Musings from an Aspiring #ExtraCreditKid
This morning, I have so much for which to be grateful. I’m home after attending my third NetApp A-Team ETL. I also submitted my fifth and final blog post for SolarWinds Orange Matter and Geek Speak. The latter feels like an epic accomplishment given my life’s topsy turvy state for the past two months. Yay! On two…
Over six months ago, I began studying for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification. Along the way, priorities shifted, and any studying got sidelined. In a quest to motivate myself, I scheduled the test for April, then re-scheduled it for May, and then June. Each time, I delayed the exam because I didn’t want to…
Who doesn’t love an inspirational quote?! The idea of tying one of my favorite quotes into a tech post kinda excites me. So, here goes. This quote pops into my head on the regular. Mostly, it’s when a project’s to-do list is way too long, and I feel overwhelmed. I think of this quote and…
I’m going back to Cali. Cali. Cali. Ah, yes. West Coast bound, I will be in a little over a week for the kick-off of Storage Field Day 18 (SFD18). If you’re an aspiring #extracreditkid like me, getting an invite to be a Tech Field Day delegate is the pinnacle of awesomeness. Of course, you…
At this year’s Women in Tech (WIT) panel at NetApp Insight, CEO George Kurian cautioned the audience not to focus solely on STEM as the only way to bring more women to tech. This point hit home for me. I didn’t come to tech through STEM. I grew up poor. Both of my parents dropped…
If you’ve ever attended a Tech Field Day or watched any of the presentations online, you know that a lot of really cool tech gets covered. Unfortunately, depending on your job, you may see solutions that you can’t take straight back to your 9-5 job and implement. Let’s fast track to Storage Field Day 16…
I was super excited when ONTAP 9.3 came out with multi-factor authentication support. I tweeted about it and even went on a Tech ONTAP recap podcast for NetApp Insight 2017 and talked about it. Usually, there is a trade-off with convenience when it comes to security. Security is typically inconvenient. Multi-factor authentication is the exception…
In the world of ops, it’s natural not to want to patch/update a finicky application. What sys admin wants to break sh*t?! Interestingly, Equifax’s former CEO blamed the entire data breach on the sys admin that didn’t patch Apache Struts. Fortunately, working in the Department of Defense, we have systems in place that alert us to…
I’m fortunate to work in an environment where we’ve been able to pay down some technical debt and stabilize our IT environment. With the hard work of an excellent team, a supportive manager, and some personnel stability, we’ve made significant progress. Working late nights, weekends, and the occasional holiday is now the exception. It…
In the past year, I’ve made a concerted effort to go outside of my comfort zone. When the opportunity to attend both Commvault Go Tech Field Day Exclusive and Storage Field Day in the same week came up, I leapt for it. This event will be both my first Storage Field Day and also my first…