Lesson in Reliability: 25+ Years Later

I began as a system administrator in an environment where “documentation” was an oral tradition and backup meant hope. The first lesson was brutally simple: systems fail where there is no plan B. Over the years I’ve moved through roles like Senior System Administrator, IT Project Manager, and today — Head of IT Department. The common denominator: resilient systems under load and controlled incident response.

Early on, I realized that “it works on my machine” is an anti-pattern. I started introducing standards — naming conventions, versioning, change procedures, least privilege access, and clear role separations. This eliminated unnecessary “heroics” and turned chaos into a predictable process.

At the same time, we built habits for observability: measurable SLOs, alerts with thresholds and actions, traces and metrics, as well as regular post-mortems without blame — only causes and improvements. Small automations (backup verifications, health checks, log rotation, basic playbooks) reduced MTTR and brought silence at 3 a.m.

Gradually, we replaced “one-time tricks” with a platform: segmented networks, high-availability services, rehearsed DR scenarios, and regular recovery tests. Since then, my principle has remained the same: simple, visible, reproducible.

Because IT can be quiet: no 3 a.m. wake-ups, clear processes, and predictable recovery. The satisfaction comes from a team that works confidently by plan, not heroically “under fire.”

• Automation that reduces MTTR — not just slides.
• Observability and security as a routine, not a project.
• Simpler architecture → fewer surprises.