UbuntuContributingDeveloper

I, Juan Negron, apply for Ubuntu Contributing Developer.

Name

Juan Negron

Launchpad Page

https://launchpad.net/~negronjl/

Wiki Page

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JuanNegron/

Who I am

Developer, DevOps, Systems Administrator, Network Engineer. Currently working at Canonical as Systems Integration Engineer.

I have been working with Linux since mid 1996 when I installed Slackware and played a bit with Slackware. I then moved to RedHat with secondary machines to play around that saw everything from Slackware to Mandrake ( back when it was still Mandrake ) until I found Debian where I stayed. A few years later, a friend mentioned Ubuntu and I never looked back. I have managed Ubuntu desktop and servers varying in numbers up to 500.

Have made contributions to OpenDNS and the LVM project among others.

My main work has been somewhere in the DevOps area where I develop software and solutions for Operation problems.

My Ubuntu story

In 2004, after using Linux for a few years and settling on Debian, a friend introduced me to a Debian variant called Ubuntu. Needless to say I never looked back and stayed with Ubuntu since 4.10. For me Ubuntu was the answer to ease of use with all of the added benefits of Linux. Ever since 2004, I have been working mainly in Ubuntu on both desktop as well as server.

Most of my professional career has been focused on Linux but for proprietary companies. After many years on the sidelines of OpenSource, with minimal contributions, I finally was given the opportunity to join Canonical Corporate Services to work on integration of packages and solutions to ease deployment onto cloud as well as bare metal infrastructures.

My involvement

Examples of my work / Things I'm proud of

In the past I have worked and contributed to Postfix, Puppet, facter, LVM, OpenDNS and cloud-init to various degrees.

Until recently I worked with the Orchestra Project, Orchestra Modules and the facter-plugins project. These days I work mostly on charms ( https://launchpad.net/charms ) for the Juju Project ( https://juju.ubuntu.com ) where I have contributed to the following charms:

  • MySQL ( lp:charms/mysql )
  • MongoDB ( lp:charms/mongodb )
  • Couchbase ( lp:charms/couchbase )
  • Hadoop ( lp:charms/hadoop-master, lp:charms/hadoop-slave, lp:charms/hadoop-mapreduce )
  • Memcached ( lp:charms/memcached )
  • Redis ( lp:charms/redis-master, lp:charms/redis-slave )
  • Tomcat ( lp:charms/tomcat6, lp:charms/tomcat7 )
  • Membase ( lp:charms/membase )
  • Cassandra ( lp:charms/cassandra )
  • DistCC ( lp:~negronjl/charms/oneiric/distcc/trunk )
  • GlusterFS ( lp:~negronjl/charms/oneiric/glusterfs/trunk )
  • Gearman ( lp:~negronjl/charms/oneiric/gearman-worker/trunk, lp:~negronjl/charms/oneiric/gearman-server/trunk, lp:~negronjl/charms/precise/gearman-worker/trunk, lp:~negronjl/charms/precise/gearman-server/trunk )
  • CouchDB ( lp:charms/couchdb )
  • CloudFoundry

    • lp:charms/cf-redis
    • lp:charms/cf-mongodb
    • lp:charms/cf-mysql
    • lp:charms/cloudfoundry-server-dea
    • lp:charms/cloudfoundry-server

I have also contributed to the charm-helper project where I worked on the search and get subcommands ( lp:charm-tools )

While working for Barracuda Networks, I worked on enhancements and bug-fixes to Postfix, OpenDNS and LVM that helped various Barracuda appliances.

I have worked to some extent on Puppet by creating and maintaining several Puppet modules for the orchestra project ( https://launchpad.net/orchestra ) and the modules for it ( https://launchpad.net/orchestra-modules )

While working on the Orchestra Project, I created and maintain the facter-plugins project to consolidate the different plugins for facter under a stable project and, as the first plugin of this project, to provide a dynamic way of creating/maintaining facts within the facter ecosystem.

I currently have two packages in Ubuntu Oneiric and Precise:

I also recently became a member of the Ubuntu BugSquad Team( https://launchpad.net/~bugsquad ).

Areas of work

My main area of work has been focused around charm development for the Systems Integration Team at Canonical as well as the community as a whole. I have worked with many vendors in helping them "charm" their current offerings to Juju charms. I have worked closely with VMWare with their CloudFoundry PaaS offering which is now an easily deployable charm.

I am part of the charmers group ( https://launchpad.net/~charmers ) which are the reviewers of Juju Charms. This team is for people who are committed to reviewing charms and reviewing other people's submissions.

I've been the main contributor to the Orchestra Modules project that maintains a list of puppet modules for Orchestra. This requires not only knowledge of the deployment inner-workings of projects like Apache, haproxy, Tomcat, distcc, glusterfs, hadoop, and others but, advanced knowledge of Puppet, it's language and it's module structure to ensure that Orchestra is able to deploy solutions to cloud and bare metal alike.

Things I could do better

I need to be more knowledgeable about the Debian Policy and have better packaging practices.

Plans for the future

General

Immerse myself in the Ubuntu Server experience to ensure that Ubuntu/Orchestra/juju are able to provide the best of breed server and solutions to SysAdmins and DevOps alike.

What I like least in Ubuntu

The package review process. Necessary but, slow.


Comments

If you'd like to comment, but are not the applicant or a sponsor, do it here. Don't forget to sign with @SIG@.


Endorsements

As a sponsor, just copy the template below, fill it out and add it to this section.

DustinKirkland

-- kirkland 2011-06-13 21:19:21

General feedback

Juan is definitely an active Ubuntu Contributing Developer. Juan has contributed some outstanding code, testing, and packaging to Ubuntu and Ubuntu 11.10 users will most certainly value his contributions very soon.

Specific Experiences of working together

I have managed and worked with Juan for a few months and in that time, I have seen Juan rapidly learn Debian packaging. I'm impressed with his ability to solve hard problems and deliver outstanding quality on a short schedule. Specifically, I've reviewed a number Juan's packages and code, mostly around the Ubuntu Orchestra project, facter-plugins, and orchestra-modules.

Areas of Improvement

Juan's packaging skills are improving rapidly, and he doesn't have much further to go, but a bit more track time will serve him well here. Juan's skills and DevOps experience will one day make him a valuable Ubuntu MOTU and Core Dev.

Andres Rodriguez

-- andreserl 2011-06-14 14:43:49

General Feedback

Juan is a great Ubuntu Contributing Developer. His ideas, work and passion for Ubuntu are greatly seen and demonstrated with his willingness to work and provide the best of his skills, by providing code, testing, and packaging.

Specific Experiences of working together

We've interacted various times discussing several aspects of cobbler and consequently Orchestra. He's always keen to learn as well as he's always been keen to help in whatever needed!

Areas of Improvement

I believe those would be packaging related, but I'm sure that while being a Contributing Developer, he'll get the necessary experience to become a core dev some time in the future.

Chuck Short

-- zulcss

General Feedback

Juan has gotten off to a great start. He has shown that he a good depth of knowledge of dev-ops philosphy. He is eager to work and accepts feedback when its offered to him.

Specific Experiences of working together

I have interacted with Juan numerous times both in person and online. He has keen since of understanding of things like puppet.

Areas of Improvement

Juan still needs to work on his packaging skills and in time should go for MOTU and probably Ubuntu Server Dev.

Dave Walker (Daviey)

-- davewalker

General Feedback

I first met Juan at UDS-Oneiric, and was really impressed by his drive and passion to some of the Orchestra deliverables. His knowledge of puppet seemed to be rather impressive. Generally, he seems to be a good cookie.

Specific Experiences of working together

I have worked together on some Orchestra related dependencies. Additionally, the input he provided during UDS sessions I found to be most useful.

Areas of Improvement

For Contributing Developer status, none. To further enhance his developer experience, he should probably have more exposure to triaging and bug fixing of archive packages. Additionally, SRU process, MIR, merges and sync's.

ClintByrum

-- clint-fewbar

General feedback

Juju is a project which helps give Ubuntu Server a leg up in the future of the cloud. Juan has been one of the most vital members of the juju community since joining it, giving talks about it and contributing code to the developer tools, as well as writing and enhancing some of the most important "charms" for juju.

Before that Juan did a lot with orchestra, which is also an integral part of Ubuntu Cloud Infrastructure deployments and Ubuntu Server in general.

Juan's work has definitely led to more Ubuntu adoption and he has demonstrated that he is both personally an professionaly invested in making Ubuntu a success.

Specific Experiences of working together

I've reviewed a lot of Juan's contributions to the juju and orchestra projects. I've looked at quite a large percentage of the work Juan mentions above, and have also asked Juan to review many changes for me.

Areas of Improvement

I'd love to see Juan contribute some more packaging, but his juju work is vital, and I'd be thrilled with Juan spending most of his time just making the juju charms and tools even better.

Jorge Castro

-- jorge

General feedback

I know this is a developer application but I'd like to chime on the community aspect of Juan's work as I've been working with him a little bit last cycle and have been working with him more this cycle.

Juan has given talks at Cloud Days, MongoDB meetups, and over events on the west coast. He's a great public speaker that can explain complicated things (like juju) in ways normal people can understand, and since he already has a bunch of devops experience he's knowledgeable in the area enough to help people understand how ubuntu can help them.

UDS-Q was the first UDS where we could work more closely together on juju related things. Juan manned the Charm School room helping attendees work on their charms and giving tutorial sessions for hours on end. His work to improve the review queue for juju is also critical in enabling us to be responsive to contributions from outside the core group.

Now that Juan has this UDS under his belt and met the community juju contributors I think he's doing a great job working with the community contributions.

Areas of Improvement

  • I'd like to see you become more involved in the ubuntu-california Local Team!
  • I will likely tap you a bunch this cycle for more community-facing events, like OpenWeeks, public hangouts, and other events that showcase the awesome things going on in Ubuntu and Juju.


TEMPLATE

== <SPONSORS NAME> ==
=== General feedback ===
## Please fill us in on your shared experience. (How many packages did you sponsor? How would you judge the quality? How would you describe the improvements? Do you trust the applicant?)

=== Specific Experiences of working together ===
''Please add good examples of your work together, but also cases that could have handled better.''
=== Areas of Improvement ===


CategoryUniverseContributorApplication

JuanNegron/UbuntuContributingDeveloper (last edited 2012-05-30 16:18:56 by c-67-180-201-185)