Streamlined Management
Interview – Wikimedia's Jaime Crespo
Jaime Crespo, from the Wikimedia Foundation, discusses the challenges of managing one of the world's largest collaborative knowledge projects.
At Percona Live Europe 2019, I joked with Jaime Crespo, Senior Database Administrator (DBA) for the Wikimedia Foundation, that the Wikipedia project is essentially just one big database. You might expect that it takes hordes of DBAs to keep one of the world's largest knowledge pools constantly online, but you'd be wrong. Crespo shares the unique challenges Wikimedia faces in managing its servers.
Linux Magazine: Tell me about yourself and how you got started as a database administrator.
Jaime Crespo: My name is Jaime Crespo, and, by my name, it's easy to spot that I'm from Spain. I'm currently the Senior Database Administrator for the Wikimedia Foundation. A bit of follow up to that I have to do is that the Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that provides support, mostly technology, legal and management, to the Wikipedia project and to a lot of other open knowledge projects that we maintain. The actual work is done by everyone, that is, our volunteers. I'm part of the SRE team (Site Reliability Engineering) that helps maintain the servers, so that volunteers and contributors can edit.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Xubuntu Site Possibly Hacked
It appears that the Xubuntu site was hacked and briefly served up a malicious ZIP file from its download page.
-
LMDE 7 Now Available
Linux Mint Debian Edition, version 7, has been officially released and is based on upstream Debian.
-
Linux Kernel 6.16 Reaches EOL
Linux kernel 6.16 has reached its end of life, which means you'll need to upgrade to the next stable release, Linux kernel 6.17.
-
Amazon Ditches Android for a Linux-Based OS
Amazon has migrated from Android to the Linux-based Vega OS for its Fire TV.
-
Cairo Dock 3.6 Now Available for More Compositors
If you're a fan of third-party desktop docks, then the latest release of Cairo Dock with Wayland support is for you.
-
System76 Unleashes Pop!_OS 24.04 Beta
System76's first beta of Pop!_OS 24.04 is an impressive feat.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 is Available
Linus Torvalds has announced that the latest kernel has been released with plenty of core improvements and even more hardware support.
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
-
Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.
-
Fedora Linux 43 Beta Now Available for Testing
Fedora Linux 43 Beta ships with Gnome 49 and KDE Plasma 6.4 (and other goodies).