What lies beyond *Ops?

@davezwieback Head of Systems

Dev @adrianco

Ops @allspaw

Whereupon the emperor … published an edict, commanding all his subjects … to break the smaller end of their eggs. The people so highly resented this law, that …there have been six rebellions raised on that account; wherein one emperor lost his life, and another his crown. Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift

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#NoOps! #StillOps!

SQL vs NoSQL

Dude, it’s a data store.  

N

SQL

SQL

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division of labor to its extreme, [is] a principle which should never be followed but with circumspection.

Walden; Or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau

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Burj Khalifa, 2,723 ft

Thoreau’s cabin, 10 ft (estimated)

But, dude! We’re building at “web scale”!

Dudes, check out this outage!

You might be a generalist if you…

•  have root access (in production) •  build, configure, and deploy software (to production) •  instrument and monitor applications (all by yourself) •  participate in an on-call rotation •  participate in post-mortem analyses •  rotate between teams •  have an “end-to-end” view of the entire “stack” •  have healthy interest in “disaster porn” •  have been doing this “for a while” •  have gained some arcane, secret knowledge

Generalist Salary: Medium to High Risk of Extinction: Low

Cuteness: Off the Charts!!!  

Specialist Salary: High to Ridiculous

Risk of Extinction: Extreme Cuteness: Arguable  

You might want to be a generalist

http://knewton.com/jobs

We’re hiring generalists.

Photo Credits •  Egg Cup, Unknown. Retrieved from http://homeklondike.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/3-egg-egg-cup-by-normann-

copenhagen.jpg

•  Nppon Fantasy Army , Unknown. Retrieved from http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ts1HdLGjywM/TBal2p8AZ0I/AAAAAAAAL9Y/kAacSEVnQHQ/s1600/nippon_fantasy_army_book_warhammer.JPG

•  Thoreau’s Cabin, Unknown. Retrieved from http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3iRlTMt47Qc/TN65ZHHlS2I/AAAAAAAAAGk/Y7WDBC161v4/s1600/thoreaucabin.JPG

•  Lunch atop a Skyscraper (New York Construction Workers Lunching on a Crossbeam), 1932, Charles C. Ebbets

•  Peek a Boo, Insight Imaging: John A Ryan Photography

•  Koala, Jo Christian Oterhals

•  Burj Khalifa under sunrise, Nicolas Lannuzel