About Alan Robertson

Alan Robertson (a.k.a. alanr@unix.sh) founded the Linux-HA[1] development effort, acted as project leader for 10 years - from 1998 through 2008. He is employed by IBM[2] and was part of the Linux Technology Center (LTC[3]) for five years. He created a good bit of the content of this web site. He has a set of test clusters[4] in his basement. In September, 2007, he started a blog[5] on managing computers.

For historical and career details, see his biography[6] and resume[7].

Alan is known to be opinionated, enthusiastic, has a sense of humor which ranges from whimsical to slightly outrageous, a certain fondness for memorable phrases, has a friend who makes HAt[8]s for him, and a lovely and intelligent wife who is making one or more LinuxQuilt[9]s for him.

Non-Christian books Alan is reading at the moment:

• The No Asshole Rule[10] - a great book about a great rule, which unfortunately is relevant.

• Leadership Unbound[11]

• The Entrepreneur's Guide To Business Law[12]

• Your First Business Plan[13]

• Business Plans That Work[14]

• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln[15]

Themes Alan is known to repeat over and over:

• Complexity and Reliability[16]

• Who Wants Low-Availability Systems?[17]

• The Three R's of High-Availability[18]

His theory is "When ya don't know many tunes, ya gotta sing da ones ya know". It comes as no surprise to people who know him that he has a T-shirt which says "Real Men Sing Real Loud".

A few of his favorite things from the HA world. Some serious, some amusing.

• His favorite acronym is STONITH[19]

• His favorite picture is ThePyramidPicture[20]

As a fairly frequent international traveler, he has his own theories on how to handle jet lag[21].

For the excessively weird out there, he offers this collection of pictures[22] of him - found by Google, and one from OLS2002[23], and one from the Minneapolis Cluster Summit[24]. On a similarly excessive note, there is an interview[25] with him, and even a second interview[26]. You can find his family's photo album at Fotki[27].

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CategoryHomepage[28]

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This information provided courtesy of the Linux-HA project at http://linux-ha.org/