Calling her "the grandmother of the data centre" (original article's title) seems like a really dumb way of wording what she is famous for...
You could call her a popular author and key person in UNIX networking, but for all we know she has never worked a day in a "data centre" in her life, unless we're going to expand the definition to any room with computers in it (or servers?).
I am really not trying to foofoo this, her going missing is bad news, and she created some really key books, I just dislike the way the title/article tries to spin it so it makes sense to the lowest common denominator - while also completely mischaracterizing what it is she is even famous for.
"She's famous for Unix networking." - "What? What is that good for?" - "Well it's used in the data centers that power all your cloud applications." - "Ah, so she is like the grandmother of the data center!"
Chill out, dude. Evi turned a one-person operation with a couple of VAXes in the mid-1980's into a large scale incubator and trainer of future sysadmins who are now running sites all over the world. Did she "work a day" at UnixOps or CSops, as they came to be called? Of course not, she was too busy soliciting the funding, wrangling the office & machine room space, and creating the contacts that made it all possible. You don't even know "what it is she is even famous for." In point of fact, Evi wasn't even the intellectual powerhouse behind the books--that would be Trent; her genius was her leadership and ability to inspire her students. "Grandmother of the data center" is an apt-enough title.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5999523
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5997791
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5996597
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5988044
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5958974 (largest discussion)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5958691
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5954536