CherryPopper

I get this question a lot from all sorts of people but since a lot of you from MonsterLAN are into IT and looking at IT for a career I thought I would just post here and answer the question once and for all.

First up no I don't support windows at work or even any Micro$uck product as they are the worst products to support (I have done this in the past). If this is the path your looking to take then I suggest you kill yourself now as you will end up going postal in the office then beating yourself to death with the printer that your M$ print server just wouldn't print to when it was working fine for the past 6 months without an issue.

My title says I'm a systems engineer (note: systems engineer is unix/linux support role, a system engineer is a windoze support role as most windoze guys can only look after 1 server at a time and most fail at that). I'm basically a Sun Unix support engineer so that means I look after everything from the hardware up to the OS. I also work with application support people to help them get the most out of their applications (eg: oracle databases, SAP, java and many many more). I also work with the networking people and often explain to them that they are dumb asses and should actually learn how to do their job not just cram to get their ccna certification before trying to tell me my unix server is blocking connections.

I work with Solaris on Sun Microsystem servers. Unix (Sun Solaris is just a different flavour/distro of Unix) came long before Linux (Linux was based on the same design as Unix) and is mainly used in the big end of town (telco's, banks, government, etc). They use Unix for a number of reasons but mainly because its is robust & secure (unlike windows) and the specialty hardware leaves the normal intel boxes for dust. I've seen quite a number of servers with uptimes of 2+ years without a reboot. They also use Unix because windows just can't handle big tasks. I work on any Sun hardware from the big ass servers to the little workstations. Some of the servers I work on can have 72 CPU's 500GB RAM and racks of hd's attached for petabyte's of storage. I've also recently been working with Sun Solaris running on normal x86 pc's (mainly AMD hardware since its 64bit) but it misses a lot of the good stuff the true Sun Sparc hardware has (Sparc is the type of CPU most Sun servers use, its risk based).

Now I'm sure all you noobs out there are jizzing in their pants over the number of CPU's & RAM and wondering how many fps CS:S would run at on a system like that. Well guess what the server fully decked out with all the CPU's and RAM it can handle costs just over a million and it doesn't even have even 1 AGP or PCI-E slot for a video card. Yep these beasts only display text via a serial port or network (ssh, telnet). They need 2 x 3 phase power connectors to turn on, sound like a jet engine when powering up and are excellent heaters. But they can process more calculations, render more animated video, search databases quicker and yes even host your favourite CS:S server farm faster than even 100 of your desktops could linked together (unless you build your own custom apps & os like google did).

So what do I do all day??? I keep these beasts running. They need to be setup, patched and fixed every now and then. I setup new ones, replace failed disks, cpu's, ram (oh which can all be done while the system is still running), replace old servers, upgrade them, setup & maintain backups (I hate backups) and so on. I also get to help out with planning & spec'ing out what hardware/software clients should run, get to play in the telephone exchanges in the city which are pretty interesting the first few times you go in them and get to travel around Australia from time to time. Not to mention I get invites to all of Sun's little events since we are the number one reseller of Sun gear in Australia and they want to keep me happy & keep me recommending Sun gear to clients.

As well as the main Sun hardware I look after I also look after what is called an IVR (which is based on Sun hardware as well as a few other parts for the telephony bits, Interactive Voice Response.). An IVR are the systems that when you call someone like Telstra it prompts you to either say what your calling for to the "computer" and it will do voice recognition to work out what you said then pass you on to the correct person or the systems that ask you to push 1 for accounts, 2 for sales etc. They also do a lot more but i don't want my first post to be about explaining an IVR. From time to time I also help out with testing the voice recognition as well. Yes I do sit there and tell it to blow me as believe it or not that is part of the testing. And last time I tested asking Telstra for sex it put me through to the Broadband Internet division which I guess is the best bet for at least finding sex

Bad things about the job... well there aren't many but the main one is more general to IT and a bunch of other support type jobs. Shit breaks and you have to fix it. So if it breaks at 5pm just before your about to leave you can't go home till you have fixed it or your to tired to continue & you call in another engineer to take over. But we all try not to do that to one another too much.

All in all it's a fun job as I don't do the same thing day to day, I don't sit at my desk all day and I have quite a bit of freedom. I have some "play servers" at work where we can toy around with new software & try things out. We get access to loads of training material if we want to do certifications. Best of all they actually pay me well to play with these big expensive toys... umm I mean servers.