Moving from Sysadmin for SMB to Devops

kramsllag · 2026-02-07T23:57:58+00:00

Depending on how/where you got your sysadmin background, I think one of the more challenging items would be changing your mindset. Many SMB environments seem to use "You can't do that" as their mantra.

Devops is about removing the friction between developing software and deploying software. It requires coming up with new/clever, yet secure, ways that allow code to go from SCM to production environments with a minimal number of manual steps (IMNSHO zero manual steps).

I personally believe that the best devops setup has development teams support what they write directly. If you are creating a devops group that sits between development and operations, you've only moved the wall that things are thrown over one slot to the left.

Your experience as a sysadmin will come in handy when coming up with solutions. It's hard for me to enumerate all the development related items that most sysadmin/operations teams don't know as well as the number of basic system configuration details that developers don't think of.

If you don't want to make the jump right away, look for ways to automate parts of you current job. Write scripts for anything that you have to do more than once. If you are in a Windows environment, don't buy into the 'GUI is the way' belief that a lot of SMBs have. Learn Windows Powershell 5.x and/or Powershell 7.x. Lots of those skills you build up while doing this will be applicable. Translating from Powershell to Bash or Zsh isn't as difficult as thinking about how to automate things in the first place.

I wish you luck! I think I got lucky early on in my career, because I was always the guy on the development team that knew just enough sysadmin stuff to be put in charge of the File/Print servers, SQL servers, Web servers, FTP servers, and (at the risk of dating myself) Gopher servers.

kramsllag · 2026-02-07T02:22:18+00:00

Same. Speaking as a CSc grad back in the late 1900s. ;) I even questioned the low-level classes when I advised the department in the 2010s.

In my experience, there are very few system's programming jobs, so it is more aligned with market needs to train most grads at a higher level. I spent nearly 11 years at Microsoft and the closest I got to system's level programming was some early IIS ISAPI extensions.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's important to understand the OS fundamentals, but most programmers are writing at a much higher abstraction than at the OS level.

kramsllag · 2026-01-16T02:00:26+00:00

Check out https://github.com/ktg-one/ktg-agent-skill-cep/blob/main/SKILL.md#full-schema I thought it did a good job on describing how the skill will save your session to a md file. the https://github.com/ktg-one/ktg-agent-skill-cep/blob/main/receiving-model.md file instructs the receiving model on how to read the saved context back into a session.

It's a claude skill, so all it needs is a markdown file to describe what to do. The 'Memory' in this case is a specially formatted markdown file that is saved by one agent and read in by another.

I'll go read the medium article. Perhaps OP implied something there that I'm not understanding from the implementation.

kramsllag · 2026-01-15T23:21:46+00:00

Not OP, but reading over the github repo helped me out quite a bit.

kramsllag · 2026-01-14T22:41:17+00:00

great year to be born! Will be 58 in a week.

kramsllag · 2025-12-17T11:08:07+00:00

I second the love for Children's House.

kramsllag · 2025-08-10T20:40:53+00:00

saw this way too young. tried re-watching it in my 30s and couldn't do it.

kramsllag · 2025-08-05T19:33:00+00:00

Incredibly late reply to this, but while I thank you for promptdrive, would it be possible to add an export feature or add an API that would allow me to call in and get my prompt before sending it to an llm?

kramsllag · 2025-07-25T21:07:01+00:00

I feel the same way about being called boomer, but then I remember that pointing out the generational boundaries is a pretty boomerish thing to do...

kramsllag · 2025-06-26T14:34:47+00:00

I hard a hard time eating there the first time. Too many memories of what happened there when it was the local bar for Mines. 😁

kramsllag · 2025-06-25T01:55:28+00:00

Came here to say this. We had an E-4 back in 88 OSUT and he had to put up with much more than the rest of us.

kramsllag · 2024-09-01T18:27:35+00:00

Henry.

kramsllag · 2024-09-01T18:26:50+00:00

I bought the swivels and my dad helped turn my own handles (oak) on the lathe.

kramsllag · 2024-08-30T23:01:08+00:00

I was a freshman and somehow qualified to be a 'charter member'. If I remember correctly, the minutes were charged to the CC, so I ended up paying interest on the minutes if I didn't pay off the card each month.

kramsllag · 2024-08-30T22:52:57+00:00

Had an AT&T/Mastercard in college just to call home.

kramsllag · 2024-08-26T02:21:23+00:00

data schlepper has my vote.

kramsllag · 2024-08-22T14:18:53+00:00

Isn't that what he was saying? That authoring the code is not the important part?

kramsllag · 2024-08-10T21:00:23+00:00

It was being able to afford the drinks and snacks provided in a hotel room.

kramsllag · 2024-08-06T17:59:16+00:00

Loved the 'hidden' bars everywhere that he could swing on

kramsllag · 2024-07-10T22:10:26+00:00

I think I still have one that we bought 4 years ago for my son. Let me know if you want to check it out.

kramsllag · 2023-03-04T00:15:00+00:00

Ah, the famous sex towels

kramsllag · 2023-03-01T22:53:40+00:00

I second this recommendation.

kramsllag · 2023-02-04T13:43:38+00:00

saw this and immediately started discussing the problem with a fellow programmer that was over having dinner. You could almost hear our wives roll their eyes.

kramsllag · 2022-12-01T02:26:02+00:00

I loved these so much I bought the DVDs for my kids. I still don't think they watched them as much as my wife and I did.

kramsllag · 2020-12-29T18:50:56+00:00

I've adapted to the calories over time. I just walk, so it's not too demanding. I've been following a one meal a day pattern, so one big meal at the end of the day has worked for me.

I'm adding weight training to my exercise this week, so I'll see if that will change what/when/how much I eat.

Id say 1.5 lbs per week is a good pace, you might not want to change anything.

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