 syslog
Hello Sys Admin readers. Amber has allowed me to invade
her personal space for an issue, so I could introduce myself a bit
more formally to you all. I'll forego any obvious jokes about
my column being "Syslog-NG".
The November issue marks the 8th issue of my brief tenure as Technical
Editor. It's somewhat nerve-wracking taking over a role like
this on an already successful publication. If the publication maintains
its high-quality standards then it appears to be none of my doing,
and if the quality drops off then it's all my fault. Still,
I take it as both a challenge and a service to the community to
work with Amber, Rikki, and our Contributing Editors in producing
a high-quality technical magazine every month.
I also think it's important to depart from our formula and
try new things. Our industry, after all, is one that thrives on
innovation and we should reflect that in all aspects of what we
do. This month we're breaking the mold by running an interesting
"opinion piece" by Greg Schuweiler. Greg is tilting at
his particular windmill in an openly provocative way, but I found
his article thought-provoking even if I didn't necessarily
agree with everything he's saying. See what you think. If you'd
like to see this sort of opinion article on a more regular basis,
please let us know.
There's lots of other good stuff in this issue too. Put on
your engineering cap and check out Bryan Smith's article on
AMD Opteron architectures. Lisa Jaworski's business continuity
"lessons learned" from the 9/11 tragedy might just be
the impetus you've needed to get started revising (or perhaps
creating) your own contingency plans. On the career front, Rob Kolstad
presents some of the high-level results from the most recent SAGE
Salary Survey of Systems Administrators -- I think the results
are surprisingly positive for people in our line of work.
Speaking of SAGE, November means it's time for the Annual
LISA Conference, sponsored by USENIX and SAGE. LISA still stands
alone as the pre-eminent Systems Administration conference. Hope
to see you in Atlanta, November 14-19.
If I don't see you at LISA, feel free to drop me a line with
your thoughts, comments, suggestions, rants, complaints, and I hope
the occasional compliment, too. Any feedback that helps make Sys
Admin more useful to you, our readers, is greatly appreciated.
Best wishes,
Hal Pomeranz
Technical Editor
hal@deer-run.com | 
