as we had such a vehicle that was more than capable to get to such a remote destination. Even though most of the race is held in the Salt Flats of Utah, this particular checkpoint was actually in Nevada.
My buddy and I arrived and met the helpers at the station before setting up our radio equipment. Once we turned on the radio, we started getting reports from station 12 which straddled the Utah/Nevada border. As is the fad these days, they were using their mobile phones to provide the times that the runners arrived and departed. Unfortunately the close proximity to the Mountain and Pacific timezones was wreaking havoc on their information. One runner would come in at 11:20 pm and then leave at 12:30am, but was only stopped for 10 minutes. Worse was when someone would come in at 12:30am and then leave at 11:40pm. Eventually they figured out what was going wrong and radioed the correct times to the start/finish crew.
We didn't have that problem at aid station 13 as we were so remote, we didn't get mobile phone service. To keep my battery from running down, I just turned off my phone. When it came time to provide times for the runners, I just used my wrist watch. It may not have been as accurate as the time kept by my phone, but when you are measuring times in hours, a few seconds difference is no big deal.
For the record, the winning time was 17 hours 59 minutes and 30 seconds. His next closest competitor came in at 19:13:36. I'm fatigued from the event and I had the luxury of riding around in a Jeep. I can only imagine how tired they are.
My buddy and I arrived and met the helpers at the station before setting up our radio equipment. Once we turned on the radio, we started getting reports from station 12 which straddled the Utah/Nevada border. As is the fad these days, they were using their mobile phones to provide the times that the runners arrived and departed. Unfortunately the close proximity to the Mountain and Pacific timezones was wreaking havoc on their information. One runner would come in at 11:20 pm and then leave at 12:30am, but was only stopped for 10 minutes. Worse was when someone would come in at 12:30am and then leave at 11:40pm. Eventually they figured out what was going wrong and radioed the correct times to the start/finish crew.
We didn't have that problem at aid station 13 as we were so remote, we didn't get mobile phone service. To keep my battery from running down, I just turned off my phone. When it came time to provide times for the runners, I just used my wrist watch. It may not have been as accurate as the time kept by my phone, but when you are measuring times in hours, a few seconds difference is no big deal.
For the record, the winning time was 17 hours 59 minutes and 30 seconds. His next closest competitor came in at 19:13:36. I'm fatigued from the event and I had the luxury of riding around in a Jeep. I can only imagine how tired they are.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Time To Upgrade Linux
I found a new program to help me program my VHF ham radio and tried to install it on my Linux system at home this week. The flavor of Linux I like to run at home is Fedora and I was still on Fedora Core 10. The latest version right now is Fedora 18. That represents a significant difference. When I tried to install my ham radio software called Chirp, I needed to upgrade a bunch of different libraries. Instead of just upgrading the libraries, I decided to update the whole operating system.
Right now there are two major releases of Linux that most people consider: Fedora or Ubuntu. We are moving to Ubuntu at work and so I will be updating my computer there from CentOS, which is very similar to Fedora. As I will have computer running Ubuntu, I figured I would keep my home desktop on Fedora. That way I can compare both systems and find out for myself which flavor of Linux is really better.
Before deciding on the upgrade, I researched both Linux distributions thoroughly. You had the usual religious battles between both groups combined with a bunch of "impartial" comparisons claiming it is a tie between the two. We will see how much truth there is to that.
Unfortunately the Linux upgrade did not go as smoothly as I had planned. I made sure to back up all of my data and directories. Then I backed up my e-mail. When I tried to restore my e-mail, none of my messages appeared on the new system. Fortunately there is a way to import raw mail files into my e-mail program (Evolution) and so I just had to restore each e-mail folder one at a time. It was fairly painless once I figured out how to do it. Now it is just a matter of loading up all of the programs I normally use.
One nice thing about upgrading Linux versions is that I can now access my Windows partition, not that I have missed it. When I installed Fedora Core 10, I saved a part of my hard disk for Windows, but was never able to access it. Now it has started working again. So if I need it, it is available. I sure hope I don't need it though. I hate Windows.
Right now there are two major releases of Linux that most people consider: Fedora or Ubuntu. We are moving to Ubuntu at work and so I will be updating my computer there from CentOS, which is very similar to Fedora. As I will have computer running Ubuntu, I figured I would keep my home desktop on Fedora. That way I can compare both systems and find out for myself which flavor of Linux is really better.
Before deciding on the upgrade, I researched both Linux distributions thoroughly. You had the usual religious battles between both groups combined with a bunch of "impartial" comparisons claiming it is a tie between the two. We will see how much truth there is to that.
Unfortunately the Linux upgrade did not go as smoothly as I had planned. I made sure to back up all of my data and directories. Then I backed up my e-mail. When I tried to restore my e-mail, none of my messages appeared on the new system. Fortunately there is a way to import raw mail files into my e-mail program (Evolution) and so I just had to restore each e-mail folder one at a time. It was fairly painless once I figured out how to do it. Now it is just a matter of loading up all of the programs I normally use.
One nice thing about upgrading Linux versions is that I can now access my Windows partition, not that I have missed it. When I installed Fedora Core 10, I saved a part of my hard disk for Windows, but was never able to access it. Now it has started working again. So if I need it, it is available. I sure hope I don't need it though. I hate Windows.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Non-Technical Solutions
I seem to have developed some allergies after living in Utah for the last 20 or so years. I flew in from the Bay Area on Friday evening only to have a rough night sleeping. It didn't get any better on Saturday night after a busy day of skiing and taking care of chores around the house. I'm sure it wasn't a picnic for my wife as she said I snored like a chainsaw both nights. I know from experience that when I snore loudly, I will continually wake myself up in the middle of the night and not get the rest I need.
Last night I didn't resort to anything extraordinary to get a good night's rest. I could have taken any number of medications but didn't. Instead I just applied one of those Breathe Right strips to my nose and slept very soundly. My wife informed me I wasn't completely silent last night, but much better than the past two. It is amazing what a piece of tape stuck to a stiff wire can do to help get through allergy season. While the Breathe Right people would have you believe they provide a technical solution, it is much less complicated than those provided by the pharmaceutical companies.
Non-technical solutions are sometimes the best solutions. I once worked on a reporting system where we were required to provide daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly reports. The reports were fairly complex and required a significant amount of time to create. When it came time to write the yearly report, it was determined that an administrative assistant could take the monthly reports, add up the numbers, and assemble the yearly report more quickly than it would take to write it using the existing report writing tools.
Unfortunately non-technical solutions don't work all the time and should be used only when appropriate. Otherwise we wouldn't have created computers in the first place.
Last night I didn't resort to anything extraordinary to get a good night's rest. I could have taken any number of medications but didn't. Instead I just applied one of those Breathe Right strips to my nose and slept very soundly. My wife informed me I wasn't completely silent last night, but much better than the past two. It is amazing what a piece of tape stuck to a stiff wire can do to help get through allergy season. While the Breathe Right people would have you believe they provide a technical solution, it is much less complicated than those provided by the pharmaceutical companies.
Non-technical solutions are sometimes the best solutions. I once worked on a reporting system where we were required to provide daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly reports. The reports were fairly complex and required a significant amount of time to create. When it came time to write the yearly report, it was determined that an administrative assistant could take the monthly reports, add up the numbers, and assemble the yearly report more quickly than it would take to write it using the existing report writing tools.
Unfortunately non-technical solutions don't work all the time and should be used only when appropriate. Otherwise we wouldn't have created computers in the first place.
Friday, April 12, 2013
Office Move
Today was my last day in the office space I have occupied over the last 3 years. On Monday, I will go to my new office and unpack everything I have spent the last week packing in preparation for the company move. It has been a bit hectic over the past couple of days and I doubt the next week will be much better.
One difficult thing about the move is that I have a responsibility to monitor our production databases and systems. We also have a network operations center (NOC) that also monitors things 24x7 and so there is a nice backup when I am not around. I got into the office this morning and discovered a quick problem that needed fixing and was able to get it taken care of before the NOC was alerted. I finished packing the rest of my office but kept my computers running until the last minute. Everyone around me had their computers turned off and disassembled. It reminded me of those poor souls on the Ice Planet Hoth in the movie "The Empire Strikes Back" who had to stick around and carry out their duties while everyone else got an early jump on leaving the doomed planet.
Fortunately my company's move does not take us to the far reaches of the galaxy nor did I have to blast my way out of the old office in the Millennium Falcon. We will be moving less than a mile away from our current office. While my office will be smaller, our new campus had much better facilities. We are also a lot closer to a number of restaurants in addition to an in-house cafeteria that will be a welcome change for lunch. I have yet to see our new office space and so Monday is going to be a big surprise. I hope I am not disappointed.
One difficult thing about the move is that I have a responsibility to monitor our production databases and systems. We also have a network operations center (NOC) that also monitors things 24x7 and so there is a nice backup when I am not around. I got into the office this morning and discovered a quick problem that needed fixing and was able to get it taken care of before the NOC was alerted. I finished packing the rest of my office but kept my computers running until the last minute. Everyone around me had their computers turned off and disassembled. It reminded me of those poor souls on the Ice Planet Hoth in the movie "The Empire Strikes Back" who had to stick around and carry out their duties while everyone else got an early jump on leaving the doomed planet.
Fortunately my company's move does not take us to the far reaches of the galaxy nor did I have to blast my way out of the old office in the Millennium Falcon. We will be moving less than a mile away from our current office. While my office will be smaller, our new campus had much better facilities. We are also a lot closer to a number of restaurants in addition to an in-house cafeteria that will be a welcome change for lunch. I have yet to see our new office space and so Monday is going to be a big surprise. I hope I am not disappointed.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Game Developers Conference 2013
It has been a few years since I have been able to attend the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. That is a travesty considering I work for a video game company. I joined my current company just a few days after GDC and so I didn't attend that year. The next year, I was busy implementing a new system and couldn't break away for an afternoon to attend. Last year I was set to attend, but had to babysit a sick database machine that kept overheating (adding a 1-U space between a networking switch and one of the database servers solved that problem).
I decided that this year I would make every effort to attend GDC simply to see the state of the industry. Monday and Tuesday were filled with class sessions and I only had an Expo pass. Wednesday was busy with yet another product rollout. Thursday looked like it was going to be the day and so I planned accordingly. I went to the office and made sure there were no issues to fix. I waited for my team to show up and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so I headed to downtown San Francisco. Things were looking good as I headed to the show.
I enjoyed the show and it was good to see what other companies are doing. The most enlightening section was where gaming companies are looking to hire. Everyone is having trouble finding the right talent. There were a number of people looking for jobs but the majority of them seemed to be students and companies want people with experience. I continued through the rest of the conference but didn't see anything groundbreaking. Just as I finished with the last booth, I got a call from our network operations center and there was a problem I needed to address. I jumped on a BART train back to my office and then spent most of last night fixing some configuration issues related to our recent product rollout. I was able to get everything working correctly and am now at the airport ready to board my flight back to Salt Lake City. It was hectic but at least I was able to attend the show this year.
I decided that this year I would make every effort to attend GDC simply to see the state of the industry. Monday and Tuesday were filled with class sessions and I only had an Expo pass. Wednesday was busy with yet another product rollout. Thursday looked like it was going to be the day and so I planned accordingly. I went to the office and made sure there were no issues to fix. I waited for my team to show up and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so I headed to downtown San Francisco. Things were looking good as I headed to the show.
I enjoyed the show and it was good to see what other companies are doing. The most enlightening section was where gaming companies are looking to hire. Everyone is having trouble finding the right talent. There were a number of people looking for jobs but the majority of them seemed to be students and companies want people with experience. I continued through the rest of the conference but didn't see anything groundbreaking. Just as I finished with the last booth, I got a call from our network operations center and there was a problem I needed to address. I jumped on a BART train back to my office and then spent most of last night fixing some configuration issues related to our recent product rollout. I was able to get everything working correctly and am now at the airport ready to board my flight back to Salt Lake City. It was hectic but at least I was able to attend the show this year.
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