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Part 1 Part 2 Part 4 At last the server is ready. Exchanged the mainboard with the SuperMicro board. Although it is now running “only” 16GB of RAM, it is ECC memory… So no more risk is broken ZFS pools. Replacing the board was quite easy. I also took the opportunity to add a nice Noctua CPU cooler to the kit. Just a matter of preparing the board with the CPU, Memory and CPU-cooler. remove the MSI board and re-locate one spacer. Reconnect the wires and done. Besides the benefit of ECC memory I also now have the access to IPMI, now I can control the fans and whatnot via a web-interface. Pretty interesting feature. ...

Part 1 Part 3 Part 4 So I made a mistake. And a big one. I jumped the gun with my choices for the motherboard, cpu & memory. My original post has a nice list for a very nice PC, not one that is really good for this purpose. The use of ECC capable memory, cpu and motherboard is paramount for a ZFS based storage solution. So what to do. Already purchased these components and are nice mid-range specs. ...

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Over 30 years ago I started with “playing” with a Mac in the role of server. The first steps into what turned out to be part of my profession. All these time I have had administrator access to one or more server(s) running on the Apple platform. However the time has come to say goodbye to the MacOS and the Apple platform as a server platform. ...

In the private VPS cloud solution I have built and setup for Pro Warehouse there was a small nagging issue that needed to be solved. I wanted to have a routed layer 2 network and be able to use the public load balancers provided by the VPS provider. When we started the platform, we got the non-routed layer 2 network up and running pretty fast. Adding a OpenVPN server made the Site-2-Site more and less working. It works, the only caveat I had was that everybody had the same originating source IP in the layer 2 network. We still had the issue that all of the servers could access the internet directly. And with the number of server rising ( > 40 ) an increasing worry. ...

At my place of work (Pro Warehouse) we use OPNSense as our router/firewall, a very nice HardenedBSD based firewall and routing platform. So off-course I wanted something like that at home as well. After playing and getting a couple of miniPC’s from Ali, I had a good start on with it. However something was constant off, I just could not put my finger on it, but just some nagging in the back of my head. The router was always hot, throughput not really great. ...

My server was still running Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, so time to think about upgrading the OS. Besides the upgrading I was a bit fed-up with the whole Wordpress setup. Not really happy with the product. So how to solve these two issues? After a hiatus of around 12 years back into using FreeBSD as the OS on the server. In a couple of hours I setup a new droplet with FreeBSD as host OS. Pretty simple and memory muscle returned. Did get myself a nice book on the topic: “Absolute FreeBSD, third Edition” To me more of a nice reference book. Help full that is for sure. ...

During this pandemic I needed to get away from it all. Just me and my camera gear. Where to go? The one of the “Wadden eilanden” came to mind. A bit too expensive. In the end I went to Veluwe near Apeldoorn. Got myself a nice hotel and went hiking and lugging the gear around. Did spot some wildlife. The next day I took some nice photo’s, it was a very nice trip and it did reset the mind a bit. ...

This month (June 2018) I started working for Pro Warehouse. One of two Apple Enterprise Resellers in the Netherlands. When working for this company I get to combine my two areas of expertise: Development Apple System Engineering When attending the WWDC'08, ten years ago, I made the conscious move from System Engineering to full-time development. Started as a junior developer in ‘10, and increased my skills as a developer over the past years. I learned a lot and keep on learning every day. I just love the challenges development throws at me. ...

While working for Sogeti I was working as iOS developer (contractor) for Connected Health Devices (CHD) at Philips Health which created and maintained products that measure and track vital signs like heartrate, blood pressure, weight and temperature. Within CHD the software team develops and supports high-quality, medical grade software for the Philips Health Watch and its derivatives. Through development and support of various mobile plugins, they also make sure that all CHD devices can connect to multiple Philips connected propositions. One example of such a proposition is the Philips Health app, available on both iOS and Android. I was responsible for the maintaining of the main library and the plugins that are part of the Philips Health app. Besides this maintenance, I participated in a number of PoC projects that used the same structure. ...

Last Sunday I finally found and made the time to start reading the book that was recommended to me over a year ago: “The Phoenix Project”. It was a nice quite Sunday at home, doors open to the garden, good music on and started reading in the morning. After a couple of chapters I was unable to put it away. It was such a catching read, ten hours later, book done. It was a very long time ago that I was able to read for that long a period. ...