About www.BrendanGregg.com

I first created this homepage on geocities in the late 90's. Around 2001 I moved it to http://users.tpg.com.au/bdgcvb, an address provided by my ISP. Years later they changed it to http://users.tpg.com.au/adsln4yb which broke Internet links and my business cards, and they refused to provide a redirect! To avoid this happening again I created a DNS redirect: http://www.brendangregg.com. I considered various clever domain names instead but figured I'd grow tired of them over time, so I just used my name.

Email: brendan at intel.com

Email trivia: When checking into a hotel once and providing my Netflix email address, the receptionist exclaimed "Wow, Netflix does email now? How do I get an account?" I replied "You become an employee."

As a public figure in computer performance, I get a lot of emails and unsolicited requests for my professional help. Every week there is some random company that is failing to solve a gnarly performance issue, and out of desperation emails me directly, hoping for immediate (and usually unpaid) help. I do eventually read all the emails I'm sent, and sometimes I find time to help random people out -- it can be fun, educational, and rewarding for me. However, while I wish I could reply to them all, I have to admit that I usually don't have the time to do so. If I didn't reply to you, sorry, it's a reflection of my overflowing inbox rather than the importance of your request.

Private conversations with startups I don't know: More than 20 startups have been created based on my work. Several have already had exits, one for over half a billion USD. I'm now getting increasing requests from people I don't know who want a private conversation about their existing startup or to privately discuss new startup ideas, and that's not easy to arrange (it can conflict with obligations to my current employer). Some startups have asked me to publicly endorse their product that I know nothing about, or to give them a golden idea for free that I haven't open sourced yet so they can sell it instead, or some other variation of get-rich-quick. (Not all startups are like this, fortunately.) My response to these requests is: I can only discuss topics of a public nature (nothing confidential, like roadmaps or future plans), and I'd prefer we use a public forum (github ticket, blog comment, mailing list, etc.) to discuss your request. My stance with these private startup conversations may change in the future (in which case I'll update this page) as I have worked with legal teams on a possible solution.

A Performance Issue: If you work for Intel, you know where to find me! For others, I usually don't have the spare time to help them with random performance issues, sorry. If this issue is on a forum, mailing list, stackoverflow, etc., I'm more likely to find the time to help, since it can be useful to have a public reference to an issue with its solution. One day I hope to have more time to help with these.

Book Errata: Please email me. I've put Systems Performance 2nd Edition errata here, and BPF Performance Tools errata here.

Mentoring: I can't currently offer individual mentoring outside of my work. If you'd like to learn from me, I have shared a lot of content online, much of which is linked from this homepage. This includes over forty hours of video presentations. There are also my books. One day, I might teach classes again.

Training Classes: I've developed and taught professional training classes in the past, on topics including performance, cloud computing, and security. Most of my classes were in-person instructor-led training, in a classroom of up to 12 students, and were typically 5 full days in length. They were open to public registration and attended by students from many different companies. I do love doing these, but I'm not currently offering any. I hope to again someday.

Full-time work: I'm frequently contacted by companies wanting to hire me full-time. Thanks, however, it's unlikely you will (there's only one of me to go around), but in the interests of not wasting your time I'll share a bit about what it takes: For my last job at a tech giant I was hired by the company CTO and the executive recruiting team.

Software suggestions: I'm grateful that people would find the time to email me about a program I've written; whether it is to report a bug, make a suggestion, or simply to say thanks. I make a note of useful suggestions and attempt to implement them (I'm not always successful, but I try). If these are posted to github repositories, then other people often join and help fix them.

Software code: Many people have emailed me code to include in my programs, which I've sometimes done (their name will appear in the code), but I often don't. I'm grateful that people take the time to do this, however, I must be extremely careful about the code that I use, as many of my programs are run (as root) on critical production servers. (Update: this comment dates back to 2006. It's now 2025 and almost everyone uses github instead of emailing code, although the concern still exists: many of my programs run as root so we need to be careful.)

Your site isn't using SSL/HTTPS: The bits that need to be, should be. For a while I made the entire website HTTPS, but in 2025 I changed it so that the static portions (html and images) are just HTTP again. There are Amazon.com and informIT links for buying books that switch to HTTPS, and a comments system. If you click the browser "Not secure" warning it explains "... You should not enter any sensitive information on this site (for example, passwords or credit cards), because it could be stolen by attackers." (Chrome) -- yes, that's true, but nowhere on my site asks for sensitive information that isn't HTTPS.

DTrace, Solaris, and illumos: Many years ago Solaris was widely used, and I used to regularly contribute my spare time to the these communities, including answering emails to help people solve random issues. These technologies are now obsolete. I'm now focused on Linux and cloud performance and I've been moving older Solaris projects to the crypt for historical interest. Solaris is also run by a company that focuses on making money. If you think that's a good thing, and maybe it is, then you should understand why I should no longer be expected to work on it for free. I'm also not currently available for paid consulting, so I can't help you with Solaris issues at the moment at all. To help your migration to Linux, please see Solaris to Linux Migration 2017. Or move to BSD. Or even Windows (especially now there's flame graphs in PerfView and eBPF in the kernel).

Photos: A number of people have emailed to ask for permission to use photos from my website; if you would like to and will acknowledge the photographer (me), you are very welcome to do so. I'm glad people enjoy them, and I'm happy to know they are useful somehow.