Greetings!

My name is Jeff, and I am a data center technician here at The Planet. I support the servers hosted in our Dallas data centers. It’s not always an easy job, but it’s definitely interesting. That’s why I thought you’d like to know a little more about me and the other technicians who are the eyes and hands at the console. Since we are providing frontline support, the better you understand our jobs, the better we can serve you.

In case you were curious, this is MY office:

I hail from Chicago, and prior to joining The Planet, I was enlisted in the U.S. Army as a combat engineer stationed in Baumholder, Germany. It’s a beautiful country with spectacular libations — or beer and brats to most of us. Germany was filled with historic sites, and my unit was stationed no more than 20 miles (or 32 kilometers) from three Medieval- to Renaissance-era castles. Despite not being much of a history buff, I was still amazed to be in the presence of structures that have remained standing through centuries of war and expansion. I was also able to see Rome, including the Colosseum and the Roman Forums, along with the Alps.

One other sight that really knocked my socks off (which didn’t have much to do with history or European culture) was a lovely young woman named Jacqueline. We got hitched in a small German courthouse and we’ve been going strong for four years. I’ve never regretted a moment, and I try my best to make sure she doesn’t either … every now and then, I get some looks that let me know when I need to step it up a notch or two in that department. We also have a little one named Tabitha. As you can see, she’s a big fan of snow:

When my wife’s enlistment was up, we moved to Dallas and stayed with the in-laws. Things were a little dicey at first, but we hunkered down, and with the use of some military training, we made it through. At least one of us needed to become gainfully employed, and I was the lucky one. I got a call from Dallas DC managers Josh Daley and Doug Day about an opportunity to work “in the field” for The Planet. We spoke a while on the phone, and what I said must have impressed them enough, because I was invited to an interview a week later at the D2/D6 facility.

It wasn’t easy to sell myself during that little chat. While I was proud of my service, it’s hard to translate combat engineering and marching in cadence to the IT field. I’ve always had an interest in networking and server operating systems, though. I think it had a lot to do with the 1995 movie Hackers – and Angelina Jolie’s appearance in the film didn’t hurt.

I started out learning more about computer security, but my interests drifted once I began to learn more about the open-source community and this thing I’d never heard of: Linux. My first distribution was Red Hat Core 4, and I can admit that I spent at least 17 hours staring dumbfoundingly at my monitor before I was actually able to get it to work. I was only 12 years old back then, but something tells me that being older and having additional life experience wouldn’t have been much help in getting that OS to boot any sooner. Babies don’t sleep as well as I did that night, or that morning rather.

After serving in the Army, I finished college with a degree in Information Technologies. While in school, I was able to knock out a few certifications: CCNA, Network+ and Security+. Looking back, maybe it wasn’t such a hard sell for me to prove myself to The Planet. I was still plenty nervous, though.

Nervous, but excited.

Just walking into the Dallas facility made me know I wanted to be here. It may not have been impressive in the way the Alps were impressive, but I was still struck by it. My interview was conducted in a windowed room overlooking the D2 data center floor. It was the first time I had seen hundreds of racks containing live servers. Looking over the data center, I realized that this was it. This was the Internet. Rooms like these filled with thousands of computers, serving up whatever content was required of them.

Too often, people think of things in terms of how they view and use them. Sounds harmless enough doesn’t it? Why wouldn’t you equate something with its interface? When a lot of people think of the Internet, they think of their web browser. More often than I’d like to admit, friends and family have come to me saying that “the Internet is broken,” when Firefox or Internet Explorer won’t load a page. But as I’m sure the people reading this know, the Internet is a far broader thing than can be contained in a web browser.

I took a moment to wonder if any of the websites I frequent were served from here, and whether I might glance at the hardware that hosted the pages I use to find the weather, traffic information, or news about what my old Army unit is up to in Afghanistan.

It may not be as scenic as the Alps, but it’s something to appreciate to say the least.

Needless to say, I was lucky enough to snag a job on the floor in the D6 facility after the interview process wrapped up. My basic job description calls for installing and troubleshooting server hardware, operating systems and data center components. I’m pretty well versed in Linux-based/POSIX-compliant operating systems, as well as Windows Server 2003 and 2008. Should your server ever become unreachable, just give me a call, and I’ll get it back online for you.

I wanted to post on The Planet Blog to let you get a glimpse of how things happen on the floor, how frontline issues happen, and how we resolve them. I want you to be confident that my fellow techs and I have you covered. Look for more to come — this is just a little intro so you’ll know who I am the next time you see me.

If you need me, come find me at the helm of my KVM on wheels. Forget desks and cubicles, the data center is MY office.

-Jeff