The SimAuthor office had about sixty people and a mixed collection of Linux and Windows servers, production services, databases, engineering labs, and workstations. I was responsible for keeping that environment running and making the different systems work together.
Windows Active Directory handled one part of the company. Linux and Unix systems handled another. The engineering tools, web services, and production systems all had their own requirements. People needed access without carrying a separate identity for every machine, and the security boundary had to become more serious as the company and its customers demanded it.
I spent a lot of time bridging those environments. We used the Active Directory schema to provide central authentication and single sign-on across Windows and Unix systems. I rebuilt network topology, firewalls, the DMZ, VPN access, and security systems. We added intrusion prevention and detection, and I performed routine penetration tests. These systems controlled how employees and services reached the company network.
SimAuthor built flight-data visualization and simulation software in Boulder. The product could take data recorded by an aircraft and turn it into a replay that people could use for safety, training, and analysis. That was a new domain for me. I was not an aviation expert. I was the systems and network person making sure the people who were aviation experts could get to the machines, services, labs, and data they needed.
The product made recorded flight data useful to people who needed to review what happened. My work was less visible, but it supported the same customers and engineers. A problem with authentication, the network, or remote access could interrupt work across the office.
The largest project was bringing the data center in-house.
That meant a complete rebuild, not moving a few boxes and calling it finished. Power, network paths, firewalls, servers, remote access, monitoring, security, and recovery all had to work in the new shape. The purpose was straightforward: increase availability and lower costs. The implementation touched almost every system supporting the office.
I had come from systems and security work at the University of Colorado, and I was also running Praxis Technology on the side. At SimAuthor, the data-center move combined that experience. The job included physical installation, systems administration, networking, access control, security, monitoring, and recovery planning.
Turning on the hardware was only one part of the move. Employees had to be able to reach the services they used. Backups and remote access had to work. The new firewall rules had to be tested. Monitoring had to show us when a service or device failed. We also needed documentation so another person could understand the layout during a problem.
The office also had engineering labs and employee workstations outside the production environment. Those systems still depended on the same network, directories, and security controls. I had to account for both the software delivered to customers and the daily needs of the people building it. That included routine support work alongside the larger data-center project.
Today Westar Aerospace announced that it acquired SimAuthor for $8 million in cash. The announcement describes SimAuthor as a Colorado software and services company specializing in flight-data visualization and simulation technology, with work for military and aviation customers. That is the public account of the deal. My work remained focused on the systems in Boulder.
The office still needs its production systems. Engineers still need the lab. Linux still has to authenticate against the same identity system as Windows. The VPN has to work. The firewall rules have to be right. The move in-house has to keep delivering the availability and cost improvements we built it for.
The acquisition did not change the day-to-day list immediately. There were still accounts to provision, services to monitor, security tests to run, and equipment to maintain. The data center was now inside the office, but it still required regular work. I was continuing to support the engineers and production systems while the company worked through what came next.