[OPINION] Best place in the US for NetAdmins

Sat Jul 26 17:52:19 UTC 2014

Don't forget that, while Virginia has MAE-EAST, the Bay area was the 
sister location: MAE-WEST.  MAE WEST now sits on the property of the 
NASA Ames Research Center, another excellent local employer and center 
for high-tech research and development.  They do ultra-high-speed 
networking research in particular, and have lots of interconnects down 
south to JPL and other universities and centers.

On 7/26/14, 10:13 AM, Owen DeLong wrote:
> 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?