[OPINION] Best place in the US for NetAdmins

Sat Jul 26 17:13:03 UTC 2014

Personally, I think the SF bay area has you beat.

Bill, on your list of not so wonderful things in DC, you left off:

	Weather
		In the sumer, the DC area is, well, what you’d expect from a hot, humid, fetid swamp.
		In the winter, you can make ice cream outside without rock salt (though there’s plenty of
			salt available on the roads).
		The spring and fall aren’t bad (for about 2 weeks each). Otherwise, the weather is not
		at all wonderful in that area.

SF has a very wide variety of cultural exhibitions, activities, and institutions. We also have nearly as wide a variety of ethnic cuisine as you can find in New York (wider than DC/NoVA from what I’ve seen, actually). We also have a major concentration of technology and internet-oriented startups, including such iconic names as Google, Facebook, Adobe, Dropbox, Netflix, Apple, Fry’s Electronics, and more. We’re the only region to have three TechShops in addition to a number of other makerspaces and hackerspaces, including the original Noise Bridge SF (to the best of my knowledge, the first public maker/hacker space in the US, having opened its doors in 2008 (or possibly earlier), patterned after such spaces in Europe.

The bay area has great cultural diversity, lots of fun things to do, and is within a relatively short drive of mountains, desert, ocean (beaches and cliffs available), awesome SCUBA diving, great downhill and XC skiing, hang gliding, sailing, and more. There’s a strong and active General Aviation community and lots of places to rent airplanes and helicopters.

Contrary to Bill’s claims, we have nearly as many data centers housing lots of interconnect, content providers, etc. out here, too. We’re also a primary gateway to Asia and the Pacific as well as Australia.

Our weather is pretty much temperate year round.

Owen

On Jul 25, 2014, at 2:31 PM, William Herrin <bill at herrin.us> wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 7:20 PM, Nolan Rollo <nrollo at kw-corp.com> wrote:
>> I've been trying to decide for a while what makes a good
>> home for a Network Admin... access to physical, reliable
>> upstream routes? good selection of local taverns? What, in
>> your opinion, makes a good location for a Network Admin
>> and where in the US would you find that?
> 
> Hi Nolan,
> 
> Back in the days of lore when the Internet ran over telephone lines
> instead of the other way around, the most substantial long haul
> communications hub in the country was Northern Virginia's Dulles
> Corridor. More than any other area, leased lines to and from anywhere
> transited northern VA because that's how the long distance telephone
> infrastructure was built. Move the call here, switch it, move it back
> out. This made it the cheapest place to hub your Internet backbone.
> Indeed, the first large Internet Exchange Point, MAE-East was
> originally a FDDI ring at 8100 Boone Blvd, Vienna VA in the area known
> as Tysons Corner.
> 
> The Internet is much more distributed now, but the area still retains
> its legacy. Lots of Internet companies continue to house major
> facilities here and operations such as ARIN are headquartered here.
> More, many of the folks you've come to know on NANOG and in other
> forums live and work here.
> 
> Bonuses:
> With the possible exception of NYC, nowhere in the U.S. has more or
> finer quality cultural institutions than DC and its suburbs (Northern
> Virginia). The Smithsonian's extensive network of museums, the Kennedy
> Center, and so on.
> Federal money tends not to wander far, so you'll never want for paying
> work in Northern Virginia.
> Nowhere I've traveled has a broader selection of good restaurants.
> Most places have a local food with a bunch of good restaurants for
> that food, but we have all the foods and at least a few restaurants
> for each which are exceptional.
> Casual conversation is heavy on politics and matters of import
> 
> Less than wonderful:
> Not the worst traffic in the nation but not far from it
> High rent, high cost of living
> Political conversation is inescapable
> 
> 
>> good selection of local taverns?
> 
> Octoberfest at the German embassy annex at Dulles Airport. ;)
> 
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin
> 
> 
> -- 
> William Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
> Owner, Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/>
> Can I solve your unusual networking challenges?