Kekoa Tacub is currently attending Kauai Community College. His goal is to receive an associates degree in Electronics Technology and begin work after graduating college. Kekoa has been interested in computers ever since middle school, and has continued to grow his knowledge of networking and hardware through his classes. His career goal is to work as an IT/System Administrator.

Kekoaā€™s prior electronics experience is working for the Kauai Endangered Seabird Recovery Project where he helped assemble prototype laser units and solar panels.

Home Island: Kauai

InstitutionĀ when accepted: Kauai Community College

Akamai Project: Network Monitoring Alert System

Project Site:Ā Gemini Observatory

Mentor: Chris Stark

Project Abstract:

Knowing when a critical server for a company goes down is very important; it could mean the loss of hours of labor or even thousands of dollars worth of work. Gemini Observatories uses a powerful Information Technology (IT) tool called ā€˜Solarwindsā€™ that allows you to monitor large networks and alerts users when a server or service goes down. Although the servers are being monitored the current Solarwinds server is out of date, incapable of being upgraded due to hardware restrictions, and requires significant fine tuning to reduce the swarm of unnecessary alert messages going through. Gemini requires a new Solarwinds server that has to be brought up with the latest version and hardware that can withstand the extensive network and not be bottlenecked. While the new server is being populated, it is also going through a categorizing phase. The Information Technology System (ITS) department that manages Solarwinds wants to open up this tool for other departments over at Gemini. The new Solarwinds installation will have to be broken down into separate views (Dashboards) so individual departments can view their own servers or instruments without ITS. With this new installment of Solarwinds, one should be able to monitor Geminiā€™s network with ease for many years. Throughout the course of my project, Iā€™ll be documenting the steps taken to complete my project which will be used to replicate our work over at Gemini South.