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A day in the life of....

Posted on Feb 03, 2012 | Tags: | Comments (0)

What are you working on?

At the moment, I’m busy working on designing a new internal infrastructure which builds upon our existing services and provides upgrades which are needed for IPv6 enablement. IPv6 is needed due to the shortage of IP addresses available on IPv4 which is what most internet services currently run on.

Where did the idea come from?

We are always striving to improve our internal infrastructure so that we can demonstrate to external clients the resilience and high quality of our work, so this is an ongoing project as part of a wider group strategy to enhance our infrastructure.

Who else is working on this with you?

The new platform will be implemented by various members of the infrastructure team, each of who brings their own expertise to the project. We also work with the project team closely to ensure it is delivered on time.

How long have you been working on this for?

In between other projects I’ve been working on this for around 6 months. We’ve spent a long time planning and designing the solution to ensure that it fits in with our customers’ needs and that it also fits in with our overall strategy.

What all will be involved?

Migrating away from many physical servers and virtualising the services that these provided. We will be using multiple Random Number Generators to help provide entropy which will ensure services provided remain fast and, most importantly, secure.

What impact does this project have?

Virtualisation is allowing us to move from 14 physical servers across sites down to just 4, which reduces power usage and physical upkeep of the servers. These services will also be enabled for IPv6.

Why are you doing it?

On top of the IPv6 enablement, we want to reduce the physical footprint needed for the services provided and help us to continue increasing the reliability of our service.

What difference will it make to our customers?

It will help enable our customers to move to an IPv6 network and add some additional features to our DNS offering. This allows many more IP addresses to be assigned to our customers and ensure that their services continue to run as expected as people eventually move away from the current standard, IPv4.

When will it be complete?

We expect to have the new infrastructure in place within 2 months but there will be a migration period which is expected to take several months to complete.

What else are you involved in?

I’m currently involved with our sales team and new customers designing infrastructures to fit their new requirements. I also spend some time working with our Online Publishing division and some of their more recent projects.

Who do you report into?

Director of Operations

What other parts of the business do you work closely with?

I work closely with the infrastructure and sales team within Online Technology and outwith that I work with our Online Publishing division whenever required.

What has been your biggest achievement at brightsolid to date?

Being part of the team at brightsolid that successfully delivered the hosting of the 2011 Scottish Census.

Why are you proud of this?

This was a hugely important project, not just for me or even brightsolid, but for Scotland. The Census helps drive where funding should be supplied to Government services and aiding that process is immensely satisfying.