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IDK, I don't use docker or a separate VM per application. I guess I'm old school but I install the stuff on my linux instance or server and work out the depend

IDK, I don't use docker or a separate VM per application. I guess I'm old school but I install the stuff on my linux instance or server and work out the dependencies so they don't clash. I haven't found it that difficult. Just cos the devs want to throw some ill conceived container over the fence onto my systems, doesn't mean I let them. ( I mean I guess they can, but only if they get the support calls instead of me.)

vasco 7y ago
This sounds like an immature attitude to take towards the people that work with you and just makes you sound like the stereotypical basement sysadmin that needs to control everything and knows better than everyone else.
- kortilla 7y ago
  Containers are terrible for bureaucratic institutions. It moves security patch management to the development org that builds the containers and development orgs typically don’t have the tooling/process to do this. Source: consulted for a company that got bitten by allowing containers without a patch management process for vulnerabilities.
- dgoog 7y ago
  This sounds like an immature attitude towards the stereotypical sysadmins that you expect to just 'deploy your shit'. See how this can swing both ways?
- gerbilly 7y ago
  Perhaps but they are happy with the results. They tried it their way for a couple of years, and there were performance problems and outages.
acdha 7y ago
This can work for simple projects where the dependencies are all similar but it doesn’t scale well and, if you’ll forgive the unsolicited career advice, I would be worried that the breaking point is “We switched to the cloud and told your boss’s boss’s boss that you had been holding us back”. I much prefer finding some balance which doesn’t position you as the Department of No.
- kortilla 7y ago
  “We switched to the cloud” isn’t a decision made by development orgs in any non-software company. In most businesses, supportability by IT and boring bureaucratic processes are king. “Adopt whatever buzzword shit developers are into” is about the worst career advice you can actually give sysadmins that work in non-cutting edge companies.
  - acdha 7y ago
    > “We switched to the cloud” isn’t a decision made by development orgs in any non-software company. In most businesses, supportability by IT and boring bureaucratic processes are king. This might have been true in your experience but it hasn’t been in mine (.com, .edu, .gov). There’s common term (shadow IT) for what inevitably happens: someone hires their own staff, gets their own servers, arranges their contractors to host it, architects their application requirements so it can’t be run by central IT, etc. The reason it happens is that the IT department is not listening to its users and thus giving them a strong incentive to find alternatives to accomplish their jobs — and they’ll almost always win unless the CIO is politically untouchable and has an iron hand on the budget. This is especially true in these cases: using the cloud or containers is what senior management are hearing from all of their consultants, and likely many peers. If you’re trying to hold that back without a really good reason, it is unlikely to end well for you unless you’re related to the CEO, especially since it’s easy to find people with equivalent or greater experience who can point to good results from having adopted what are now relatively mature technologies with plenty of case studies. > “Adopt whatever buzzword shit developers are into” is about the worst career advice you can actually give sysadmins that work in non-cutting edge companies. If you think that’s true, I would suggest you reread my comment and ask whether that’s a fair reading of my suggestion about finding a way to balance concerns. There is a huge amount of space between “no” and “you can run whatever you want”.
- gerbilly 7y ago
  I deploy big complex projects this way. I've built sophisticated automation to achieve this, so it's all reproducible. I just don't use Docker that's all. It doesn't bring anything to the able that I can't achieve more simply some other way. And it has it's own problems. I've been a sysadmin for 25+ years and I've administered production DNS server, mailservers, web server, app servers, routers, switches ... I think stuff like docker and k8 appeals to people today because it promises that you don't have t understand any of that old stuff. But to me it just makes my life harder because I don't need the underlying tech abstracted away. If anything it makes my life harder to add an unfamiliar layer on top. I'm not worried, there will always be market for guys like me. When the fancy new stuff stops working, someone has to fix it.
jensvdh 7y ago
Good luck doing something like that at scale with thousands of instances.

vasco 7y ago

This sounds like an immature attitude to take towards the people that work with you and just makes you sound like the stereotypical basement sysadmin that needs to control everything and knows better than everyone else.

kortilla 7y ago
Containers are terrible for bureaucratic institutions. It moves security patch management to the development org that builds the containers and development orgs typically don’t have the tooling/process to do this. Source: consulted for a company that got bitten by allowing containers without a patch management process for vulnerabilities.
dgoog 7y ago
This sounds like an immature attitude towards the stereotypical sysadmins that you expect to just 'deploy your shit'. See how this can swing both ways?
gerbilly 7y ago
Perhaps but they are happy with the results. They tried it their way for a couple of years, and there were performance problems and outages.

acdha 7y ago

This can work for simple projects where the dependencies are all similar but it doesn’t scale well and, if you’ll forgive the unsolicited career advice, I would be worried that the breaking point is “We switched to the cloud and told your boss’s boss’s boss that you had been holding us back”. I much prefer finding some balance which doesn’t position you as the Department of No.

kortilla 7y ago
“We switched to the cloud” isn’t a decision made by development orgs in any non-software company. In most businesses, supportability by IT and boring bureaucratic processes are king. “Adopt whatever buzzword shit developers are into” is about the worst career advice you can actually give sysadmins that work in non-cutting edge companies.
- acdha 7y ago
  > “We switched to the cloud” isn’t a decision made by development orgs in any non-software company. In most businesses, supportability by IT and boring bureaucratic processes are king. This might have been true in your experience but it hasn’t been in mine (.com, .edu, .gov). There’s common term (shadow IT) for what inevitably happens: someone hires their own staff, gets their own servers, arranges their contractors to host it, architects their application requirements so it can’t be run by central IT, etc. The reason it happens is that the IT department is not listening to its users and thus giving them a strong incentive to find alternatives to accomplish their jobs — and they’ll almost always win unless the CIO is politically untouchable and has an iron hand on the budget. This is especially true in these cases: using the cloud or containers is what senior management are hearing from all of their consultants, and likely many peers. If you’re trying to hold that back without a really good reason, it is unlikely to end well for you unless you’re related to the CEO, especially since it’s easy to find people with equivalent or greater experience who can point to good results from having adopted what are now relatively mature technologies with plenty of case studies. > “Adopt whatever buzzword shit developers are into” is about the worst career advice you can actually give sysadmins that work in non-cutting edge companies. If you think that’s true, I would suggest you reread my comment and ask whether that’s a fair reading of my suggestion about finding a way to balance concerns. There is a huge amount of space between “no” and “you can run whatever you want”.
gerbilly 7y ago
I deploy big complex projects this way. I've built sophisticated automation to achieve this, so it's all reproducible. I just don't use Docker that's all. It doesn't bring anything to the able that I can't achieve more simply some other way. And it has it's own problems. I've been a sysadmin for 25+ years and I've administered production DNS server, mailservers, web server, app servers, routers, switches ... I think stuff like docker and k8 appeals to people today because it promises that you don't have t understand any of that old stuff. But to me it just makes my life harder because I don't need the underlying tech abstracted away. If anything it makes my life harder to add an unfamiliar layer on top. I'm not worried, there will always be market for guys like me. When the fancy new stuff stops working, someone has to fix it.

jensvdh 7y ago

Good luck doing something like that at scale with thousands of instances.