I own a small Europe based IT consultancy specializing in infrastructure automation, bespoke architecture and software development.
I am the architect of MCollective which was sold to Puppet Labs where I was employed till mid 2013.
I’ve been a Systems Administrator for over 20 years. For the last few years I’ve spent a lot of time focused on configuration management using tools like CFEngine or Puppet where I helped all sizes of business optimize the management of their servers and to do repeated rollouts with consistant results.
An effective configuration management strategy is key to scaling and reacting rapidly to customer demands. I can usually be found in ##infra-talk on Freenode using nick Volcane.
I am usually involved with computers in some way or the other. I have been using Unix and Unix like systems since the early ’90s. My Linux Counter entry was created in September 1995, I think I started some time in December 1993 though but did not have an internet connection then, so my entry only came later. I started out with the SLS 1.03 distribution of Linux in the days of pre 1.0 kernels.
I am the author of several open source projects that you can find in my my GitHub Account.
I attend and speak at conferences, I’ve done lightning talks at several and a few formal talks:
- QCon London – Enabling Developers: Accessible Platforms
- Unix Configuration Management Using Puppet
- DevOps Cafe – Episode 7
If you’d like me to talk at your conference or event please contact me on rip <@> devco.net.
My main hobby when not doing computer related work is in photography, you can see some of my photos at my Flickr Page
