Author Archive: Matthew Herring

With a little one on the way, I’ve been spending a good amount of my free time starting to search for a new home for my growing family. While the search continues, I’ve learned a thing or two about what to look for and what should be done before taking the plunge, and as I’ve gone through the process, I can’t help but notice lot of parallels to what it’s like to purchase a new server:

• It’s an Investment

  Just like purchasing a new home, deciding to purchase a server is a huge investment. As you start shopping around, the costs may seem staggering, and while most servers don’t cost as much as a small home, your new server will be your business’s new home online. When you consider the revenue your site will generate (and the potential cost of not being able to properly support demand), you won’t want to skimp on the details. The truth is that like any investment, you can reap great rewards with proper planning and execution.

• You Have to Know What You Need

  One of the best tips I’ve incorporated in my home-buying process is the need to differentiate what you want, what you need, and what you can live without. Unless you’re royalty, you’re likely living on a budget. As cool as it would be to live in a 10-bedroom mansion with an indoor Olympic size pool, there’s a lot there that I don’t need. That sort of home palace also falls way outside of my personal budget. The same could be said about a business.

  I’ve heard plenty of stories about companies who slash their IT budgets in order to cut costs, and even the greatest IT departments have to live within their budgets. As you’re determining what your next server will be, you need to understand the purpose (and needs) of your workload: Will it be database server? An application server? Will it be an additional web head? Are you using it for mass storage? You need to plan accordingly. I’m sure you’d want a new Xeon E5-2600 server with all of the bells and whistles, but if you don’t need that kind of performance, you’re likely just going to burn through your budget quicker than you have to. Know your budget, know your needs and purchase your server accordingly.

• You Should Get to Know the Neighborhood

  I don’t intend on purchasing a home in a high-crime area, nor do I plan on moving into a neighborhood with exorbitant HOA dues for services I don’t intend to use. Your new server is going to have a “neighborhood” as well when it comes to the network it’s connected to, so if you plan on outsourcing your IT infrastructure, you should do the same research.

  You want your critical environments in a safe place, and the easiest way to get them in the right “neighborhood” is to work with a well-established host who’s able to accommodate what you’re doing. A $20/mo shared hosting account is great for a personal blog site, but it probably wouldn’t be a good fit for a busy database server or front-end application servers for an application dependent on advertising for revenue. A mansion worth of furniture doesn’t fit very well in a studio apartment.

• You’re Responsible for Maintenance

  Ask any homeowner: Continuous improvements — as well as routine maintenance &mdashl are a requirement. Failure to take care of your property can result in fines and much more costly repairs down the road. Likewise with any server, you have to do your maintenance. Keep your software up to date, practice good security protocols, and continue to monitor for problems. If you don’t, you could find yourself at the mercy of malicious activity or worse — catastrophic failure. Which leads me to …

• You Need Insurance Against Disaster

  Homeowner’s insurance protects you from disaster, and it provides indemnity in the event someone is hurt on your property. Sometimes additional insurance may be required. Many professionals recommend flood insurance to protect from flood damage not covered under a typical homeowner’s insurance policy. Ask any systems administrator, and they’ll tell you all about server insurance: BACKUPS. ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR DATA!!! The wrong time to figure out that your backups weren’t properly maintained is when you need them, more specifically in the event of a hardware failure. It’s a fact of life: Hardware can fail. Murphy’s Law would suggest it will fail at the worst possible time. Maintain your backups!

I can’t claim that this is the guide to buying a server, but seeing the parallels with buying a new home might be a catalyst for you to look at the server-buying process in a different light. You should consider your infrastructure an asset before you simply consider it a cost.

-Matthew

What does it take to be a good leader? What kind of leader do you want to follow? Throughout my life, I’ve gravitated toward leadership positions. Even when I was young, I tended to take charge of a group to achieve a goal or accomplish a mission … though most of the “missions” in my younger days happened to be some sort of mischief. Having participated in the Boy Scouts and JROTC, I joined the Marine Corps where I served for seven years, and throughout my life, I’ve been fortunate to have more than my fair share of incredible mentors.

When my service in the Marine Corps concluded, I “enlisted” at SoftLayer as a data center technician. My primary responsibilities included building severs to order and installing software for our customers in four hours or less, and it was all pretty foreign to me. I had a lot to learn about the technical side of operating a data center, but based on my impression of the company, I was confident that I’d be in good hands.

Because I always find myself asking for more challenges and additional responsibility, I transitioned into a Customer Systems Administrator role. The CSA position required a lot more learning (at a breakneck pace), and in addition to the technical aspect of the job, I found myself learning just as much about the ‘soft skills’ required to provide the great customer service. Equipped with that knowledge (and a bit more experience), I pursued a leadership role on the team, and I made it my goal to use what I’d learned in the data center and in support to lead my team. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a challenge, but I’ve never backed down from one before.

I don’t mean to make this post all about me … my goal in sharing a little of my background is to give a little context for what I’ve learned about leadership. It goes without saying that I’ve been fortunate, both in the Marine Corps as well as with SoftLayer, to have some of the most intelligent, talented and sometimes downright enigmatic leaders. I’ve managed to pick up advice, tips and tricks for handling all of the curveballs that are thrown on a daily basis, and over my years as a leader, I’ve developed a few philosophies (an amalgam of some of the key points I absorbed from all of those who have led me in the past) that I try to abide by daily:

Lead by Example.

I make it a point to never ask someone to do something that I’ve never done or something that I’d never be willing to do. This is the keen avoidance of the “do as I say, not as I do” mentality. Failing to do this hands-down one of the easiest ways to lose your team.

Employ Your Team to Their Abilities. Empower Them to do Their Best Work.

It’s very important to know your team’s strengths and weaknesses and use those to make everyone better. Using the strengths of one team member, I can push another outside of his or her comfort zone to improve his or her overall skill set. I’ve also seen amazing results from providing freedom for my teams to make decisions. Not only does that freedom build trust, it also gives some real “ownership” to every person, and with that sense of ownership, each team member does better work. I’ve been a little surprised to notice this empowerment coming from the coffee juggernaut Starbucks: Starbucks baristas and store employees are encouraged to make real-time decisions in the interest of taking care of their customers.¹

Keep Learning.

Leading a team requires that you stay on top of what they’re doing. Always ask questions. Continue to research so you can be a resource for your team. Find opportunities to learn and take advantage of every one of them.

Most Importantly: Learn how to Have Fun.
I see this cliché often, so when you see, “Have Fun,” I wouldn’t be surprised if you just rolled your eyes. I’d be lying if I said that things were great all of the time … Realistically in any business, there’s going to be a time or two when the *&#@ is going to hit the fan. It’s important to find opportunities to cut loose and relax a bit. Cooking steaks for the group during a long overnight shift, grabbing a bite after work or a providing a happy hour once in a while builds a great deal of cohesion outside the office walls. Providing a relaxed environment does not prevent your team from doing stressful work … It actually builds camaraderie, and it will help the team get through those tough times. The brutal honesty is that if people aren’t enjoying where they’re at, they’ll look elsewhere – leaders have to help foster an environment that enables success.

At the end of the day, these tips may not work for everyone. There are a plethora of studies out there pertaining to the different leadership styles, the different types of leaders and how they influence teams. What’s important is that leaders need to be intentional about bettering their teams (and ultimately bettering their businesses).

Along the lines of continuous education, I’d love to hear the leadership philosophies you’ve learned in your experience as a leader. Leave a comment on this article to share what you think has made you successful.

-Matthew

¹This comes from both observation and talking to current and past employees. I’ve never worked for Starbucks, so I can’t cite a specific company policy to back this up, but that evident organic culture is probably worth more than a million company policies that would try to create that culture.

One of the small thrills in life is settling into a new house. While moving can be stressful, once you get settled into your place, there’s a certain feeling of pride associated with the new move. In the not-too-distant past our staff moved over to the new corporate headquarters in Dallas. Given, there’s the obvious unpacking and exploring every nook and cranny. Once you get settled in, though, set up all your stuff, and explore every corner of the new place, you can finally hang your name on the mailbox and call it your own.

It’s a far cry from our previous space (equate it to moving from a decent apartment, to a squeaky clean new house, full of nifty bells and whistles). We’ve got a brand new A/C system (that works almost too well in the opinion of some), a sonic-style ice machine, and room for three new datacenter pods. We’ve got coffee makers in almost every department (what’s a large scale data provider without caffeine). We’ve got a nifty display in the NOC that gives us an at-a-glance idea of what’s going on within our network. That’s just a few of the things. Ask anyone in our new “house” and they’ll tell you they like the new digs.

I’ve gotten fairly well settled in, and am starting to fall into my new daily routine at the new home. Admittedly I got lost the first few days, but now I can navigate with a fairly reliable degree of certainty. I can locate the coffee machines blindfolded as well. I’m also enjoying the privilege of working so closely with our other departments, now that we’re all housed in the same location. I’m certainly looking forward to seeing what the future has to offer in our new home.

-Matthew

One of the great things about working in the Hosting industry is knowing that lots of cool stuff is right at your fingertips. Our data centers host tens of thousands of servers, many with several sites, from the smallest mom and pop “about me” type site, to the large scale social networking sites. Another interesting facet of the job is curiosity. I find myself trying to figure out where some of my favorite sites are hosted.

When we get tickets from our customers oftentimes we’ll have to do extensive research to get to the bottom of an issue. As much as I’d like to claim to be a walking tech-dictionary, I’m a horrible liar. Google is a good friend to us, and points us to a wealth of resources. Around the internet there are plenty of white-papers, how-to’s, forums, and tech blogs. Where this gets interesting is when Google points us to a location hosted here at SoftLayer!

I look at this as an example of things going full circle. Customers helping us help customers. The beauty of the tech industry is there really are no trade secrets. The open-source community is great about assisting each other, and those who lean towards Microsoft have tons of tech forums, Technet and MS KB articles. Being able to host many of these types of sites is an honor to me, because we’re doing our part in assisting the IT Community as a whole.

-Matthew

In any environment where the need for quick transfer and access of information is required, an “IT guy” is a must. Most people have a bit of a preconceived notion as to what a tech should look like. Most think of large glasses, pocket protectors, and a social anxiety that is idiosyncratic to that particular group. Fans of Saturday Night Live will recall Nick Burns, the condescending technician who fixed the computers in his little corner of TV Land.

While popular culture seems to think that the standard IT Guy fits the above criteria, allow me to be the first to dispel that rumor. For living proof, I submit to you, the SoftLayer NOC.

The technicians here are more exceptions to this seemingly universally accepted rule of what an IT Technician should be. While we possess a large wealth of knowledge, our technicians are all but condescending. To those who don’t know, we’re here to teach you. Being a server administrator has it’s challenges, but our technicians can be your eyes and ears in the datacenter, and instead of replying with “was that so hard?!”, we’ll provide as much information and assistance as we can to get you back on your feet. Our technicians are not just the geeky typecasts that one would expect. Our techs come from all walks of life. Some are self taught, some were taught in a university, while others learned their skills in the Military. Our hobbies run the gamut, including the piloting of aircraft, gaming, sports, outdoor activities, and music – Heck, we even have some former rock stars in our ranks.

Just remember, don’t be afraid to ping your IT Guy for information. A lot of us like to share some of the ninja tricks, war stories, and other anecdotes about our times in battle with hardware, software, and everything in between. Not only do we like to share our technical knowledge, but our individual stories, interests, and fun facts as well. Remember: IT guys are people too!

Any place you spend hours upon hours every week, you tend to get to know people pretty well. During my time on my shift, I’ve gotten to know my fellow SLayers quite well. You learn their favorite foods (I’ll tell you right away what almost everyone on my shift orders from our favorite Chinese deliver place – almost like clockwork), their choices in music, their favorite computer games (yes, WoW tops this list, seemingly a standard in the IT Industry), and even how they react in certain situations. While the operations team is a tight knit group, we also have our extended families in SLales, InfoSys, Dev, and the other departments.

As many know, they recently opened up our new HQ. Yes, it’s as awesome as every has said it is. Lance made it a point to acquire a Sonic-style ice machine, our facilities are state of the art, and the building is just simply awe-inspiring. I suppose you could consider it our new home. As a new home, we’ve recently brought all of our departments together under one roof. Operations can grab a quick break with SLales, Dev can bounce some questions off of the CSAs or SBEs simply by walking a few feet, and even better, the friendly trash talking and joking just got easier (we’re a family, of course we’re going to mess with each other every chance we get!).

I’m sure employees everywhere are akin to this metaphor, but here it seems to ring true. We have our family quarrels, we know each other like the backs of our hands, and when things get heavy, we’re there to watch each others’ backs to ensure the mission is accomplished, and we continue to dominate the hosting industry.

I recently returned from vacation (go ahead and let out your jealous, exasperated sighs). During our vacation one of our stops was the ancient mayan temples at Chichen Itza. For those who ever get a chance, it’s a must see. The landscape is emerald green, the temples are awe inspiring, and the weather is beautiful. For those who aren’t quite sure about what I’m talking about, here’s a nice image to refer to:

Image from Wikipedia Commons:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chichen_Itza_3.jpg

While the temples are cool, even more amazing are the little details the Ancient Mayans put into this that really set it off. Things like the serpent visible only on the spring equinox, the echo when you clap (which sounds like a bird – no kidding!), amongst others.

What’s really interesting here is the story of human engineering, and to see how far it’s come since those ancient times, and even though Its mind-boggling to see how far we’ve come, it’s quite intriguing to see what they did with their own type of technology.

While they used to clap at the temple, we now send facebook or twitter posts. They passed their stories and music verbally over centuries, and we share MP3s and other media across the globe at the speed of light. While SoftLayer sits at the edge of technology with our state of the art datacenters, hardware, and networking topology, it’s pretty hard to compare to the tools used by, and the creations made by the people of this era. Luckily our tour guide re-assured us that we’ll be fine in 2012, despite what the movies say, so we’ll have plenty of time to see some more amazing advances in technology. Who knows that our future generations will say about our ‘rudimentary’ communications and technology some 2500 years from now.

Years ago, while I was in the Marines, I had a bit of a mentor who taught me quite a few things – not only about my duties as a communicator, but also interesting little factoids, and theorems of his. One of those I took to heart, and refer to quite often. He surmised that there were three types of ways to earn an income, a job, a career, and a profession. Allow me to clarify:

A job is simply something you do to bring in some cash. Whether you’re mowing lawns, flipping burgers, or fixing computers – it’s not necessarily your dream, but it pays the bills.

A career is something that you invest time into. It becomes a part of your identity. Over time your skills improve and you can continue to move up the ladder.

A profession is the next step up from a career. A professional is one who not only invests his time at work, but they take their personal time to learn their trade – not just the tricks of the trade, but the whole darn thing. Professional burger flippers become master chefs, professional lawn mowers become expert landscapers, and professional computer fixers become SoftLayer Technicians! Many of the technicians here host their own websites, utilize their own time and resources to learn more about their trade, or they tweak, hack, and play with computers as a hobby. Being a professional is an integral part of your identity. Professionals take pride in their trade, and often identify themselves by this trade (ie, “I’m an IT Professional”, or “I’m a Chef at a five star restaurant).

I would like to consider myself a professional. I spend countless hours of my free time in pursuit of a college degree and enjoy learning new things about various operating systems, and always like to help others who are less intuitive with computers out as well. While I’m by no means the “super-tech”, I certainly strive to do so, much like those who surround me every day here in the NOC.

One of the defining traits of a good organization is one that listens to its people, and acts on feedback, input, compliments, and concerns. Organizations that trod along thinking everything is ‘just fine’ are doomed for failure. Imagine how you would react if everything you tried to raise up, whether it be new innovations, specific concerns, or just small tweaks fell upon deaf ears. I’m assuming that at some point you’d just give up, sputter out, and lose your motivation to do your best.

One of the great things about SoftLayer is that many ideas come from the trenches. The support team, both SysAdmins and Hardware Engineers, work with our systems daily. We know the ins and outs, and use those to quickly resolve customer concerns, handle requests, and provide the best possible support to ensure that we provide the best customer experience. Knowing our portal so well also allows us to identify shortcomings (yes, even the amazing SoftLayer portal can be improved, believe it or not). When we see an issue, or a possible improvement, we are able to bring those up through our managers to our development team. By doing so, we streamline the process to allow us to perform our jobs more efficiently. It goes without saying that by improving our internal processes, we can reduce customer downtime, and enhance the speed in which we provide upgrades, allowing our customers’ businesses to be more successful.

I have to provide a specific tip of the hat to our development team. They’re consistently bombarded with requests from the NOC, and are working tirelessly to ensure that those requests are fulfilled to the best degree possible. It is not uncommon for a developer to work all day, and then handle specific requests after hours. I wouldn’t be surprised to know that some members of our development team (I’m looking at you, Kelly…) survive on only a few hours of sleep, only to come back in during the daytime to continue crunching code (something I personally have no desire to do), and enriching our administrative, and customer experiences.

When it comes to listening to the people in the trenches, no one is too high up on the totem pole. Our COO and CEO have been known to get plenty of face time in the NOC and the datacenters. It’s not uncommon to get a quick ping from one of the managers to let us know that one of our requests have been escalated to our developers for improvement. It’s nice to look at that little piece of the portal, and know that it’s there because you addressed it. It is my humble opinion that a company is owned not solely by the investors or others with a stake in it, but by those who come in daily to ensure the continuing success of the organization. It is my belief that is what makes SoftLayer so successful – because the staff speaks, and the company listens.

Working for a company like SoftLayer requires a lot of dedication. Our staff is on call 24/7, and is ready to react in any given circumstance. Our BlackBerry’s keep us in the know, and allow us to quickly communicate with each other via email, telephone, and SMS. It is this communication that allows us to rise above the competition.

One specific example of this occurred in the wee hours of the morning. As per usual, communication was established via email of a specific customer issue. Having updated the customer, and established the required email thread regarding the request, I proceeded with business as usual, being sure to keep this issue in the back of my mind to brief the inbound shift once they arrived. I was quite surprised as my phone rang shortly afterwards. It was one of the senior members of our management team. While I won’t name specifics, because it’s quite inconsequential, I was particularly impressed that at around 4:00 in the morning (on a Saturday, nonetheless), they were awake and reading their email. Occurrences such as this aren’t unusual. Our team, regardless of the level of responsibility is always ready to take ownership, or assist when necessary.

This says one thing very loudly, it doesn’t matter how high up in the food chain a member of the team is here. We all take customer concerns very seriously, and work diligently to ensure that customer requests are met in a timely fashion. This isn’t limited to the personnel in the NOC, or our management team. Our Sales team works endlessly to communicate with their customers. It’s not uncommon for a member of our sales team to sneak out while hanging out to answer a phone call or an email to ensure that our customers are taken care of. Our InfoSys and development team are frequently contacted in the middle of the night with issues that require their attention. They resolve those issues quickly, and allow us to continue on with keeping our customers up and running. Suffice to say, anyone who sports the three bars does so knowing that they’re the best in the industry. We all take pride in ownership of the issues, and making sure that they’re resolved quickly so that our customers can be successful.