In the beginning there was SunOS...

I'm enjoying a renewal of enthusiasm for Solaris, and this posting marks the beginning of a blog tracking the things I'm working on and exploring. I've use Solaris professionally for more than ten years from both Systems Administration and Systems Engineering perspectives. Six of those years I spent working in various roles at Sun Microsystems; a journey I'm grateful for as I learned more in those years than I would have elsewhere.

For a significant portion of those six years I was increasingly frustrated by how much ground Linux made on Solaris' lead. Linux has its place, and I'm certainly not anti-Linux or anti-OSS. In fact, quite the opposite. I've been tinkering with Linux since 1992, and use it regularly at not-for-profit site I volunteer at. For many years it was primary workstation (Fedora / Red Hat) so I've spent years observing Linux in both a server and workstation role.

I'm no longer using the Linux workstation which served me the past few years. I've fallen in love with Mac OS-X and never looked back. I don't expect to write much about Mac OS because in itself it doesn't stand out. That's the whole point - after using my Mac I talk more about what I've done than how I did it. Interesting paradigm shift.

With the advent of Solaris 10 I firmly believe the Solaris has taken another evolutionary leap which seem to leverage the best of both Open and Closed source development models. I think this evolution is important as it shows what can be done when extremism is curbed for practicality. Solaris 10 found a sweet spot which I hope to write more about.

I'm now working as a consultant for a large UNIX shop in my area and working on some exciting technologies. My primary interest is in large scale UNIX infrastructure, so expect to see a lot of content focused on things like Directory Server, Consolidation, Automation, Resource Management, RBAC, and much more.

So there you have it... A brief introduction to me, and the intended content of this blog. I've been notoriously lousy at keeping blogs up to date, but not for lack of good intent.