LINUX


A personal relationship

I found Linux almost at the same time that I felt the career (Electrical Engineer) I chose was not for me. My first perception was that with software I can build everything just with my mind and fingers, something almost impossible with hardware (which was the thing I was studying).  

When I graduated, I have learned  Linux and used it in an decent level (I mean, not only as a user but also  I was fluent with administration advanced tasks), I covered the installation, configuration of the hardware with different kernel modules, I managed to access to Internet through a dial-up line, something considered an obscure skill on that times.

During my first Job (when I was 22 years old), even though I was a technician as part of the technical support team for an electronic bank equipment company , I was assigned to modify a C++ application, this task was completely accidental because an external professional programmer was not available to take the project, and the client needed the a new version urgently. Well, after two months of work, I finished the changes in the application and deployed it in the client’s machines. Certainly, nothing related with Linux ( which,until there was just a personal hobby), but a programming success at the end.

In my second job (Luz del Sur, an utility company in Lima, Perú), I consolidated my Linux knowledge and moved toward a closer interaction with the development activity, the IT programmers were working with  Microsoft stuff with all theirs tools, languages and all the infrastructure to develop windows client/server apps, while I was in charge of Linux servers, learning more about Web applications and Java. In that time we had CGI to create HTML from the server to the browser. The context in those years where quite different than it is today, starting with the browser, which was still in its first steps as a solid client platform(there was a declared war between Netscape and Microsoft). But to me, the fact that we can use whatever language in those Linux servers to produce dynamic web pages, allowed me to evaluate different platforms  and work on a “cutting-edge” projects inside the IT department, for instance: participate in the selection of the Extranet Platform.

Linux, the platform

Java was finally selected at LDS, mainly for the portability reasons in the server space (we had Linux and HP-UX severs) and the “corporate” perception that Sun Microsystems had built around Java and all the APIs for server applications (J2EE). But my Linux learning continued always trying new open source projects to find solutions, it was at that moment that I decided to build an startup that take advantage of all of this ecosystem.

The real journey of using Linux as the platform for every solution inside CompuLinux (the new company) have started, and certainly we used in every project,  but in that moment (2004) a new platform have emerged, indeed, it was Linux that evolved as the key component inside huge data centers offered as services, the Cloud Computing era was mature enough to be accepted for the local market (Perú). It is precisely this maturity in a certain way that hide a lot of the details of Linux, creating a new layer on top of it,

Linux, Again and reload it


In future entries, I will give more details about the projects and tools that I used to build custom platforms for Compulinux’s projects, and how I move to the Cloud where I found Linux again, but with much more services around it, those that allowed me to design more scalable solutions.

 For sure, I find that the skills with command line tools learned with linux servers are more valuable that ever, precisely when the need today is the integration close between the development, deployment and operations, that is what we call today: DevOps engineer.

I will come back with more on this (DevOps), until then, I advice is try to learn Linux :-)

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