NetBSD and My Life (2005)

Subject: NetBSD and my life...

To: None netbsd-advocacy@netbsd.org

From: gary rolland rollandgary@gmail.com

List: netbsd-advocacy

Date: 09/10/2005 16:40:17

Hello NetBSD Team,

I have been using NetBSD for about two years on my laptop and never

had any problems. I use this laptop in work and at home. I knew NetBSD

was capable of much more, and I was hell bent on using it at work too!

The main reason for this email is to let you guys know what we mainly

use NetBSD for - supporting over 4,800 heavy users (some remote) and

counting. It's my story about what NetBSD has done for my life, and

how it has actually improved my personal life. I hope you will enjoy

it and that it'll offer further encouragement to continue the truly

excellent work.

I'll start off by introducing myself. My name is Gary Rolland and I

live in the United Kingdom. I work in a team consisting of three other

network admins. We all work for a large UK based company. Our task is

to keep the servers up and to do maintenance. We work on shifts and

can be called out at any time, night or day. We are not responsible

for the client machines within the buildings. Sadly, I am unable to

disclose the actual company name. I received permission to give you

information about what we use NetBSD for and that only (I begged

infact). Our network is mission critical - down time costs the company

mega money. I certainly would not want to foot the bill!

(Note: I have also been told not to disclose network infrastructure in

great detail. If you have any comments/questions, please do ask. I'll

try my best to answer them the best I can)

Currently, our network consists of 29 high end servers. They all run

NetBSD 2.0.2 and deal with extremely high loads. The servers handle:

• MySQL databases - This makes up most of our traffic/resource usage.

• Apache - Internal and external

• Postfix - Interval and external email=20

• Samba - Allow the 4,800 users to connect to the NFS.

(Note: Our file servers are connected to NetBSD. So it's like=20

Users->NetBSD->File server. Our file servers run Linux. Am not allowed

to touch them! However, the email and httpd data is stored directly on

the NetBSD servers. Just for your information, our file servers go

down more than our servers;-))

Data facts(avg. per day):

• NetBSD pushes over 870GB of data per day.

• NetBSD pushes about 1,200 emails per day (not always work related. I

have seen joke emails a while back with 12MB attachments! (12MB x 4500

:()).

• NetBSD during peak hours, our httpd servers can deal with 35

requests per minute(internal and external). The website is wrote in

pretty heavy PHP (and bad PHP, but that's not my call).

Originally our network servers used Windows, running on more older

hardware than we have now. We have recently been through an upgrade.

I can describe my admining of Windows as a complete f*cking nightmare.

I was constantly worrying over when they would fall over. Here is a

small story:

I had been promising my 12 year old daughter and her friend that I

would take them to Alton Towers. The night before we had planned to

go, I raced into the server rooms and checked everything was running.

I was happy things would be OK, because I was on call out the next day

and I couldn't let my daughter down again(this has happened more than

once). We was having a great time at Alton Towers and the worst thing

happened. My work phone starts to ring. My daughters face just

dropped, she knew exactly what was coming next.

Boss: 'Gary, servers have all dropped to their knees. I need you here now.'

Me: 'Sure, I'll be there in a few hours' (in a 'am going to kill

someone voice').

It really upset me to see my daughter let down again, including a

friend. They had been talking about going all week and Microsoft

Windows of all things messes everything up.

Here I am, speeding up the motorway. My daughter completely pissed

off, and for due reasons to. This has happened many other times

before. I was even getting abit ratty at home since I'd be thinking of

anything which could go wrong. This also lead to more arguments with

the wife (which leads to a decrease in other things... ;)

I knew something had to change.

After I had fixed the problem, I stormed into my bosses office and

explained we need more admins or need to change our servers. Cut a

long story short, he allowed me to trial test two of our servers on

NetBSD. He didn't know anything about it - just that I promised him I

could increase the stability by a huge margin without disrupting

business.

That day I was in a mood to change things(pissed), and so I took two

servers home. One was what we call a 'MySQL' server and one httpd

server(the bosses go nuts if the httpd goes down).

I had no room to fail.

I was up till 4 AM in the morning installing and configuring things to

our exact needs. NetBSD as always installed flawlessly and I

installed most required software from pkgsrc.

I roled these machines into the network in the morning. I knew I had

to wait now, until something crashed on Windows and to show my boss

which machines still stood strong.

That day, a few MySQL machines just decided to go for a quick break,

and rebooted themselves a few times(MySQL queries began to be far too

slow). The boss was storming(due to the day before also). I showed him

which machines did not fall down. He agreed within two hours for me to

role out more NetBSD machines slowly.

I was happy.

At first it was hard. The other admins had no clue how to use NetBSD.

However, with the time we spent fixing the Windows servers, we now had

spare time. I began to show them how to configure things and they

actually took a personal interest. They installed it at home and began

to tinker with it, making sure they understood how to compile kernels

etc etc. You know the stuff am talking about! I even printed the whole

handbook out for us.

Our whole Network was now running NetBSD.

Things changed. I was not as busy as I always was. My relationships

where getting better. I had more time with my daughter to watch her

grow up. The rest of my team agreed - this had been the best move we

had ever made. The boss also agreed. He was delighted with our

improved stability. Infact, he was so happy that none of us are now on

call out of a weekend. We're allowed to admin from home using ssh(we

take turns per weekend).

My team and I are constantly working and learning. We're becoming more

and more efficient with NetBSD.

NetBSD changed my teams life for the better.

Last weekend I took my family to Alton Towers to finish what we

started. We had a fantastic time! During the way home, this time not

speeding, I has thinking about the people behind it. Those who put in

time, little or large to make the project what it is. I decided to

tell you guys my story, to show your work is greatly appreciated!

Once more, thanks again for the all the work. Please keep it up.

Please use this email in any way you wish. Post it on your personal

website or whatever.

Best Regards,

Gary Rolland.