Tom Limoncelli (born December 2, 1968) is an American

system administrator A system administrator, or sysadmin, or admin is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems, especially multi-user computers, such as servers. The system administrator seeks to en ...

, author, and speaker. A

and network engineer since 1987, he speaks at conferences around the world on topics ranging from

firewall Firewall may refer to: * Firewall (computing), a technological barrier designed to prevent unauthorized or unwanted communications between computer networks or hosts * Firewall (construction), a barrier inside a building, designed to limit the spre ...

security to

time management Time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity. It involves of various demands upon a person relating to wo ...

. He is the author of ''Time Management for System Administrators'' from

O'Reilly O'Reilly ( ga, Ó Raghallaigh) is a group of families, ultimately all of Irish Gaelic origin, who were historically the kings of East Bréifne in what is today County Cavan. The clan were part of the Connachta's Uí Briúin Bréifne kindred a ...

; along with Christine Hogan, co-author of the book ''The Practice of System and Network Administration'' from

Addison-Wesley Addison-Wesley is an American publisher of textbooks and computer literature. It is an imprint of Pearson PLC, a global publishing and education company. In addition to publishing books, Addison-Wesley also distributes its technical titles throug ...

, which won the 2005 SAGE Outstanding Achievement Award, and in 2007 with

Peter H. Salus Peter Henry Salus is a linguist, computer scientist, historian of technology, author in many fields, and an editor of books and journals. He has conducted research in germanistics, language acquisition, and computer languages. Education and c ...

he has published a compilation of the best April Fools jokes created by the

IETF The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster or requirements an ...

entitled ''The Complete April Fools' Day RFCs''. He has also published papers at conferences such as the Usenix LISA on a wide variety of topics including innovative firewall techniques, coordinating massive network changes, models for improving customer support, and the security issues related to firing a system administrator.

Biography

Limoncelli is the youngest of five children. He was born in

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...

and has lived in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...

since the age of four. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

from

Drew University Drew University is a private university in Madison, New Jersey. Drew has been nicknamed the "University in the Forest" because of its wooded campus. As of fall 2020, more than 2,200 students were pursuing degrees at the university's three sch ...

Madison, New Jersey Madison is a borough in Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 16,937. Located along the Morris & Essex Lines, it is noted for Madison's historic railroad station becoming on ...

. He is a Site Reliability Engineer at

Stack Exchange Stack Exchange is a network of question-and-answer (Q&A) websites on topics in diverse fields, each site covering a specific topic, where questions, answers, and users are subject to a reputation award process. The reputation system allows th ...

. Before that, he was a systems administrator in the New York City office of

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

. He has previously been Director, IT Services for Cibernet Corporation, Director of Operations at Lumeta and also worked at

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mul ...

Lucent Technologies Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the divestiture of the former AT&T Technologies business u ...

where he ran the Internet gateway and networks used by the scientists as well as consulted internally to various business units.

Work for bisexual rights

Limoncelli started his activism on campus when he was a student at

. He facilitated a men's support group that was part of the

Gay Activists Alliance The Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) was founded in New York City on December 21, 1969, almost six months after the Stonewall riots, by dissident members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). In contrast to the Liberation Front, the Activists Allianc ...

in Morris County in 1989–1990. In 1991-2 he worked on New Jersey's successful effort to amend the New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination, to add "sexual or affectional orientation" for protection in housing, hiring, banking, and public accommodations. He served as outreach co-chair and logistics coordinator. He co-created BiNet/NJ (now known as BiZone) in 1991. He was vice-president, then president of the New Jersey Lesbian and Gay Coalition 1994–1996, which included such accomplishments as the creation of a community center, spinning off the NJ Pride Parade as a separate organization, modifying the by-laws to be fully

bisexual Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whic ...

and

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...

inclusive, participation in the 1993 March on Washington and Stonewall 25, and other projects. He has worked with

BiNet USA BiNet USA (officially Bi/Net USA, The Bisexual Network of the USA Inc.) was an American national nonprofit bisexual community whose mission was to "facilitate the development of a cohesive network of bisexual communities, promote bisexual visibil ...

since 1992 including four years spent as the Regional Organizer from the Tri-State area region. He edited the

section of the Bisexual Resource Guide for much of the 1990s. Limoncelli has worked with the Tri-State Bisexual Conferences which he created/co-chaired in 1996 (NYC, NY), was advisor to in 1997 (Hartford, CT), co-chair in 1999 (New Brunswick NJ), and on the planning committee of the highly successful 2000 (NYU Campus, NY) conference. Limoncelli has been active in

Internet activism Internet activism is the use of electronic communication technologies such as social media, e-mail, and podcasts for various forms of activism to enable faster and more effective communication by citizen movements, the delivery of particular inf ...

. Since 1987 he has used the Internet as an organizing tool. He maintained information about the 1993 March on Washington and Stonewall 25 events on the Internet, and was one of a handful of people that since 1992 organized to keep the idea alive that there should be a Stonewall 25 celebration in NYC in 1994. AT&T's LEAGUE (Lesbian and Gay United Employees) organization awarded him their 1995 LEAGUE Community Involvement Award (Political), and in 1997 the New Jersey Lesbian and Gay Coalition awarded him their "Honor" lifetime achievement award for his activism. He has written two books, contributed to the anthology "'' Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World"'', edited by Robyn Ochs and Sarah E. Rowley, and is the creator of BiSquish, an online journal that reported news and events for the

bisexual community The bisexual community, also known as the bi+, m-spec, bisexual/pansexual, or bi/pan/fluid community, includes members of the LGBT community who identify as bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, polysexual and sexually fluid. As opposed to hetero- or ...

until September 7, 2006. In 2006 he received the Brenda Howard Award from the

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

branch of PFLAG.

Partial bibliography

*''The Practice of System and Network Administration'' (

), 2001, by Thomas A. Limoncelli and Christine Hogan *''Time Management for System Administrators'' by Thomas A. Limoncelli (

), 2005 *''The Practice of System and Network Administration'' (2nd Edition) (

), 2007, by Thomas A. Limoncelli, Christine Hogan, and Strata R. Chalup *''The Complete April Fools' Day RFCs'' ( Peer-to-Peer Communications Inc.) by Thomas A. Limoncelli and

, 2007 *''The Practice of System and Network Administration'', Volume 1 (3rd Edition) (

), 2016, by Thomas A. Limoncelli, Christine Hogan, and Strata R. Chalup *''The Practice of Cloud System Administration: Designing and Operating Large Distributed Systems'', Volume 2 (

), 2014, by Thomas A. Limoncelli, Christine Hogan, and Strata R. Chalup

References

External links

Tom Limoncelli's Home Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Limoncelli, Tom American technology writers Bisexual men Bisexual rights activists Bisexual writers LGBT rights activists from the United States American LGBT writers Living people Google employees 1968 births