If you find yourself in a situation that requires assistance, it's best to contact your local authorities or emergency services or reach out to someone reliable and resourceful in your life.
But think for a moment how it would be to just beam some light at the night sky and call your superhero… It would be a much easier life to have your own personal “Batman”.
Even though Batman is a fictional character, Anton (@AntonPineiro), our next Community hero, is real. We know we can always count on him. And we don’t even need to call him, as on his own, he watches over our Community.
The best way to get to know him better and to “see” who is behind the hero’s mask is just to read this article, so enjoy!
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Can you share some details about your past? What is your story, and how it happened that you decided to work in the IT / observability area?
Hi Community. I am Anton from Spain, and I was not an IT guy from the beginning. As a good Spanish child, my full-time was soccer 😄 but I always had high scores in mathematics and philosophy.
I was born in a small town in northern Spain without advanced technology. I have good memories of my childhood during school, always with friends, and training soccer after classes. I think I had my first computer at home when I was 13 years old, more or less. It was used for paperwork and video games mainly. No internet connection and no technical stuff until I was in university.
I had chosen computer engineering in university because I liked mathematics and computers but had no idea about programming then. During university, programming, algorithmics, data structures, and operative systems were the things that I liked the most. Also, during that time, I joined various university forums and discovered the free software movement and “communities” related to software development.
Can you tell us a little bit about your professional life? Where do you work, and what do you do in your job? And how does Dynatrace fit into the picture?
I have been working in Spain always, being involved in international projects since 2016. I started in sysadmin roles: GNU/Linux, Unix, and network and database operations. Programming skills were used for automation tasks using Bash, POSIX shell scrips, Perl 5, and Python 2/3.
I discovered what “monitoring” means and why it is important in those sysadmin roles, using network and system monitoring solutions such as Zabbix, Nagios, SAP Solution Manager, IBM Tivoli Monitoring… Then, Dynatrace came into the picture to unlock other use cases in relation to APM and Synthetic Monitoring.
I was more focused on Dynatrace Synthetics (Classic) and Enterprise Synthetics (not available now; it was used for monitoring rich/desktop applications) initially. I was an SME of Synthetics monitoring and started learning about AppMon and “Ruxit”. Since then, I have been in “monitoring teams” in different roles, using Dynatrace full-time for infrastructure or application monitoring, helping customers achieve their goals.
Well, it is difficult to highlight only one scenario, but comparing Dynatrace to others - it saves you time. If you deploy Dynatrace, you're starting ahead because you already have autodiscovery, topology mapping, and root cause analysis out-of-the-box. You don't need to build it, Dynatrace already does it for you automatically, with zero configuration. In huge and complex environments, it can save your day.
An example could be an organization with difficulty detecting random performance issues. They don't have any idea what is going on, but they have just heard something about Dynatrace and just have a try. Install OneAgent in Fullstack mode, restart processes, and wow, Davis AI tells you what your problem is or, in the worst scenario, shows sufficient clues for the next steps.
I have seen the above scenario more than once, no weeks trying to find the root cause or bridge calls with too many teams and people involved. The biggest challenge is providing extra powers to detect and understand what is happening when those problems are not obvious.
What brought you to our Community? What made you stay? What best advice can you give someone who just started using Community?
I discovered what communities are when I discovered what free software and open-source software meant decades back. I still use IRC channels and forums out there about GPL technologies (GNU/Linux, Emacs, Debian, Perl, Elisp…). Reading, learning, and sharing knowledge are in my DNA, and I wanted to evaluate how Dynatrace Community is because I am using Dynatrace software every day.
I have found a nice, educated, and respectful community, and that is important to me. You don't see inappropriate words or behaviors, just people helping each other, and I like that. It is not easy; I think people don't imagine how much work is happening behind the scenes. And then, all kudos and congratulations to the Dynatrace Community team (Agata, Ana, Maciej, Michał, Iza, and Karolina). You rock! Just keep going!
This is a space where Dynatrace customers, partners, employees, and other community colleagues share their knowledge, problems, and solutions.
My best advice to newcomers is just to look around and read how people ask and what the answers are. If you don't find a solution to your problem, just ask there. If you miss features, read product ideas and raise new ones if they are missing. If you read a question and you already know the answer, reply to it. I encourage you to try to find a solution if you have time, as solving other problems is a great way to learn.
Tell us something about you that most people don’t know. What is your biggest joy or passion in life?
Well, I like sports, music, movies, and technology, of course. I don't have sufficient free time for all I want to do. I am still in contact with all my childhood friends; they are the family I have chosen. I married a Chinese lady almost 10 years ago, and yes, my Chinese is still horrible. Learning Chinese well is on my TO-DO list every year.
I don't like cell phones too much, always with old smartphones where I almost don't have applications installed. I check my phone two or three times per day, and that’s all. And I am not a huge fan of social networks, just LinkedIn. It means I am a grandfather in a younger body. 😄
And, of course, I should mention Asturias in my speech, as it is the region where I was born and live. If you want a place that is not too cold in winter and not too hot in summer, come here. Riding, mountains, beaches, snow, all of this is possible in a 3-hour ride in a car.
And I can promise you, if you come here slim, you go back fat. 😄 You're welcome!
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asturias, pictures of Asturias, YT / intro video about Asturias)
What is one thing on your bucket list? Your dream?
Apart from learning and being fluent in Chinese, plus the certifications I want to get, in general, I would like to see more peaceful times all over the world. Violence is always the last option. Talking more to each other, hearing different opinions than yours, trying to understand others.
Life is short, so enjoy your time here, helping each other and having peace. 😊
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Life is short, but even in this short life, we can meet people who will enrich it to the brim. You enrich our Community, Anton, so thank you for all you do for others. Good things are coming back; keep it up!
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