转眼间又过了一个月，这个月总体来说效率不高，对自己也不是很满意。

Grafana与Prometheus

第一周基本就是在试着用Grafana，换句话说 - 摸鱼

作为Service Engineer一部分的工作就是要保证各个服务器运转正常，并且服务器负载在合理的范围内。于是就要用到prometheus和grafana Prometheus是一个Time-series Database，负责收集各个节点的信息，并保存到Time-series Database中。而Grafana则是一个绘图工具，query Time-series Database，然后把图像呈现出来。

这个月第一个任务就是学会如何query Prometheus的database，然后修改一个grafana dashboard。

在写query的时候，所有metric都没办法获取数值，我最开始以为是自己query language用错了，于是啃了两天文档。后来发现原来是Docker Container的存储爆了，Prometheus设置的最大缓存容量比Docker Container分配的存储容量大，于是Prometheus直到把Docker Image填满了也没有清理以前的数据。 于是我的同事清了一下数据，但是清完存储无论如何都无法更新docker image，最后是config的单位错了，应该是GB而不是g…

第一周就这么摸过来了。

打死也不用Windows了 - 被chef kitchen折磨的两三周

这个任务本身很小，但事实证明做起来十分费劲

我需要修改一个Chef 的cookbook，不过并不是修改了就结束了，我需要进行测试来确保我修改好的cookbook可以稳定运行。公司的production level跟自己个人项目接触实在是差别太大了。自己的项目可以很灵活，坏了修复就好了。不过production level的东西在发布前必须反复测试，并且要确保把版本锁定在能用的版本上,至少锁在major release版本号上（#.#.#中的第一个数字）。

由于企业版的ChefDK要交一笔不菲的费用（大部分开源软件都是这样挣钱的），黑莓用的是n年以前的版本，那个时候还不需要企业付费。但伴随着的就是所有相关的插件也要固定在以前那个版本。因此锁定版本是一个很费力的工作。为了安装test-kitcehn来测试我的cookbook，我用了整整一个星期。 总体来说，我感觉大量的时间花在了一些看起来redundent的工作上，比如解决认证权限问题，解决测试问题。其实某种程度上只能赖自己能力不足，不可否认的是解决这些问题的过程中确实增长了一些能力，比如对linux文件系统的熟悉程度。

第三周的时候我真的是想要放弃，我跟我的coop buddy说能不能绕过测试这一步，或者让他帮我测试一下。不过等他回复我的时候我自己把问题解决了…看来确实不应该那么早放弃。不过有的时候自己试着做了很多去解决一个问题，最后发现问题不在自己这边，这种感觉真的很沮丧。（我在配置的时候无论如何也登录不到VM上，琢磨了半天是不是自己ssh key类型的问题，最后发现是团队没有把我加入到安全组里面。）

由于很多是公司内部使用的环境，基本所有的问题都没法在网上找答案。错误信息这次不能直接复制到浏览器里，而是跟着错误信息到源代码看到底哪里有bug。其次就是问同事，但同事经常要过一阵子才有答案，而且未必总是正确的。为了能够得到正确的答案，就要问出正确的问题，也是要去源代码看的。因为有的时候表面上是参数类型不正确(can’t convert nil to string)，实际上是我电脑上没有生成ssh-key；表面上是参数长度不正确(length is 219, expect 21)，实际上是ssh-key类型不正确。

至少现在，我敢去直接到源代码里面找问题所在，也能更从容的面对shell返回的错误信息。

Jira - 第一个工单 - 项目管理

第二周的时候老板给我了我第一个工单，用的是Jira平台，我也第一次知道了工作单到底是什么。老板给我介绍了不同种类的工作单，了解了Jira这个平台后我其实是很激动的，因为自己之前用的任务管理软件都只有文件夹的层次关系，很难描绘出Task A blocked by Task B这种场景。Jira给了一种更灵活的管理方式，也能自定义工作流。老板给我讲完的当天我就试着用Jira列了一下自己personal project的任务清单，结果就是发现了之前一直都没有一个明确的方向，总是这个功能做一点，那个功能做一点，然后想一下发现有一些功能实现起来太复杂，然后放弃。Jira给我带来的感觉就是“有序”，把之前散落一地的task捡起来，排好序，再摆到了我面前。

PD19 - 采访同事的作业 - Informational interview for Service Engineer

PD19课程要求做一个informational interview，所以我问了我的coop mentor。下面是我问的问题以及他的答案，感觉还是挺收益的吧。

• What keeps you stay in Blackberry?

The people i work with and probably just some pride in being here. I am comfortable where I am and money is not a big driver in my life and I still continue to learn new things.

• Why you switched from the NOC to HELM?

I did a development opportunity with the HELM team while i was in the NOC and a few months later Anna offered me a job with helm, moving off of shift work and going to a team that wanted me was a big deal.

• What is a most challenge problem you resolved with your work?

The most challenging problem is always the one I don’t think i have the skills to do. I was assigned to help move our Intersect SV in 2020 April (right after we moved to work from home) and I thought it was going to be an impossible task because i did not have any python coding skills going in. I was able to still complete it in time and it felt really good.

• What are the key charasterics and skills (both technical and non-technical) one should have to be in this field?

Humility, I’ve found that in my experiences with other people in the field that if you think you know it all you don’t and your going to rub people the wrong way. You might always need to work with someone in the future so its never good to treat someone poorly be humble with what you know but be able to back up what you do know. For technical skills its hard to pinpoint what is “important” because it changes, someone may say something is the most imporant code to know and 10 years later people have stopped using it. I think its more important to be able to have the ability to take what you know about one technical skill and transfer whatever percentage you can to the new thing you are working on.

• What do you think is the most boring in this job?

Meetings & paperwork. They are both important and they both can provide value (going back to remember what you did or writing down what you did to support your teammates) but sometimes they are very boring. Also, being in enterprise makes it possible for certain “smart” people to be toxic because we can’t afford to lose them. (这句话是后来他私下跟我说的，因为不是很方便打字写出来)

• What do you get from this job? what do you find the most rewarding?

I get to help support some great security products while working with great people. The thing i find most rewarding is finishing work I get assigned that I think at the start I have no idea what I can do.

• What would you say to your younger self? (What would you have done differently)

There are lots of lessons you’ll learn but learn from them or you’ll repeat them. Don’t try and compare your skills to your co-workers because they might be more skilled then you and if you think you are stupid because your co-worker is more skills that’s probably not true that you are stupid (This is something that even current day Ian has a problem with).