LEAN Operations: Applying 100 Years of Manufacturing Knowledge to Modern IT

IT has evolved from an internal back-office services support team to an operations group that is responsible for service delivery to the end customer. Modern education hasn't prepared systems administrators with the skills and knowledge to meet these new challenges. Strikingly similar challenges were encountered in the manufacturing sector 100 years ago, many of which can and should be applied today in IT Operations to avoid reinventing the proverbial wheel. In this talk we will explore the problems, solutions, and applications that can give you a jump on the problems facing sysadmins today and in the decade to come.

Ben Rockwood is the Director of Cloud Operations for Joyent. With almost 20 years of UNIX systems administration experience, he has been an active blogger and writer for more than a decade. He strongly believes that "SA's help SA's." He lives in California, loves his wife and the challenges of systems administration, and is the father of five.