Brian Jemes

HS103: Why IT Is Like Ultimate Frisbee | Packet Pushers It’s all well and good to develop a technology strategy, articulate and document the strategy, and agree (supposedly) on that strategy. But what do you do when one or more of the tech teams act in app...

"IT is more like an ultimate frisbee team, than a rowing team. There's a goal. There are rules. Everyone is working together to get there, but people are running all over the place to get it done."
-- John Burke, Nemertes
packetpushers.net/podcasts/hea...

20 years. Not a bad run. RIP 6509.

The end of our network chassis era: March 3rd, 2025

Hedge 259: Architecture and Process We often try to “institutionalize” things that work into repeatable processes—and most of the time, it doesn’t work. The process ends up becoming unwieldy, eventually failin…

Other times you need to build the case for your organization to invest in a transition to a new architecture:
"If the exceptions become the rule, create a new architecture that has standard solutions appropriate to most customer requirements."
-- @thejemes.bsky.social
rule11.tech/hedge-259/

Hedge 259: Architecture and Process We often try to “institutionalize” things that work into repeatable processes—and most of the time, it doesn’t work. The process ends up becoming unwieldy, eventually failin…

Sometimes you can extended your architecture to avoid what Russ calls everything becoming a one-off process:
"Minimize future exception requests by implementing each exception in a broad manner that will meet many similar needs."
-- @thejemes.bsky.social
rule11.tech/hedge-259/

Hedge 259: Architecture and Process We often try to “institutionalize” things that work into repeatable processes—and most of the time, it doesn’t work. The process ends up becoming unwieldy, eventually failin…

Tom agrees with my friend and colleague:
"Every infrastructure has an architecture, even if undocumented."
-- Kelly McDonald
rule11.tech/hedge-259/

Hedge 259: Architecture and Process We often try to “institutionalize” things that work into repeatable processes—and most of the time, it doesn’t work. The process ends up becoming unwieldy, eventually failin…

Tom, Russ, and @esharp.net share thoughts on Architecture & [Exception] Process that resonate with me.
rule11.tech/hedge-259/

Great wrap up episode. You might like "The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill." 3 volumes. By William Manchester and Paul Reid

HS093: Strategic Trust-Building Among Ops, Engineering, Architecture - and Leadership | Packet Pushers Billy Joel had it right: It's a matter of trust. Too often Operations, Engineering, and Architecture teams don't trust one another--and nobody trusts leadership (and vice versa!). On today's Heavy Str...

"If you have been assiduously building trust with your team by being trustworthy and by aligning what you're doing with what the organization needs ..., then you'll have that cultural capital within the organization to bring change about"
-- John Burke, Nemertes
packetpushers.net/podcasts/hea...

Somebody "That proactively gets involved in architecture and design decisions, that's included in vendor evaluations and meetings, making sure that Ops requirements are part of RFPs ... So that those sustainability/operations issues are part of the design from day one."
- @scottrobohn.bsky.social

HS093: Strategic Trust-Building Among Ops, Engineering, Architecture - and Leadership | Packet Pushers Billy Joel had it right: It's a matter of trust. Too often Operations, Engineering, and Architecture teams don't trust one another--and nobody trusts leadership (and vice versa!). On today's Heavy Str...

This is a powerful idea for large IT organizations:
Have "an Ops Architect. ..Somebody who is grounded in the operations team, but who is fully connected with the engineering and architecture and leadership."
- @scottrobohn.bsky.social

packetpushers.net/podcasts/hea...

YouTube video by AWS Events ​​AWS re:Invent 2024 - Dr. Werner Vogels Keynote

"The time to build a system is often miniscule compared to the time you are going to run the system. So investing in #manageability upfront is crucial. Just like you need to invest in #security upfront. And you need to invest in #costcontrol upfront.". -- Werner Vogels
youtu.be/aim5x73crbM?...

Hedge 204: Terry Slattery on Network Automation Terry Slattery joins Tom and Russ to continue the conversation on network automation—and why networks are not as automated as they should be. This is part one of a two-part series; the first …

"I should only tolerate complexity when it provides value. And if increased complexity doesn't provide value, that means it is only adding cost. Take Occam's razor, and cut out everything you can to make it as simple as you can. That's engineering excellence." --Scott Robohn
rule11.tech/hedge-204/

Great to see "The Frugal Architect" principles emphasize the essential role of cost in good architecture. Another inspiring re:Invent keynote from Werner Vogels.
thefrugalarchitect.com