On Monday, August 11, 2014, Matt Simmons <[email protected]> wrote: > > Here's the point that I'm trying to make. LOPSA isn't comprised entirely > (or even mostly) of dinosaurs. Granted, those people out there who ARE > administering heavy iron may be more likely to be LOPSA members, but that > doesn't imply that the organization is FOR people like that, any more than > it's FOR the people who chew up node.js and spit out coffeescript. It's not > FOR people who run a specific technology, or for people who don't. It's > about getting people together who solve interesting problems, so that they > can share experience and learn from each other. >
( trimmed to just the point I want to respond to) I think Matt makes a great point here. While the members of LOPSA tend to be focused on specific technologies, LOPSA as an organization is technology agnostic. I wouldn't call anyone a dinosaur, after all the dinosaurs are extinct while legacy systems definitely are not. I'd say it's more like classic cars to me. Do we have members who are responsible for maintaining infrastructure that is old enough to qualify for vintage license plates? I'm sure we do, and we have room for those members. I'm certain they have reasons to be maintaining that infrastructure, and yet can learn from others and teach important lessons as well. And we should admire the way they maintain those systems, because without them many things would fail. (Power grids, distribution chains, etc). When I see a vintage car driving down the road I tend to think "Nice car, wish I could maintain a car that well", not "what's that dinosaur doing on the road". (I so want to run with the cars metaphor, but I'll try to stay on topic....) Do we also have members who don't maintain any physical infrastructure at all, running all workloads on servers that someone else maintains? I'm sure we do, and we have room for those members. They can learn things from those who manage physical infrastructure, and teach things to them as well. Do we have members who work in Microsoft dominated environments? I'm sure we do, and we have room for those members. Some members may instinctively turn their nose at the mention of Active Directory or Exchange, but others will be just as likely to slam them for looking down on someone else's technology and implying inferiority. The problems and the solutions we are trying to solve are often the same, only the details are different. Do we have members who primarily provide end user support, AKA help desk support? I'm sure we do, and we have room for those members. Many of us started in that role and will be happy to mentor the next generation. Do we have members who primarily run networks, not servers? I know we do, because I am one. But I've said for years that network engineering is just a specialized subfield of systems administration, where the systems are custom hardware running software from a company called Cisco or Juniper, etc. (much the way we used to buy big iron servers). Now the latest trend is for switches to become commodity hardware, where you buy the switch and the OS separately, or maybe just run an open source switch OS. That sure sounds familiar, commodity servers is the norm today. I think network engineers can learn a lot from the unix admins who've been through this progression before. LOPSA can be a place for that to happen. Do we have members who have moved back and forth between fields, from servers to storage, from networking to cloud orchestration, from big iron servers to servers provisioned via an API in milliseconds? I'm sure we do, and I'm about to do it myself! Without LOPSA I likely wouldn't be leaving network engineering behind to return to a more classic systems engineering role. LOPSA exists to build a community where technology specialists from all fields can meet and share information, all of us getting better along the way. Are there other places where that can and does happen? Absolutely! Can LOPSA do a better job of attracting that community? Absolutely! Most other communities tend to be very focused on specific technology. What makes LOPSA unique is the variety of members and our fields. Being inclusive not exclusive is what makes us stronger. LOPSA provides value in ways that are hard to quantify, but worth providing. -David -- Sent from Gmail Mobile
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