Web Operations
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The document discusses the career of web operations and some of the challenges of the field. It outlines that web operations roles require expertise across many technical areas due to the multidisciplinary nature of the work. It emphasizes the importance of strong technical skills, experience making difficult decisions under pressure, and maintaining a calm demeanor in high-stress situations. Overall, the document promotes web operations as a critical career that will continue growing as services move increasingly online.
Web Operations
- 1. Web Operations: The Career Theo Schlossnagle
- 2. Book
- 3. Theo Schlossnagle CEO of OmniTI Organizer of S.U.R.G.E. The scalability and performance conference
- 4. Why does web operations have it tough? All forms of business are now being conducted on the internet Things move so fast and change significantly Roles are multidisciplinary experts There is no educational path
- 5. Strong background in computing Broad required understanding of architectural components Helps understand the ins and outs of computing systems Deep understanding Networks, routing, switching, firewalls, load balancing, high availability, disaster recovery, TCP, UDP, NOC management, hardware specifications, different flavors of unix, several web server technologies, caching technologies, storage infrastructure, cryptography, algorithms, trending, and capacity planning.
- 6. Practiced Decisiveness Being indecisive is a disadvantage Good judgment now There is a near-zero tolerance Delaying decisions causes prolonged outages
- 7. Calm Disposition Calm an controlled thought process is critical You need to make sure youre on the right side of the situation The goal is simply to make everything run all the time
- 8. From Apprentice to Master
- 9. Knowledge Limiting yourself to the web for information is limiting You have peers and the need you as much as you need them Book club Share information on user groups Its your job to retain as much information as possible The brain can sort, filter, and correlate all that trivia into a concise and accurate picture used to power decisions Log-term critical decisions of architecture design Momentary critical decision of fault remediation
- 10. Tools Tools One of the most incessantly and emphatically argued topics in computing Vi xEmacs Subversion x GIT Etc Is in our nature to build tools Knowing your tools, regardless of the tools that are used, is a prerequisite to mastering the trade Goes above and beyond mere competency Read the documentation for a tool during a crisis is not the best use You should strive to choose a tool based on its appropriateness for the problem at hand
- 11. Experience One of the most powerful weapons in any situation Making good judgment It is gained by making bad ones Experience and Knowledge are quite interrelated Knowledge can be considered the studying of experience of others Have the information but have not grasped the deeper meaning that is gained by directly experiencing the casuality Gaining it is easy (and as hard) as doing it The larger the mistake, the more profund the opportunity to extract deep and lasting value from the lesson Never allow the same bad judgement twice Not learning from ones mistakes is inexcusable
- 12. SeniorOperations People presumptionisthatknowledgedictateshierarchical position within a team The single biggestcharacteristic os a seniorengineer Isconsistentandsolidgoogjudgment Requiresexposuretosituationswherejudgmentisrequired Fasttrack 10 years Generation X and Y are culturesofimmediategratification Because I amsmart I gonnaplanmycareer path for 5 years The thruthisthatveryfewengineershavebeen in thefieldof web operations for 15 years Be patient Thisadageisparadoxical, as yourpatienceverywellmayrun out beforeyoucomprehend it
- 13. Discipline Laziness Doing things as correctly and efficiently as possible you end up doing as little work as possible to solve a particular problem Discipline is controlled behaviour resulting training, study and practice Lack of discipline is the most commom ingredient left out a web operations team Results in inconsistency and nonperformance
- 14. The career It isimportant for engineersparticipate in sculptingwhat a career in operations look like The web isheretostay Services are becomingincreasinglycritical Web operationscareerisinevitable
Editor's Notes
- #13: It ispossibletobeon a fasttrack bylanding na operations position in whichdisastersstrike at everypossiblemomentIt isalsopossibletospend 10 years in a position with no challengingdecisionsand, as a result, accumulate no valuableexperience