About

Disclaimers

Who am I?

My name is Sebastien Wains.

I’m the automation strategist for Belgium and Luxembourg at Red Hat, the leading provider of enterprise open source solutions.

I advise customers on their automation journeys. I’m at the cross road of technology (through some solid technical background) and business (through my education in business management).

I’ve earned some Red Hat certifications over the years. In April 2007, I gained my Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) badge and a few months after joining Red Hat, I’ve earned the Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA) title (March 2019 to be precise).

My certification ID is 110-643-822.

All those certifications have expired now as they are not super essentials to my current role.

A bit more about me

Infrastructure Nerd

I like building simple, fast, powerful, resilient, secure and automated infrastructures. Preferably based on open tools and protocols. I care about security and privacy (without specifically being an expert).

Automation Nerd

I automate things whenever I can! I’ve been a big fan of many IT and home automation tools. I’ve used a bunch: Ansible, Terraform, SaltStack, Node-RED, Home Assistant, Domoticz, Automagic, MacroDroid, Homebridge, etc.

Linux Nerd

I’m a heavy keyboard user and as such, bspwm is my current window manager. I wrote about my bspwm desktop environment. Before that I’ve used i3wm for about 6 years and wrote about it here. I use Ulauncher with workflows to automate things around the desktop and around the house.

Besides computers

When I’m not busy at the computer, I travel, hike, ski, watch IT Crowd, camp out and take photos.

Personality

I’m an INTJ: INTJs are known as the “Systems Builders” of the types, perhaps in part because they possess the unusual trait of combining imagination and reliability. ~ Marina Margaret Heiss

Talks and conferences

2017-04-20: I talked about SaltStack at Jeudis du Libre conference. Check my Github for the decks.

2020-06-10: I talked about Red Hat Consulting Services and Ansible at Ansible Automates EMEA 2020.

2022-03-29: Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes at Open'22 by Kangaroot in Antwerpen

2022-05-31: Ansible Automation Platform live demo at Ansible Automates 2022 in Vilvoorde

2023-now: Red Hat Tech Day (Belgium and Luxemboug), Red Hat Summit Connect (Brussels), Voxxed Days Luxembourg, Arrow events, etc.

About this blog

Iterations

This site has gone through six major design revisions and went full static in 2015:

Top Post

The blog post that has and keeps dragging the most visitors is my article about Tcpdump advanced filters:

https://blog.wains.be/2007/2007-10-01-tcpdump-advanced-filters/

This blog doesn’t track you!

So much so that I don’t even know how many visitors I get. I used to know but I stopped tracking.

You found a mistake on this site?

Please open an issue on Github.