Robert Gornall aka KHobbits
Systems Infrastructure/Automation Engineer.
Who am I?
I began learning to code in the dial up days of the internet, studied Network Computing at university, and arrived just in time to catch the Minecraft hype train when it was still in beta.
After leading development on the Open Source Minecraft plugin Essentials for 5 years, speaking at events, and signing foam swords, I was forced to find a job that would pay the rent.
Spent the last 10 years as a DevOps/Cloud/Automation/Infrastructure Engineer, involved with running the London Meetup and conference scene.
Development
The first programming language I picked up was QBasic, followed by mIRC Script, TCL and PHP.
While in University, I studied Java Object Oriented programming and ended up as Lead Developer for the Essentials Minecraft Plugin.
Over the years I’ve since taught myself a bit of JavaScript, Bash, Ruby, and Golang.
I try to make sure I put aside some time each month to dust off my IDE, and write something that will make my life easier.
Networking
Back in University I studied Cisco’s CCNA, however these days I feel more at home in the CLI of: Mellanox, HP Aruba, and Juniper.
I have managed a global deployment of Checkpoint Firewalls & VPN, scaling up to allow people to weather the COVID storm from home.
Ran the core network infrastructure for global operations at a VFX and media company.
More recently I deployed Spine and Leaf into the Data Centre, using Juniper Apstra.
Cloud
For over 20 years I’ve been hosting websites, starting with shell boxes, to VPS, and now via microservices in the Public Cloud.
10+ years experience working with AWS, on small, medium and large deployments.
5+ years experience working with GCP, on render farm deployments.
Over 2 years experience building out ‘hyperconverged’ infrastructure based around Nutanix.
DevOps
My first foray into DevOps was setting up the CI/CD pipelines in Jenkins, and later TeamCity, back in the early Minecraft days. I have been running CI/CD infrastructure every day since.
Currently I’m managing Self-Hosted GitLab, including GitLab Kubernetes Runners to enable agile development.
Infrastructure
I’ve always been a fan of Hybrid Cloud, as on-prem & colocation can be just as interesting as Public Cloud. At the moment I’ve got 100+ racks, split across multiple DCs in London.
When designing infrastructure I always aim for it to be as resilient & redundant as possible, as it’s a long train journey to the DC.
Platform
I want my infrastructure designs good enough that other people can just pick up and carry the torch, with self-service being the goal.
That means designing systems that can handle misconfiguration from users without imploding, and have training-wheels and safeguards as standard.
Automation
I prefer to solve a problem once, properly and ideally never have to think about it again.
Clouds can have bad days. The right tooling will save you midnight calls from PagerDuty.
Some days will have me working with Docker, Kubernetes, Flux, Terraform, Ansible, Chef, Puppet, Foreman, scripting and too many things written in YAML.
Currently diving into network automation.
Security
Assuming nothing is secure, everything is vulnerable. I’ve bought into the principle of least privilege, and the goal is to limit the blast radius.
I design and maintain infrastructure allowing my company to work with unreleased product material from big brand clients.
Building out tiered networks with no internet, and ‘air gap’ environments that still allow for data exchange.
Open Source & Community
I managed a global open source project and community based around Minecraft plugins.
Contributing to open source projects, with code, documentation, and support.
Co-Organizer of the Docker.London social Meetup.
Help out at events like DevOpsDays London and previously managed teams of volunteers at Insomnia Gaming Festival.
It’s not all about work?
If you bump into me on the Tube, you’ll probably catch me reading something fantastical about Wizards, Dragons or some twisted fantasy future.
You may have guessed from the talk about Minecraft, I’m a gamer, but tend to enjoy story driven games, rather than multiplayer, although you can sometimes find me grinding out a season of Destiny.
If you bump into me in a pub, I’ll likely have an IPA in hand, or a glass of whisky, after breaking the seal.
I still get out and about in the London Meetup scene, so you might catch me anywhere someone is talking about the next big thing in Kubernetes.
If you can’t find me, there is a good chance you will bump into my partner @DevOpsDomi.