SysAdmin Day 2014: Best Linux Foundation SysAdmin Quotes

Happy SysAdmin Day 2014! Over the past three weeks we’ve been profiling the Linux Foundation’s heroic team of system administrators in honor of the amazing work they do behind the scenes to keep this organization and our collaborative projects humming. Here are some of their best quotes, which highlight just how talented, passionate and also fun-loving Linux SysAdmins really are.

Today is also the last day to nominate your system administrators for recognition here on Linux.com, as well as the chance to win free tickets to LinuxCon and CloudOpen North America taking place in Chicago August 20-22, 2014. Just email the Linux.com editors at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
 about why your SysAdmin should be recognized. Submissions are due by the end of the day today, July 25. 

Best Linux Foundation SysAdmin Quotes

“The thought that we are in a position to tell Linus what he can and cannot do on the Linux systems we manage makes me giggle every time – because it’s so wonderfully absurd.” – Konstantin Ryabitsev, part of the Collaborative Projects IT team, which is responsible for providing IT hosting for projects like kernel.org, codeaurora.org, opendaylight.org, allseenalliance.org, and a few others.

“My favorite part of the job would definitely be getting to play with new technologies… I also really enjoy architecting systems that interoperate well and improve the lives of my customers.” – Andrew Grimberg, the primary administrator for the OpenDaylight Project’s infrastructure. 

“I love the flexibility of working from home… My family is typically around me all day and I love feeling involved in their lives and still being able to get work done.” – Clint Savage, a systems administrator for the Collaborative Projects building virtual machines, maintaining authentication systems and identity management.

“My specialties are in web performance scaling, automation, security, and monitoring. I also am pretty good at faking being a DBA (database administrator). :-)” – Eric Searcy, IT Infrastructure Manager responsible for the design and architecture of the systems that power core programs such as Events and Training.

“Have you ever worked with someone who refused to use new software until they had been trained? I find that frustrating. No one here is like that. We have broad foundations of knowledge to work from. We can all read documentation, learn as we go, and adapt to changes as they come. That’s the best.” – Michael Halstead maintains all of the Yocto Project’s public facing infrastructure, including Yocto Autobuilders, which are based on Buildbot.

“I like the saying: “Failure isn’t an option. It’s mandatory.” That’s how I think about complex systems at large scales. The individual components are going to fail in lots of different ways and the challenge is to think about how to build systems that can deal with that failure gracefully and transparently.” – Ryan Day, part of the team that provides infrastructure and services for Collaborative Projects.

“I like to joke around with my coworkers to feel funny, and write scripts to feel clever. I just want to be loved.” – Aric Gardner, a Linux Foundation SysAdmin who works on the OpenDaylight collaborative project.