Who would win in a fight to the death between a Grizzly Bear versus a Great White Shark.

Yes, we here in SLales, particularly Daniel and myself, have these types of serious debates quite often. Now before you get all riled up about how this would never happen and there’s no way these two would ever even meet, etc, etc, hear me out folks. Daniel said it best during one of our many debates about this important issue:

“I win the lotto and I’m putting this show on Pay-Per-View…. greatest show on earth.”

IIIIIIIIIIIn the red corner weighing in at 5,000lbs, laying 20 feet long – SHARKY! AAAAAAAnd in the blue corner weighing in at 1,500lbs and standing 8 feet tall – GRIZZLY!

The setting would be similar to the UFC Octagon, only twice the size, instead of a cage it will be a solid metal octagon and filled with 4 feet of water so the Shark can maneuver and so can the Bear. Both animals are fully grown adults - the Shark is a female, the Bear is a male - predatory in nature and very aggressive.

My contention would be that the Great White wins this battle to the death for a few reasons:

1. The Great White Shark has been dubbed “an efficient killing machine” on several occasions by many scientists and experts.
2. This ain’t no Salmon Grizzly; this is 20ft and 5,000lbs of fury coming for YOU Bear!
3. Sharky is HUGE, more than double the size of Grizzly.
4. Sharky has rows and rows of teeth that are easily replaceable in a fight to the death, Grizzly has one set and that’s it.
5. Great White Sharks are notorious for their thick skin; the bear doesn’t stand a chance with his teeth and claws.
6. Yes, Grizzly will be more maneuverable, however one bite from Sharky and he’s done.
7. There is a certain 80’s rock band named after Sharky, none for Grizzly.

What’s you guys’ take on the outcome here, do you think Sharky or Grizzly would win?

Daniel, I await your side of the argument sir!

***The views and expressions of these events are completely fictional and meant for entertainment purposes only. ***

When I was 14 I got my first tech job as a tech support guy for a local “mom and pop” internet service provider, from there on out I have been in many data centers in the North West working with multiple companies of all caliber. From National Dial-up Internet Service Providers to small webhosting companies that have had their stuff collocated in many of the area’s datacenters.

When I was about 20 I decided I was burnt out on the internet and wanted to try Central Office build outs for a national telecommunications company installing their fiber and DSL network in Washington and Oregon. The one thing that I learned in the Telco industry is to do nice and neat work. Work that you could trace a single cable in a bundle and follow it from point A to point B.
After a few years of doing the same thing over and over, I figured it was time for me to get back into the Internet as it was way more challenging for my ever-thinking mind.

So I took my nice and neat skills and worked on a contract for Microsoft building out a data center in a top secret location in the Puget Sound. This was by far one of the nicest and cleanest datacenters I had ever seen. After that I went to work for some other area datacenters doing systems administration work. I helped them do a migration of two datacenters into one. I helped build out a datacenter, and I helped by trying to make the datacenter as nice as Microsoft’s along with as neat as the Telephone companies COs.

During this time I really noticed SoftLayer Technologies was Ahead of the Rest when it came to the internet utility hosting Industry. I quickly wanted to learn everything about this company, and being the nerd that I am, figured I should buy a server from this company. I Bought one and went to lunch thinking I might have a call or e-mail saying that my server will be done here within the day. Wow! 45 minutes later? “These guys are on top of it”, I thought.
Then one day I was browsing Webhostingtalk.com (this is my equivalent to your teenager’s myspace.com addiction) and noticed that SoftLayer just released a P.R. about signing a deal with InterNAP for a 10,000 server datacenter in Tukwila so I figured this company’s features are so freaking amazing and cool. “I just need to try to get a job at this location with this really cool company”, I said to myself. I sent off a Resume and a little info about myself. I did not hear back from them for a while. I figured my quick-witted humor may have rubbed the HR department the wrong way, or maybe I wasn’t qualified, or too qualified.

SoftLayer finally called me back. I was as happy as a 10 year old getting a dirt bike for his birthday — they wanted an interview.
So I go in and tour the facility and do my interview with the interviewing committee, I have to say it was one of the most intense interviews I have ever had with the technical questions that was asked along with just a hard interview process, though I left that day knowing I would be getting a call from SoftLayer as I felt I sold myself to them on my skillset.

I have to say it is really relaxing and challenging working for a world-class company in a world-class datacenter. There is a great deal of stress that comes with our job in this industry, and when the datacenter and management have everything in order from the get go and it hasn’t been patched together it makes your job as a Systems Administrator a little less stressful. I do my daily walks of the datacenter in Seattle looking at thousands and thousands of racked servers that are set to standards which is weird when I’ve worked for places that use motorcycle tie-downs and zip ties to secure your rack to make them ‘Earthquake’ ready.

I now sleep at night knowing if there is an earthquake we will be prepared and your data and machines will be safe in SoftLayer’s Seattle N+1 datacenter. We have a wonderful team of build engineers and systems administrators that work around the clock to keep your virtual datacenter up and running. I wouldn’t want to be at any other place for 40+ hours a week!

3 bars for life!

When I was growing up, computers were these wonderful things that sat at the back of the classroom (usually one, or maybe two if the class was lucky). If the school was lucky, there was a “computer lab” where you could have access to the latest and greatest in government approved hardware.

My favorite of the time was the Apple IIe. Our school district had so many of them, they handed ‘em out to classrooms (The school district now uses them as very effective door stops). In fact, I got my start with computers by tinkering with a IIe. My first computer experience was hooking up a printer to a IIe, and the wonder of this experience (plug something in, type a command, and print came out!) completely captured me (I was in first grade), and from that moment on I was completely wrapped up in the wonder of computers.

Anyway, I graduated to PC compatibles and DOS. Trying to get a grasp on this computer thing, I got a copy of DOS for Dummies. Near the beginning of the book, they had a paragraph that had some important words of wisdom. While I don’t have the book any more, the message is still with me: “This book will teach you the basics of the computer, what you can do, what you can’t do, and what you really shouldn’t ever do. However, for anything you don’t know, contact your local computer guru.”

Computer Guru? What is this “Computer Guru”?

According to Wikipedia, Guru means “Teacher, in a religious or spiritual sense.” And as luck would have it, I was able to get into contact with Computer Gurus throughout my life. These were the computer equivalents of the small town mechanic: you pull up for some gas and Harvey the mechanic walks around the corner. “Howdy! I heard you pull up. You’ve got a bit of a timing issue, and I think one of your spark plugs are bad. I can change ‘em out in a few minutes, if you like.” It’s almost like Harvey has a supernatural connection to vehicles. He can hear issues, he can smell problems… he’s one with the Motor Vehicle Force.

The same with the Computer Gurus I knew. You walked in and turned on your machine, they’d make a “Hmm” sound (in computer science, “Hmm” is similar to the Indian sacred syllable “Aum” or “Om”. It’s ritually chanted by a computer guru whilst contemplating your computer’s connection to the Universe), type some sacred symbols into the prompt, then tell you the problem and offer to fix it. Most times they would happily fix your computer in exchange for a pizza; sometimes just getting a cup of coffee from the ever present drip dispenser could net you a small fix. And if you were truly interested in computers, you could even ask to become a follower of the Guru. You’d spend your spare time in his or her office, ask meaningful questions about the nature of the Universe, contemplate ancient tomes and user manuals, and take care of the mundane tasks of life (like formatting floppies or installing software) so the Guru could spend their time connecting with his or her latest project (generally spent looking at an arcane flowchart or design document and saying “Hmm” a lot). You knew, one day, with practice and patience, you too could become a Guru, have followers to format your floppies, and say Hmm.

However, the computer industry started changing. User interfaces became simpler, USB made the promise of true plug-and-play a near reality… the command line all but disappeared. Computers stopped being a specialized device and became a commodity. Computers were EVERYWHERE. And there was this belief that computers will become so “user friendly” that there was no need for the long learning process of the Guru.

And for the most part, this has happened. Programs are very user friendly now. There’s tons of documentation, and most don’t expect you to have a PhD in Computer Science to understand them. Workflows have become “point and click link” instead of “chant this esoteric string into the command prompt”.

However, sometimes I really miss my Guru. For example, just this last week, my roommate’s computer (which I built) started randomly crashing. There wasn’t a specific program that crashed, and it didn’t crash at a set time. I knew something was wrong, so I tried to diagnose. ‘Course, Vista being user friendly, the computer would automatically reboot, without showing the Bluescreen, except for the subliminal hint of blue to let you know that the computer had crashed. See, blue screens have “Technical Information” (it says so right on the screen!)… and user friendly computers (1) don’t crash, and (2) are NOT technical. So I was stuck with a computer that wouldn’t run, and a bored Roommate who just realized he has a $1200 paperweight.

As Dr. McCoy would say, “I’m a programmer, not a hardware doctor!” Hardware issues are right outside my realm of experience. I longed for my Guru. I knew how to diagnose; I pulled hardware, changed orders of cards, swapped the memory sticks back and forth… all the standard religious rituals for modern computers. I knew that if I could but approach a Guru, tell him or her my issue, they could give me leads to check. I didn’t have the money to buy all new parts at random; I had to work with what I had. I knew I had all the data for a real diagnosis… I simply wasn’t able to pick out the error. Working the next day at SoftLayer, I mused about my lack of Guru leadership. At the end of the day, I turned to a coworker and said “Now I get to tinker for a few more hours on this stupid computer. I wish I knew a Computer Guru!”

My coworker smiled and asked what the problem was. I told him and he looked at the ceiling. “Hmm” he said. “Could be a power supply issue. Maybe the power coming out of the supply isn’t clean and it’s resetting the motherboard.” Just then, another coworker walked around the corner.

“What about a power supply?” he asked. The first coworker told him the issue. “Hmm,” he said, looking intently at the wall. “I bet it’s a RAM issue. I bet your ram is bad. Swap it out with some good RAM and see what happens.”

So I went home and crosswired some power supplies. Rebooting the machine, I finally got a bluescreen that crashed itself, locking up the computer and letting me read it. “PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA” “Page Fault?” I thought. “Hmm.” My roommate walked in. “What are you doing, meditating? Have you fixed it yet?”

We went to Fry’s and bought some new RAM sticks. Going home, I popped ‘em in and started the machine. And it worked! It’s been running 6 days nonstop. My roommate was really happy. I was finally able to look up the bluescreen message up on the Internet. Sure enough, that specific error almost always pops up when there’s bad ram.

So, where have all the Gurus gone? Where else? They all work at SoftLayer! Whenever I’ve had a software or hardware issue, or an operating system issue, I’ve found somebody here who knows the issue. They look at the wall, say “Hmm”, sip their coffee or Monster (depending on their level of enlightenment), and give me the answer. The guys here are at one with the Network. The DC guys almost seem to be able to FEEL a power issue or a drive problem before it happens. Slales is able to think about your problems and provide a tailor made solution to help. And Development is where all the action takes place; we get to write all the behind the scenes magic.

“You must be some kind of Computer Genius!” shouts my roommate (lucky for me, he’s gotten to play some Call of Duty 4, so he’s already forgotten the previous week of frustration). “No, not yet.” I respond. “I’m working on it, but I’m not a Guru yet.”

Somebody…Anybody…I need a Whataburger!!

If you haven’t been to a Whataburger, I’m sorry. It’s an amazing fast food chain that sells not only the freshest made-to-order burgers, but they’re also open 24-hours a day, and their breakfast is second to none (Chris Menard has a clinical addiction to their taquitos). The problem with this is that they only exist in the South. I’m in the North. In Seattle, Washington to be precise—accompanied by our go-live team to manage our newest datacenter and make sure the launch goes smoothly.

On the bright side (no pun intended, it hasn’t stopped raining since we landed), it has. We have assembled an amazing team, the datacenter is absolutely spectacular, and the locals have been very friendly. Efficiencies we have built into our normal daily operations over the last two years have basically allowed us to “drag and drop” our datacenters as needed, where they are needed without having to reinvent the wheel every time we launch. Since the deployment is simple, we can focus on service upgrades—like the latest 40-Gigabit rack-level connections—while we roll out a new facility. Connectivity you could use…say…to look for a Whataburger near you http://www.whataburger.com/one_near_you.php (I look every day). We’ve already flown through our first historic Seattle Truck Day, and had a second one to boot. We’re provisioning droves of machines for new and current customers who are taking advantage of our network architecture, tools, and StorageLayer to create their own custom solutions. In a nutshell, we have brought a new DC online and maintained the ability to provide our customers with the same cutting edge hardware and innovative utilities that they have come to expect in Dallas.

On the darker side, with everything is going so well, it leaves a lot of time to sit and think about a tasty Whataburger. With jalapenos. And bacon. Ugh.

‘Twas the night before Seattle and all through the office
people were stirring, even the bosses.
The Dev guys were grinding on code one last time
in hopes all the errors for sure they would find.

The servers were powered and cabled and racked
and it took us a while to get them unpacked.
And Mike with his checkbook and Gary his stash
both paid our vendors a whole lot of cash.

When out in the parking lot the bass was a thumpin’
I sprang from my chair cuz I knew he was coming.
Over to the window I flew like a flash
pulled down the blinds and made a loud crash.

The lights on his truck gave off a strange orange glow
and I could see some weirdness just down below.
When what to my tired overworked eyes did appear
it was a great big guy and a whole lot of beer.

With his size and his stature, so calm with a grin
I knew in a moment it really must be him.
Faster and faster he came up the walk
he was hootin and hollerin and popin a top.

“Now, Miller! Now, Bud! Now, Coors! and Coors light!
On Corona! on Busch! On Lonestar! and Red Stripe!
To the top of the stairs! To the top of the world!
Drink away! Splash away! Slosh away all!”

Like molasses before a new fallen snow
he made his move to the door, be it very slow
Up in the elevator to the top he flew
with all of the beer and some pretzels too.

And then in a flash I heard in the hall
a pop and a fizz, did he drop them all?
As I ran down the way in hopes for a beer
I stopped in the hall for I knew he was near.

He was dressed in a pimp hat and humming tune
and his clothes were all black with 3 bars on his plume.
A few cases of beer he was trying to hold
and he kept grumbling something about it being cold.

His eyes how they stared; his eye brows so slanted
the beer must be heavy; cuz as he walked he panted.
I knew right at that moment; and just had to pause
I knew at that moment I had seen Lancey Clause.

He handed out beer with a groan and a scowl
he dropped one on his toe and screamed OOUU!
He spoke not a word but kept to his work
he filled fridges and coolers; with nary a burp.

After leaving a trail of beer all around
he went back to the elevator and headed down.
A clank and a thud as he dropped his keys
He went through the door and banged one of his knees.

I heard the door slam on his truck down below
and the tunes of the 80’s started to flow.
But I heard him yell as he drove out of sight
"sell a Seattle Server, Sell them all tonight!"

As I watched the Dallas Cowboys dismantle the Green Bay Packers last Thursday night, I noticed an ever so slight – almost invisible – passing of the torch from Brett Favre to Tony Romo. It became quite clear – Football is a young man’s game.

As I sat and pondered what that must feel like for Brett and his crew, I noticed frightening similarities between hosting and football. Hosting appears to be a young man’s sport as well.

Now, before you guys (there I go again) pile on and beat me down – hear me out. I am not saying that Brett and his older brethren are washed up and incapable of playing football – but I am saying, their primetime has passed and any future success should be considered borrowed time on a great career coming to conclusion. Facts are facts – professional football is a very physical and mental job and the youth + skill appears to outweigh age + experience.

This leads me back to hosting. A world full of very young and extremely talented players. An industry where degrees and certifications come in a distant second behind skill and innovative thinking. I often find my thirty-something (barely) resume on-the-line with both new and old competitors. I can assure you, the young competitors terrify me, and the older ones typically bore me.

The recent interviews for potential new hires here at SL are eye-opening. Young Guns coming out of high school with Cisco Certs, college students working on cutting edge technologies and of course – the prodigy that shows up from time to time who was born to design and innovate beyond all our wildest dreams.

I often tell Mike, our CFO, that technology is changing the rules of business and how things will be done going forward. In Mike’s accounting world, graduates come out of college with lots of book knowledge and very little experience and gain experience over their career. In the technology world, I would argue the younger talent holds more technical knowledge (book or real world) than the older more established crowd What I bring to the table is business and technical experience; but I find myself learning more and more technology from my younger team members everyday. It’s a never ending battle to stay on the leading edge – but I wonder – how long will it be before I hand the torch?

Go Cowboys!!

When we first opened our doors, Jeaves and Josh used to split 24-hour shifts in the DC to provide 24×7 support coverage, and there was a “napping couch” in the office for the occasional overnight work shift up in Plano. Most of us had a toothbrush if not a change of clothes in our desk drawer, and a fun Friday night entailed sitting around a whiteboard talking numbers, and coming up with new ideas for the datacenter.

Team SoftLayer is much much larger now, but the spirit is much the same. This picture is from a swingin’ SL party we had a few Thursdays ago, where the office got together to label power cables for the new Seattle DC. There are members of Dev, Sales, Accounting, Marketing, & Management here working together. It makes me so proud.

For the two people who actually read my posts, you know that I blogged about how I look at the value of a server. Basically, it should be valued by the cash flow it produces. Without a customer to use the server, the cash flow it generates is negative, i.e., less than $0 due to the costs of keeping it racked up, powered up, and connected.
So, how do you place a value on a customer? Customers and servers are not a one-to-one connection because many customers have more than one server. They also buy more than just servers, such as additional software and/or backup services.

Like most of us in the industry, I spend a few minutes each day scrolling through the customer forums, both ours and 3rd party sites – you probably know which ones :). I look at the customer comments and sometimes I wonder if the folks in our industry understand the value of these customers judging from the way some customers are treated.
Granted, some customers are abusive and need to be fired, so to speak. Others appear to be high value customers with multiple servers and solid business models where someone has dropped the ball and caused them to seek greener hosting pastures. If companies understood the dollar figure valuation of each customer, they might think twice about their next course of action with a particular customer.

To value a customer, I look at the statistical expectation of how long that customer will stay with the company, how much the customer currently buys with us, the statistical expectation of how much additional business they will place with us, the gross profit generated by the customer, and that old stand-by — the minimum acceptable rate of return for an investor in the company. From these data points, I do a simple Present Value calculation and arrive at the value of the customer, which is the amount of cash that would have to be invested to yield the economic equivalent of the expected gross profit that the customer will produce. I’d give you a sample calculation, but a) it would make this post even more boring, and 2) some things we like to keep secret :).

This is important because it can make the growth of a hosting company less “slippery” — sort of like when Eric takes off from a red light in this:

For example, if you sell 100 new servers but customers release 90 back to you during the same period, your growth doesn’t have the traction it would have if only 10 servers were released back to you. By retaining valuable customers, you don’t spin your wheels as much. Spinning the tires at a hosting company is not nearly as much fun as watching Eric drive.

With the NFL season in full swing and the usual suspects up to their usual tricks, a question was raised as to why some teams opt to run a “no-huddle” or “hurry-up” offense when their backs are against the wall with the clock ticking away, while other teams seem to constantly be in a “hurry-up” mode throughout the game and have a significant degree of success with it. In either case, the objective is to keep the competition off balance and have steady advances to the goal. An obvious example of an undeniably successful team that employs such methods is the reigning NFL Champion Indianapolis Colts.

Before I go further into lumping praise onto the Colts, I feel that I am obligated to state that I am not a die-hard Indy fan. The team that I root for shall remain nameless for this article as I am still traumatized by the hammer that they leveled on my team of choice on the NFL’s opening night (Hint: Rhymes with “The Aints.”).

Okay, so this observation invites the question: how did the Colts become champions by performing in a manner that, to outsiders, may appear to be rushed and distressed? One could say it’s because they have trusted, senior individuals in their skill positions implementing the plan. Another might say that by focusing on rapid incremental results, they are able to execute more efficiently. An additional point might be that the constant communication amongst the players allows them to adapt to the circumstances that are constantly changing so that they may deliver and reach their goals.

To those of you not caught up in the imagery of football, you might recognize that these are some of the same traits that characterize successful adaptations of Agile Software Development. With the goal of delivering continuous and valued improvements to our applications and supporting software, the Softlayer Development team practices many of the Principles behind the Agile Manifesto. While “moving the chains” toward the end-zone alludes to the incremental success of an NFL team’s offense, we speak more in terms of functional and valued releases towards achieving greater customer satisfaction. This is afforded to us by the skilled players on our team, constant communication, and a continued focus on producing measurable results. We are determined to keep “moving the chains” so, stay tuned to the Developer Network, Forums, and all channels Softlayer as we continue to push towards our goal.

As we all know there is an incredible amount of attention being paid to the “greening” of IT. Most people in the hosting industry regard this as the responsibility of the datacenter, as they can make the largest impact with their large-scale deployments of energy-efficient power supplies and processors, efficient physical layouts, cooling practices, and recycling.

Outside of the hosting industry the options become more varied—namely the ability to save massive amounts of power by turning off unneeded infrastructure during non-peak times. A great example would be a call center that operates 9-5 and shuts their workstations down when not in use, or an accounting firm that turns off their billing servers when they go home for the day. This is far from a common practice currently, but it is a very logical and easy step to conserving power. The gotcha here is that unless you can physically walk over to the infrastructure and power it back on, you are going to have to call someone to do it for you. Then wait for them to do it for you. Then hope that they don’t forget. This leaves many businesses with infrastructure in an outsourced datacenter throwing their hands in the air, because it’s frankly just too risky to not have their resources available at 9:00am when their day starts—might as well just leave everything on.

The story is a little different here at SoftLayer. Using our innovative network design and remote power control, our customers are redefining the way that IT is deployed in an outsourced datacenter. They run their web and mail servers here, pretty normal stuff. But utilizing the SSL to private backend network feature (allowing them to completely disable connectivity to the public network), they are also deploying their domain controllers here. And their office file servers. And their central servers to which their local thin clients connect. They are getting them out of the closet in the back of the office and into a datacenter on enterprise-grade hardware. And you know what they do at the end of the day? They turn them off. The next morning, a click on the power control in the SoftLayer Portal brings them instantly back online anytime, day or night. No phone call to support needed, no waiting for someone else to do it for you. The impact of technology designed to give you optimal control of your IT environment is staggering, especially when you see so many companies utilizing it.

So not only can you choose to deploy your operations in a datacenter that is making enormous strides in green infrastructure, but you can also deploy in one that provides you with the ability to control your own impact as well.

And just like that, everyone gets to be green. And sorry, envy doesn’t count.