Primary Responsibilities
I work in the High Performance Computing Department (HPC) of Fermilab's Computing Division (CD). We support several highly integrated lattice clusters. Until the most recent CD reorganziation, this group was commonly known as LQCD Admin. The Fermilab QCD site is part of a larger collaboration known as USQCD. I have been working in this organization since Jan 2009. Can I interest you in a good description of our hardware.
In this new position, I expect to focus on three priorities. I will be working with data movement and storage within the HPC systems. I will also assist with resolving issues affecting production systems. And I will work with other longer term projects as they are assigned.
Data Movement and Storage
Just prior to taking this position, I was working with the Data Movement and Storage Department as part of the SSA-Group. There I became quite familure with our tape storage service called Enstore. Enstore software was the front end for huge robotic tape based data storage systems used by Fermilab's Computing Division. I also became familure with our dCache services, a disk caching front end for moving data into and back off of tape storage systems like Enstore.
As users of the HPC clusters encounter problems with our many data storage services, I help troubleshoot and resolve these issues. At times, I find myself as something of a customer of the SSA Group that I was recently a member of, working with them when HPC users report problems with the publicly available storage services. We also maintain our own instance of dCache pool nodes used exclusively by HPC users. And we have other storage solutions including a 33TeraByte Lustre Filesystem and numerous NFS shared RAID filesystems.
Outside Fermilab
Professional Organizations
USENIX & Sage
I am a member of
USENIX &
SAGE.
SAGE is a Systems Administration special interest group within
USENIX.
I really like their slogan "The People Who Make IT
Work."
These organizations sponser several conferences each
year.
I have attended several of the past LISA conferences. LISA stands for "Large Installation Systems Administration". These are incredibly valuable, not only for the training and information available, but also for the people you meet and get to know. The 2009 LISA conference will be held in Baltimore in November.
I have previously attended these LISA conferences:
- 2004 LISA Conference in Atlanta, GA. I facilitated this year's GPG Key Signing BoF. And I participated in the CAcert BoF where I assured 35 people and I was assured by 24 people new to the process.
- 2003 LISA Conference in San Diego, CA
- 1997 LISA Conference in San Diego, CA
- 1995 LISA Conference in Monterey, CA. I attended my first PGP key signing BoF at this conference.
UniForum Chicago
I have visited a few of the meetings of this Unix Systems special interest group. Their web page describes their group better than I can. I list them here because I have found some of their presentations valuable and worth my giving up an evening to attend.
On-line Security and Privacy
CAcert.org
CAcert.org is working to provide Free digital certificates, available to everyone. I encourage you to visit the FAQ on the CAcert Wiki to learn more about the assurance process. The "What can CAcert provide you?" web page describes the different types of certificates available and the requirements for each of them.
I am an assurer for CAcert.org. I am available and can grant up to 35 assurance points toward your own FREE personal digital authentication certificate that can be used to sign e-mails and such. If you would like to arrange to be assured, please visit my CAcert web page for information on setting up a meeting.
Development Projects
I believe in the value of OpenSource software. There are many such tools that I use every day. While I wish I could spend all my time contributing to projects which make such wonderful tools available, it is something I can only do when I can manage few spare cycles. Most of the projects I will list here are found on SourceForge.net. These are a few of the projects or packages which I use, recommend and/or support.
- Logwatch - This is a tool I use all the time. It reads the log files on the computers I manage and presents a formatted summury report which I recieve via email. I have downloaded the source and am working on some enhancements to the code to try allow for better control of what is reported or not reported from the log files.
- XEmacs - While I have not done any development work FOR XEmacs, I do almost all of my development work using XEmacs. It is so very much more than just an editor. All of my web pages are edited using XEmacs.
Hobbies
I have so many hobbies, that I put all that information on a seperate page.
Other Sites and Services
I have to thank my daughter for introducing me to Del.icio.us. Your welcome to see the bookmarks that I have listed there. It is extremely handy to be able to bookmark sites from whatever computer or browser I am using to wander the Web.
I am part of the "LinkedIn" network. Visit my profile on their system. I am putting together a presentation on how to use this on-line Networking tool. In these days with so many friends and aquaintances unemployed or under-employed, tools like this become quite valuable.
I use ClaimID.com to manage my on-line identity. I am working toward listing all of the web pages I have developed on my ClaimID profile. If you find a page that you believe to be mine, and it is not listed on the profile, either I overlooked that one, or it is not really mine. Either way, if you find such a page, please contact me so I can check it out myself.
