Infrastructure

There is a backstory few people remember anymore. In the eighties, the former Bundespost ran a service called Bildschirmtext — BTX. A closed system, proprietary pages, proprietary tariffs, proprietary…

I remember an evening, long before Git shaped my work. A configuration directory. Dozens of files, each with a suffix meant to reveal when it was last touched: sysctl.conf.bak, sysctl.conf.old,…

I have worked in this industry long enough to recognise how the end of an epoch feels. It does not begin with a bang. It begins with a sensation. An inkling that what you have done for years is not…

There is a moment every administrator knows, after enough years in the job. Friday evening. A server has to be rebuilt — yesterday. You remember most of the settings. The most important paths. The…

It usually begins with a simple question: Can I do this myself? A photo album. A file share. A team wiki. Something you are currently using — from a provider who offers it conveniently, free or cheap,…

There is a moment so ordinary that we do not notice it at all. You plug a network cable into a wall socket. The socket comes from a German manufacturer, the cable from Taiwan, the switch beneath it…

There is a conversation I have over and over again. Someone asks whether we also work with “real software” — meaning proprietary products from major vendors. The question always carries…

Vendor lock-in rarely begins with a conscious decision. Usually it begins with a nice offer. Free trial. Easy migration. Everything from one source. And two years later you discover: switching would…