About Jan Reilink
The life and times of Jan Reilink
Read why we can use your help and support ❤️
Husband, father
First and most important, I’m a husband and happily married to Lianne, and father of two great daughters: Lisa and Milou.
In my spare time I like to be around my family and friends. To keep in shape I try to “crossfit” at Gym Xtra Fit twice a week, and I run at least once a week ~13 km. But that’s all for sports now. In the past I played soccer and did a little bit taekwondo. Two sports I still love to follow and watch, either in the stadium or online.
In April 2026 I will attend my first HYROX race! Jeej! Not sure I’m going to like it, but then again… In May is my second race 🙂
Systems administrator – DevOps – SysOps
In my day to day work, I’m a systems administrator – DevOps / SRE and applications manager at Embrace – The Human Cloud. At Embrace we develop, maintain and host social intranets for our clients. Provide digital services and make working more efficient within various sectors.
Before Embrace, I was a systems administrator at CLDIN, and formerly Vevida Webhosting. In 2020, Vevida was acquired by Total Webhosting Solutions (TWS). The webhosting and customer support became part of Yourhosting, systems administration (SysOps) went to a new company CLDIN, or CLouDINfra. CLDIN delivers IaaS, or Infrastructure as a Service. In short, we provide Yourhosting with the network and virtual servers for them to host their clients websites on.
I was 20 years with Vevida, and in those 20 years I learned a lot. I blog about a lot of stuff here on Sysadmins of the North. If you want to read about my Windows SysOps stack, please refer to my Windows 11/10 and WSL 2 DevOps environment post.
Next to saotn.org, I run a website productenuitdestreek.nl, which basically is just a (business-) directory listing all kinds of local country and farm shops and neighborhood stalls. If you’re looking for fresh food, directly off the land (or fresh butchered animal), Producten uit de Streek is where you’ll want to go. The site also provides a blog with tips on food and health, or how to make more healthier spice mixes or BBQ rubs yourself.
A third site is one I plan to retire anytime soon: ITFAQ.nl. On that site, I write about computer and sysadmin stuff in Dutch. It just doesn’t attract an high enough volume traffic and visitors. The most interesting articles will be translated to English for Saotn.org.
Further I’m a Windows Server enthousiast and a Zabbix Certified Specialist. So I love to create monitoring items for Windows Server parts (IIS, websites, application pools, SQL Server and databases). Often scripted using WMI/CIM, PowerShell and Performance Counters. I’ll create some doorway posts outlining the most interesting bits.
My Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) certification expired long ago. I managed to successfully pass TS70-501 Planning, Deploying, and Managing a Hosting Environment back in 2008 🙂 .
Sysadmins be welcome
Sysadmins of the North is just technical blog, like so many others out there. Here I write about IT stuff that I find interesting, problems I encountered and solved. Topics include computer, server, web, sysadmin, database, virtualization, optimization and security.
For the most part, I write as it comes; posts may seem incoherently written sometimes (my apologies 🙂 ). Drop me a comment somewhere to say hi, or discuss about any of the topics. I always love the interaction!
Some content (mostly key takeaways, summaries or conclusions) are AI generated. Sorry 😉
Top 5 topics
The five (5) most important topic and clusters on SAOTN.org are:
The Ultimate SSH & OpenSSH Topic
SQL Server Administration, Updates & Monitoring
Disk Space & Server Cleanup
Windows Update & WSUS Automation
DevOps Environment & Virtualization (WSL2 / KVM)
Core Technical Focus & Topics
To help you find the right solutions for your infrastructure, the technical content on saotn.org is primarily organized around five core operational pillars:
- Windows Server Administration: Deep-dives into enterprise infrastructure lifecycle management, Active Directory maintenance, WSUS patch automation, and bare-metal server optimization.
- PowerShell & Automation: Production-ready scripts and command-line automation designed to eliminate repetitive GUI tasks, speed up deployments, and manage servers efficiently at scale.
- IIS Web Infrastructure: Advanced guides on internet Information Services management, focusing on application pool tuning, URL Rewrite architectures, and high-performance FastCGI configurations.
- Infrastructure Security & Hardening: Actionable blueprints for hardening environments, configuring secure HTTP response headers (like HSTS), auditing cryptographic handshakes via OpenSSL, and implementing YubiKey OpenSSH authentication.
- DevOps Environments & Legacy Computing: Specialized resources for building modern WSL2 and KVM development environments on Windows 11, balanced with maintaining legacy emulation setups like DOSBox for classic PC gaming.
Sharing is caring…
Please don’t forget to share posts you found interesting with your friends, family and co-workers! And please show me some love and donate a cup of coffee, thanks!
Link to Sysadmins of the North from your website using the following HTML code:
<a href="https://www.saotn.org" title="Sysadmins of the North, discuss about Sysadmin, Windows Server, IIS, security, website & WordPress, MySQL, GNU/Linux, optimization">Sysadmins of the North, discuss about Sysadmin, Windows Server, IIS, security, website & WordPress, MySQL, GNU/Linux, optimization</a>Latest posts on Sysadmins of the North
- Fix broken WMI provider in SQL Server
Being unable to open SQL Server Configuration Manager is often caused by a corrupt or removed WMI provider for SQL Server. This post explains how to resolve this. - OpenSSL Cheat Sheet: Common SSL / TLS Commands
Never forget an OpenSSL command again. This comprehensive cheat sheet covers certificate conversion (PFX, PEM, DER), CSR generation, and remote SSL / TLS verification for Windows and Linux admins. - Update SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) automatically
The fire-and-forget method to update SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) automatically by uninstalling any installed version and downloading & installing the newest available version from Microsoft. - Send mail through SendGrid Web API using PowerShell
Learn how to use the Twilio SendGrid Web API v3 to send email with PowerShell - Disable ECDH public server param reuse in Windows Server IIS
Windows Server IIS is known for reusing DH key values, but there is a way to disable ECDH public server param reuse in Windows Server IIS and here is how. - Create strong passwords in Windows
Learn how to create strong and unique passwords in Windows using PowerShell, because the use of those unique and strong passwords is important.
Contact
If you wish to contact me, send me an email at jan-nospam@saotn.nl (remove -nospam) or follow me on X (formerly Twitter): @Jan_Reilink.
Some online profiles:
Looking for a different Reilink? In Dutch:
Makelaardij Eems Regio – Real Estate
Makelaardij Eems Regio is het Nederlandse makelaarskantoor van Ems Region Immobilien.
Dit makelaarskantoor wordt gerund door mijn zus Suzanne Oonk – Reilink en zwager Bert Oonk, met ondersteuning van vader Willem Reilink. Oriënteer jij je in het grensgebied Groningen – Drenthe (Nederland) en Emsland – Leer – Cloppenburg (Duitsland) voor de aankoop of verkoop van een woning, vakantiewoning of agrarisch onroerend goed? Makelaardij Eems Regio is gespecialiseerd in deze regio en is aangesloten bij de VBO.
Im Deutsch: Ems Region Immobilien.