Profile

London-based techie, working towards becoming systems administrator, with experience of design, development, maintenance, and configuration management of distributed enterprise solutions across both Unix and Windows platforms. Broad background including technical support has provided an environment through with to develop skills in designing, developing, supporting and troubleshooting hardware and software. Currently fulfil role of technical liaison between Development and Systems Administration team in the role of Lead Performance and Stability Engineer. Seeking more defined systems administration role in which to develop in-depth administration and configuration management skills, building upon varied experience across all tiers of the development lifecycle and n-tier deployments. A strong interest in Internet technologies, and in particular markup languages, including XML has provided an opportunity for consulting that has been useful in developing client-facing and team-working skills.

Operating Systems: Solaris 8-10, Windows (all releases), Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat, SUSE), HP/UX, Novell NetWare, MS-DOS.

Languages / APIs: Shell scripting, basic Perl, Java, PHP, Struts, Hibernate, XDoclet, Ant, EJB, JSP, SQL, XML, XSL, XSLT, VB, Java Servlets, CORBA, HTML, RMI, UML, Orbix 6.3 / OrbixWeb, IDL, ASP, JDBC, VBA, C++, JavaBeans (Visual Beans), COBOL, C, dBase.

Software / Desktop: Eclipse, Forte for Java, JBuilder 4, Rational Rose, OrbixWeb, Visual Café, Microsoft Office, Photoshop, ImageReady, Flash, Subversion, CVS, PVCS, SourceSafe, Paint Shop Pro.

Internet: Apache, Tomcat, JBoss, ATG Dynamo, SeeBeyond e*Gate 4.5.3, BEA WebLogic 5.1, Internet Information Server, Internet browsers. Knowledge of key Internet technologies including Telnet, FTP, TCP/IP, SSL, awareness of hardware and software load balancing

Databases: Basic Sybase, Oracle 8i/9i, MySQL, Microsoft Access

Other: Certified training in XSLT (2007), SeeBeyond e*Gate (2003), Orbix (1998), UNIX (1995), and SQL (1995).

Employment History

June 2009 – Present
Linux Systems Administrator

• Systems administrator for large Internet Hosting company
• Reactively and proactively dealing with customer issues via automated, customer-raised, and internally raised tickets
• Part of Data Centre consolidation team, responsible for the consolidation of customer devices from three UK data centres to one purpose-built DC
• Exposure to all aspects of Data Centre running, including backbone, network security, server build, and SAN infrastructure

Skills: RHEL4, RHEL5, Apache, MySQL, Red Hat clustering

November 2008 – May 2009
Performance and Stability Engineer

• Member of Web Systems team, liaising between UNIX Systems Integrators, DBAs and Development and Platform team in the rapid diagnosis and solution of site performance and stability issues on Linux and Solaris platforms
• Production of recommendations documentation in order to steer 6-12 month priorities on both client and server-side performance and stability and analysis and comparison of various test environments in order to more closely mimic live site behaviour
• Development of custom monitoring scripts in order to provide baseline metrics of current live platform
• Involved in enhancements to existing monitoring infrastructure in order to provide a clearer picture of live site behaviour

Skills: Solaris 10, Red Hat Linux, GnuPlot, Apache 2.2, Resin, shell scripting, Java, basic Perl, subversion, cvs, 3rd line support, awareness of common automatic deployment tools (Puppet), basic knowledge of Foundry ServerIron and GSLB functionality

January 2006 – September 2008
Systems Administrator, Software Engineer

• Systems administration, monitoring, and maintenance of web site with an audience of 25 million users, averaging over 250 HTTP requests per second daily over the past year, and valued at $750M. Provided 3rd level support on 24×7 basis, troubleshooting all web application tiers from Apache through to back end database and supported team of around 25 developers.
• Responsible for configuration management through Subversion and previously CVS, make, and Ant, and fulfilled role of build engineer. Oversaw manual deployment of InterScience platform across all environments , including scripting, testing, troubleshooting, and developer liaison. Involved in future automated deployment and continuous integration strategy.
• Worked on daily basis across 30 Solaris servers in the UK and USA, covering 6 distinct environments, dealing with distributed CORBA software, written in C, C++, Perl, and Java. Acted as technical liaison between development team, test team and senior UNIX administrators, providing performance and functional issue reporting.
• Supported, and worked closely with functional and performance test managers in order to QA the functionality, performance, and stability of release candidate builds.
• Configuration of a number of Apache 2 and Tomcat servers built from source across development, integration test, QA test, and live environments, including use of Apache modules such as mod_rewrite, mod_proxy, and mod_ssl. Monitoring performed using in-house scripts and standard UNIX tools, e.g. tcpdump, prstat, lsof, apachetop, fuser.
• Heavily involved in capacity project required following Wiley acquisition of Blackwell Publishing in order to deal with an estimated 3x traffic, devising future InterScience platform, including technology recommendations in order to support significant additional capacity. This involves design of clustered and local filesystems, an awareness of load balancing technology, and broad knowledge of all aspects of the InterScience platform. Failover work required design, development, and testing of application-specific monitoring and reconfiguration scripts.
• Aided in development of automated monitoring and installation scripts, including generic €œskel € templating processes and deployment scripts.
• Part of team responsible for creation of distributed test lab, and complied with the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act.

Skills: Solaris 9/10, Apache 2.0.x-2.2-x, Tomcat, shell scripting, Java, basic Perl, Orbix 6.3, bugzilla, subversion, cvs, 3rd line support, awareness of common automatic deployment tools, basic knowledge of Foundry ServerIron functionality

Sept 2004 – January 2006
Senior Web Developer

• Design, development, maintenance and testing of a number web sites developed using J2EE with Jakarta Struts, powered by Apache / JBoss / ATG Dynamo, with Oracle databases interfaced via Hibernate and Xdoclet markup generated EJB. Real-time availability provided by web services interfaced using Apache Axis.
• Overseeing all deployments of content by marketing department to production server cluster via ATG Publishing CMS, including detailed database troubleshooting.
• Testing and regression testing of sites to ensure correct functionality and performance of web services linked to reservation system.
• Design and development of web-based intranet applications based on Nukes Portal.
• Defect tracking with Bugzilla, and use of internal helpdesk system in order to resolve and respond to customer queries.

Skills: Java, Struts, Hibernate, XDoclet, Ant, Axis, Oracle, SQL, TOAD, Red Hat Linux, Multimap, VNC, XML, XSLT, HTML, CVS, TCP/IP, Eclipse, Bugzilla, JBoss, ATG Dynamo Application Server, ATG Dynamo CMS, web services

Nov 2003 – Sept 2004
Enterprise Application Integration Analyst / Programmer

• Development and support of a large SeeBeyond e*Gate enterprise solution for a leading U.K. supermarket, including migration of e*Gate schemas from development to test, integration / performance test, and production environments. Role involved out of hours support across Windows 2000 and Solaris platforms.
• Responsible for supporting team members and core infrastructure, including ensuring workstation patch application.
• Configuration control through PVCS and software defect tracking with Test Director.

Skills: SeeBeyond e*Gate 4.53, Java, Oracle, SQL, TOAD, Solaris, VNC, XML, HTML, PVCS, TCP/IP, Eclipse, shell scripting, Test Director

Apr 2002 – Nov 2003
Analyst / Programmer

• Development, support and maintenance of software developed using Java, EJB/JSP Oracle, and VB, and implemented as standalone, client-server, and 3-tier applications. Systems deployed over Apache, WebLogic, and Microsoft IIS.
• Applications included:
  • Time recording system used by approximately 7500 users. Involved in design of enhancements work packages, as well as providing technical guidance during implementation.
  • Browser-based water quality assessment application (EJB, JSP, XML, Oracle). Involved in design, implementation, and testing of enhancements work packages, including database schema redesign.
  • Rod Licensing, live on the Internet for online purchase of fishing licences (VB, ASP, Access).
  • Experience of working to Service Level Agreements and formal Library Change Control.

Skills: Java, EJB, JSP, WebLogic, Oracle, SQL, TOAD, HP/UX Unix, XML, HTML, ASP, IIS, Visual Basic, Microsoft Access, Microsoft SourceSafe, TCP/IP, Forte for Java, shell scripting

Oct 2001 – Feb 2002
Variety of Temporary Work Following Move To London

Mar 2001 – Sept 2001
Software Engineer

• Development and maintenance of Java / CORBA-based software for company`s PCP product on Linux and Solaris platforms. Designed communications library for live / test environment execution. Assisted with porting OS-dependent elements to Windows.
• JMX implementation of server-side Objects to enable configuration and management during runtime. Interfaces to these objects were exposed to web-based and Java application GUIs.
• Involved in steering company`s XML-related work within the PCP product.

Skills: Java, Servlets, RMI, JMX, UML, CORBA (Orbix 2000), HTML, Tomcat, Linux, Solaris, XML, JBuilder, TCP/IP, CVS, shell scripting

Sept 1998 – Sept 2000
Software Engineer / Research Assistant / Part-time Lecturer

• Part of a team developing CORBA-compliant brokerage service for educational courseware; system developed using Visual Café, Applets, AWT, XML and OrbixWeb. Commercial prototype developed and demonstrated at Eurescom
• M.Sc. research involved the use of metadata in the design of user interfaces for online services, essentially a study of XML and XSLT technologies coupled with Java and RMI to provide device independent user interfaces created once and rendered on multiple devices.
• Taught information technology (ECDL syllabus) to pay M.Sc. fees.
• 2000. Contributed to conference paper. Sub-contracted for three months as an XML consultant to a Dublin-based mobility solutions provider.

Skills: Java, XML, XSLT, CORBA, UML, Visual Café, IDL, Linux, Windows NT, Windows 2000 Professional, JDBC, TCP/IP, Teaching