Technology user groups are awesome. That’s why OpenDNS is announcing a new program dedicated to celebrating the innovation and education taking place at user groups everywhere, and making life a little more delicious for their members. Even though programmers, engineers, IT professionals and SysAdmins are notoriously over worked and under appreciated, many still somehow find time to gather together, share insight and explore new tech tips on a regular basis. There are thousands of user groups around the world that are independently organized and run where people join to share hard-won knowledge and experiences and have a blast doing it.

Each month, OpenDNS wants to buy dinner for a different user group that’s focused on technology. It makes no difference to us whether your group discusses hardware or hacking, speaks JAVA, PHP or Ruby, prefers servers or the cloud, or is a Mac or a PC (or Linux/Unix/Other for that matter). All we care about is that you’re well-fed while you’re talking tech and that you’ve got plenty of caffeine to keep the discussions lively. And, we’ll provide plenty of sought-after OpenDNS stickers to pass around and a few t-shirts to give away!

If you’d like OpenDNS to help feed the hungry crew at your next meeting, just give us the basic details - how often you meet, how many members, focus for the group, helpful links, etc. – and we’ll take care of the rest. In addition to providing some hearty chow, we also want to feature your user group in an upcoming issue of the OpenDNS newsletter, so we can highlight your awesomeness for the masses. This is your chance to share details of your group with millions of OpenDNS users so go ahead and boast.

It’s SysAdmin Appreciation Day and we’re celebrating by crowning our 2011 SysAdmin of the Year and worthy winners in six other categories. The nominations poured in and we challenged a talented panel of OpenDNS engineers and SysAdmins to determine the winners. After an arduous deliberation process (involving multiple energy drinks and trips to the snack room) our team chose John Cannon, lone IT pro for a rapidly expanding group of BMW and Mercedes dealerships, as the 2011 SysAdmin of the Year! John was nominated for the Neat Freak category but his before and after pictures told of a patient and organized SysAdmin simultaneously managing IT for five locations while implementing a massive and challenging overhaul.

John joins an elite group of winners who raised the bar for each of the categories below:

Best Disaster Response Award
After Hurricane Ike struck, Hart Energy’s servers were trapped in an area without power and nearly impossible to access through the debris and downed power lines. Mark Chiles wins the Disaster Response Award for his heroic actions to save the servers, including blindly descending ten flights of stairs in pitch-black darkness and using his own body to save a server after nearly falling down the staircase!

Shoestring Budget Award
James Gamble and Brian Albury might work at a children’s museum but when it comes to saving money, they’re not kidding around. They receive this year’s Shoestring Budget Award for their uncompromising commitment to saving the non-profit museum hundreds of thousands of dollars each year by repurposing old machines, using open source and free software, and standardizing company practices, all while leveraging a limited budget that is funded by grants and donations.

Flying Solo Award
Eric Szymczyk is a one-man IT show at a large public relations firm in Boston. Eric spent two highly-caffeinated days moving his entire firm into new offices, including the deployment of new laptops for all employees! He singlehandedly moved the servers, racks, cables, phone system, scanners, printers and more while somehow managing to save the company thousands in the process. We’re in awe of this work, but we still think he humbly tells it best: “I have been a light bulb replacer, a surge protector switcher-on guy, a virus fixer, a heavy box delivery man, a server installer, an iPhone troubleshooter, a network architect and more… my name is Eric, I am IT, and I fly solo.”

Large-Scale Deployment Award
Ryan Pierce was the stand-out winner for the large-scale deployment award because faced the difficult challenge of implementing a system-wide upgrade across dozens of healthcare facilities throughout California. He did so with limited support resources, an executive team that didn’t see value in an IT department, and the responsibility of simultaneously handling all IT tickets for the organization! Now, he boasts the trust and support of the executive team, HIPAA compliance, and the successful completion of a $1.5M upgrade.

DevOps Award
This was an easy one. Elite SysAdmin and engineer Richard Crowley cut his teeth at OpenDNS, where he learned a massive amount about operations and systems. We couldn’t be more proud of his new tool and venture, blueprint, and Richard couldn’t be more deserving of this award. Blueprint allows users to reverse-engineer running servers, output a blueprint, and recreate the server. The tool has already helped numerous SysAdmins quickly take existing machines and add them to automation frameworks. Plus, it’s completely open source, free, and available at Github.com, where more than 800 people are following its progress. A perfect fit for the DevOps award.

Neat Freak Award
If this year’s nominations are any indication of industry standards, it appears that the freakishly neat are multiplying! From the countless nominations we received there was one clear standout. Thanks to David Korté’s painstaking network diagramming, his server racks look like a work of art.

Our amazing list of winners will receive a bounty of gifts fit for a SysAdmin. Their prize package includes caffeinated treats from ThinkGeek, OpenDNS swag, and perhaps most importantly, bragging rights to their friends and colleagues.

Thank you to everyone who entered and raised the bar for the 2011 OpenDNS SysAdmin Awards.

At OpenDNS, we think the SysAdmins and IT pros are the real unsung heroes. Even though you spend every day quietly averting disaster and keeping the network up and running, it’s not often you get the recognition you deserve. As you’ve probably learned from recent blog posts, the OpenDNS offices have been buzzing with projects meant to help us, and people around the world, celebrate SysAdmins.

We’re making it our priority for the entire month of July to celebrate SysAdmins everywhere! That’s why we’re not only throwing an epic bash in downtown San Francisco to celebrate SysAdmins, we’re also reminding bosses that come July 29 you deserve some special (and preferably caffeinated) recognition.

How the OpenDNS Boss Reminder Service works: Sending your boss a reminder is easy and they’ll never know you were the one who tipped us off. Simply fill out the form with your details and your boss’ name and email* and we’ll take care of the rest. A few days before the July 29 holiday your boss will receive an email that looks like this:

*Don’t worry. We won’t email you or your boss for anything except the friendly reminder service.

Nominations for the 2011 SysAdmin Awards will soon close and we want to make sure you get your nominations in. Deadline for entries is midnight PST July 12 so there’s still plenty of time. Take a few minutes NOW and honor yourself or an IT person/SysAdmin you admire and help him or her get the respect and acknowledgment they deserve. To nominate, tell us which award you are nominating the person for and email awards (at) opendns (dot) com.

And if you’re wondering, Yes! It’s okay to nominate yourself. You may be such a hero that nobody even knows what you went through to save the day!

The OpenDNS SysAdmin Awards is the only awards program that honors only SysAdmins and the great work they do. Because as we all know, SysAdmin’ing is a thankless job.

To recap, there are six categories this year and from all of the submissions in the six categories we’ll select one individual for the crown honor: 2011 SysAdmin of the Year.

The six categories being awarded are:

Best Disaster Response Award

A hurricane, a fire, an earthquake. A datacenter meltdown. Something that would have caused business operations to shut down completely, if it weren’t for this SysAdmin. Like a knight in shining armor, he or she managed to keep the network up and running. Your submission should include details about the disaster and how the SysAdmin handled it. If it involved you holding servers over your head in rising flood waters while you are wearing a snorkel, you would be a great candidate for this category.

Neat Freak Award

SysAdmins take pride in documentation and organization of cabling, wiring and racks. Wow the judges in this category with photographic evidence showing that your SysAdmin takes their wiring and racking work seriously and is the neatest and most organized of them all.

Shoestring Budget Award

This SysAdmin works wonders with a seriously tight budget. Tell us about the SysAdmin with the craziest buildout done on the cheap. We need details for this submission – tell the judges specs, total cost and what kind of awesomeness it powers. We respect the fact that you had to string fiber between buildings with a frisbee because you had no budget to trench across the street.

Flying Solo Award

Even with a team of talented operators, SysAdmin’ing is not easy work. But when flying solo it can be downright heroic. Regale us with a (true) story of the heroic SysAdmin who saved the world (or did something awesome) to save the day (or company) all by his or herself.

Large-Scale Deployment Award

Some jobs are too challenging to comprehend, but not for the SysAdmin who wins our Large-Scale Deployment Award. Tell us the story of a SysAdmin who has managed a massive amount of infrastructure from their diety-like fingertips with finesse and elegance. Tell us how big the deployment was, when it was built and what some of the impressive metrics it offered were (pageviews, megahertz, memory, rendering, etc.). Note, if you are the chief architect behind AWS and you are submitted as a candidate you will win this award.

DevOps Award

Often, the most successful SysAdmins are the ones who can write code and work well with others. OpenDNS and other large Internet sites like Flickr attribute much of their success to the close collaboration between engineering and operations. Share a success story of your own where the SysAdmin’s collaboration played a key role in a successful engineering project. Tell us when this happened, who was involved, and how you know it was successful.

The Bounty: Winners will be announced here on this blog, and all will receive a gift package from OpenDNS full of awesome goodies. Winners will also be VIP invited guests at the 5th Annual SysAdmin Appreciation Party in San Francisco on July 28, 2011 (which everyone is invited to).

Remember, email awards at OpenDNS dot com and wow us with your submission. Don’t wait to nominate! Good luck to all!

Have we mentioned how much we love SysAdmins here at OpenDNS? Not only do we love them, but we spend a good amount of our time thinking about how we can make their lives better and their jobs easier. Because after all, being a SysAdmin is a thankless job – it’s often not until something goes wrong that a SysAdmin is acknowledged and appreciated.

To celebrate our favorite unsung heroes, OpenDNS is announcing the fifth annual OpenDNS SysAdmin Awards, the only awards contest that honors only SysAdmins and the great work they do that everyone benefits from. This is your place to acknowledge the SysAdmin, network operator or IT person in your office, a SysAdmin you know or even yourself.

There are six categories, and from all of the submissions in the six categories we’ll select one individual for the crown honor: 2011 OpenDNS SysAdmin of the Year. Last year’s submission count was unprecedented and we look forward to better this year.

Without further ado, here are the six categories, plus what our judging panel — consisting of the OpenDNS operations team (which includes OpenDNS CEO David Ulevitch) — will be looking for in each category.

Best Disaster Response Award

A hurricane, a fire, an earthquake. A datacenter meltdown. Something that would have caused business operations to shut down completely, if it weren’t for this SysAdmin. Like a knight in shining armor, he or she managed to keep the network up and running. Your submission should include details about the disaster and how the SysAdmin handled it. If it involved you holding servers over your head in rising flood waters while you are wearing a snorkel, you would be a great candidate for this category.

Neat Freak Award

SysAdmins take pride in documentation and organization of cabling, wiring and racks. Wow the judges in this category with photographic evidence showing that your SysAdmin takes their wiring and racking work seriously and is the neatest and most organized of them all.

Shoestring Budget Award

This SysAdmin works wonders with a seriously tight budget. Tell us about the SysAdmin with the craziest buildout done on the cheap. We need details for this submission – tell the judges specs, total cost and what kind of awesomeness it powers. We respect the fact that you had to string fiber between buildings with a frisbee because you had no budget to trench across the street.

Flying Solo Award

Even with a team of talented operators, SysAdmin’ing is not easy work. But when flying solo it can be downright heroic. Regale us with a (true) story of the heroic SysAdmin who saved the world (or did something awesome) to save the day (or company) all by his or herself.

Large-Scale Deployment Award

Some jobs are too challenging to comprehend, but not for the SysAdmin who wins our Large-Scale Deployment Award. Tell us the story of a SysAdmin who has managed a massive amount of infrastructure from their diety-like fingertips with finesse and elegance. Tell us how big the deployment was, when it was built and what some of the impressive metrics it offered were (pageviews, megahertz, memory, rendering, etc.). Note, if you are the chief architect behind AWS and you are submitted as a candidate you will win this award.

DevOps Award

Often, the most successful SysAdmins are the ones who can write code and work well with others. OpenDNS and other large Internet sites like Flickr attribute much of their success to the close collaboration between engineering and operations. Share a success story of your own where the SysAdmin’s collaboration played a key role in a successful engineering project. Tell us when this happened, who was involved, and how you know it was successful.

How to nominate a SysAdmin for an award: To submit yourself or a fellow SysAdmin, just email awards at opendns dot com with the award category in the subject line. Follow the instructions for the category in your submission. Hint: The more detail in the submission the better.

Winners will be announced here on this blog, and all will receive a gift package from OpenDNS full of awesome goodies. Winners will also be VIP invited guests at the 5th Annual SysAdmin Appreciation Party in San Francisco on July 28, 2011 (more details forthcoming). Deadline for entry is midnight July 12, 2011.

Happy hacking and good luck!

Here at OpenDNS we’re always working on expanding our global footprint and adding datacenter locations around the world. Understanding why this is important is easy when you know two things:

1. The more servers and locations we have in operation, the more capacity we have.
2. The closer you are topologically to an OpenDNS server, the faster your DNS.

Today we’re announcing a new datacenter location in Frankfurt, Germany. Adding to our existing London and Amsterdam locations, the Frankfurt location helps make sure our DNS service is the fastest available to Internet users in Europe and provides much more overall capacity to European users (50% more).

Setting up a datacenter for the largest open recursive DNS service in the world is actually a pretty fun part of the job since we don’t get to rack and stack gear very often. While we have brought new sites online without ever setting foot onsite, by drop-shipping gear to a remote site and bringing it up from HQ, I was looking forward to a trip to Germany and volunteered to go and do the install myself. As icing on the cake, David surprised me with a first class upgrade, which was an awesome experience.

Doing a remote install? Some travel tips…

I’ve come up with a few tips for fellow operations folks who are doing remote installs:

1. Have a solid deployment checklist of everything you want at the site. That doesn’t just include routers, switches and servers, but everything you might need including screws, cage-nuts, power cables, extra power cables for your laptop, patch cables, couplers, adapters, SFPs, etc.
2. Set up all your power at the datacenter and make sure it’s working before you leave. Make sure you send your remotely manageable power distribution unit ahead of time. Power plugs and configurations differ country by country and you want to make sure your power is lit and working long before you fly somewhere to do an install. Despite the increased cost of a remotely managed power distribution unit, it will pay for itself after 1 or 2 remote-hands charges from your datacenter provider.
3. If you can avoid it, don’t book a flight until your gear has cleared customs. Customs handling time varies by country and there is nothing worse than arriving on-site and not being able to access your gear. We generally allocate about a week for customs in Europe, and a bit longer in Asia. In more developing nations, it can vary wildly from days to months.
4. Always plan for extra days. We prefer to schedule the installs to start on a Saturday or Sunday and then go into a Monday or Tuesday. This way we have the weekend when the datacenter is not busy to do all the physical racking and stacking. The on-site folks are more forgiving about making a mess usually, and often even offer to lend a hand. By the time Monday morning comes around, everything is racked and powered, and we can now work with the various networking providers to bring circuits online with the regular on-duty techs. There’s nothing wrong with finishing your install on a Monday and spending a couple days sightseeing. Having the extra time gives you some buffer to fix any major hiccups that may happen, and to source a replacement part locally.
5. The last tip is probably the most important. Take photos along the way, and at the end. We love having photos of our install, which we archive in our Wiki. This way, if we ever need to request remote-hands work from techs in the future, we don’t simply have to rely on labels on gear to figure things out. We can actually describe the location of equipment or annotate instructions for them on complicated remote-hands work.

I’ve included some photos of our install for you below. Hope you enjoy the photos, and our new Frankfurt datacenter!

Thanks for reading this far – now ditch your boring job and come work with me so we can add more datacenters and continue building the greatest DNS service in the world.

George Patterson is the Director of Operations for OpenDNS and one of the company’s earliest employees. Every day George and his team manage 15 datacenter locations around the world that collectively handle 30 billion DNS queries daily. OpenDNS has never had downtime. George likes to hire ops people who can code.

Next week, SysAdmins from around the country will be heading to San Jose, Calif., for the 24th annual Large Installation System Administration conference — and so will OpenDNS!

First, OpenDNS Founder David Ulevitch will be leading a Birds-of-a-Feather session Monday night, Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. He’ll be talking about how to build, deploy and manage a global DNS service, based on our experiences doing just that. His presentation will include time for Q&A and discussion.

Immediately following the talk, we’ll be heading over as a group Gordon Biersch on 33 East San Fernando Street in San Jose (it’s a quick walk from the conference). From 8–10 p.m., enjoy drinks and appetizers — on us! This is your opportunity to meet David personally and ask any questions you have — about DNS in general, setting up OpenDNS on your network or where our next datacenter will be. Please RSVP for the happy hour so we know how many people to plan for. Looking forward to seeing you there!

July 30 — System Administrator Day — is fast approaching. If you are a SysAdmin and you want to guarantee you’ll receive some kudos from your boss on Friday, make sure to sign up for our Boss Reminder Service. You only have one more day — tomorrow we’re sending out the reminders first thing in the morning, to give your boss plenty of time to buy you a thank you note, Starbucks gift card, or new server rack.

As a reminder, here’s what the note your manager gets will look like: