Skills and Experience Overview

• Seven years experience with Sun Solaris (2.6 through 10) on SPARC and x86.
• Eight years experience with most open-source Unix variants, including (but not limited to) most distributions of GNU/Linux (Debian, RedHat, SuSE, Gentoo, Slackware), FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD.
• Two years experience with IBM AIX (5.2 and 5.3).
• Hardware platforms including x86 (Dell PowerEdge, IBM xSeries, HP DL series, Sun v20z and v40z, etc.), Sun Ultra and Fire (V240, V440, V490, V880, V20z, V40z, E10K, F15K), IBM Power Series (p595, p650, p550Q, p570), Compaq/DEC Alpha, and SGI.  Network hardware from Juniper (Netscreen 50), Cisco (PIX 515E, 6509 chassis-based switches, 2611XM routers), and Extreme Networks (Summit 200 and 400 switches, BlackDiamond 8810 and 10808 chassis).
• Extensive knowledge of Internet technology, services and applications including HTTP (Apache httpd, DJB’s publicfile, Lighttpd, Microsoft IIS 4 and 5, Netscape iPlanet4 and Enterprise Server, SunONE), SMTP (Sendmail, qmail, Exim, Postfix, Microsoft Exchange), DNS (BIND8 and 9, djbdns), VPNs (OpenBSD’s isakmpd, SSH Sentinel, Juniper Netscreens) as well as security systems and firewalling (OpenBSD’s pf, FreeBSD’s ipfw, Linux’s ipchains, Tripwire, Prelude IDS, Snort NIDS and ACID).
• Middleware and application experience covering IBM WebSphere (5 and 6), Apache Tomcat and JBoss, Vignette StoryServer, BEA TopEnd / WebLogic, and Netscape Application Server.
• Clustering experience with Sun Cluster 3.1 and N1 Grid Engine, exposure to HACMP on AIX.
• SAN / storage server experience with EMC (Clariion), Sun StorEdge (3510, 6920) and IBM FastT / DS series.
• Virtualisation at various levels with Xen, Solaris Containers / Zones, IBM (D)LPAR technology, VMWare ESX on Linux, and FreeBSD Jails.
• Deployment experience with Sun’s JET (Jumpstart Enterprise Technology), RedHat’s Kickstart, IBM’s NIM, and OSCAR (Open Source Cluster Application Resource)’s SystemImager.
• Skilled in various languages including SQL, PHP, Perl, Python and C.  Conversational in Spanish and French.

Employment History

The Carphone Warehouse
http://www.carphonewarehouse.com
1, Portal Way, London.  W3 6RS

Manager, Production Unix Team - September 2006 to July 2008

The Carphone Warehouse (CPW) recruited me to help scale their production Unix team, maintain operations, and as a technical resource / SME for various infrastructure projects and upgrades.  CPW rely on a wide selection of platforms and applications - including Solaris, RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and AIX with Oracle, WebSphere, Apache Tomcat and JBoss - so this was an interesting and challenging environment to work in.

Day-to-day my role involved managing a team of 16 engineers based in the UK (for L3) and in India (L1 / L2).  This varied from resource allocation for support and project work to representing my area in change and design review boards.  I was required to coordinate process documentation and assist with the outsourcing drive, which included time in India working with the Service Operations Centre training and overseeing their work.

From a technical standpoint I was also a key resource for a large amount of project based work.  This included an overhaul of their RHEL build configuration with new Kickstart and RHN Satellite servers, a large push towards virtualization covering standardisation of various grades and builds for Linux and Solaris, and the design / build of the new online infrastructure for the TalkTalk series of websites.

Sun Microsystems
http://www.sun.com
City Gate, Cross Street, Sale, Cheshire.  M33 7JF

Technical Team Lead, Sun Grid Systems Administrator - April 2005 to May 2006

I was brought on board by Sun Microsystems to help recruit and head up a team of system administrators involved in the initial setup and running of level 2 and level 3 support for commercial and retail implementations of their Sun Grid infrastructures, based in London and the US.

This was an extremely varied and challenging position looking after sizeable installations across three different sites, each site essentially consisting of over 1,500 SunFire V20z ‘compute nodes’, five clusters running Sun Cluster 3.1 on SunFire V490’s, all supported by a SAN based on two Sun StorEdge 6920’s and a high-performance network using primarily Extreme Networks equipment (Summit and BlackDiamond switches) alongside Cisco and Juniper devices.

Aside from the technical aspects I coordinated the development of documentation covering all operational procedures, recruitment of new system administrators, and organised comprehensive training and support to the permanent staff once the initial phase of implementation had been completed.

Egg (Banking) PLC.
http://www.egg.com
Pride Park, Riverside Road, Derby.  DE99 3GG

Environment and Delivery Support - April 2004 to March 2005

This contract at Egg Banking entailed working in team covering system administration and support for their entire development infrastructure alongside developers and testers both in England and in France.

I was operationally responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of a total of around 200 servers spread across 20 self-contained development environments.  Each environment consisted of a wide range of hardware and application layers which for the most part meant Solaris 2.6 or 7 with Netscape’s iPlanet and Enterprise Server, Vignette StoryServer, Netscape Application Server, BEA Topend / Weblogic, and Oracle 8i.

Alongside from the above daily duties I also helped maintain and develop the monitoring infrastructure (based around Nagios), documentation, and assisted with various development duties which ranged from basic script writing and implementation through to database work.

Torotrak (Development) Limited
http://www.torotrak.com
1 Aston Way, Leyland.  PR26 7UX

Systems and Network Administrator - March 1999 to October 2000, July 2003 to October 2003

I maintained a variety of Unix operating systems and servers with duties that included planning and deployment of the company’s VPN (with OpenBSD’s IPsec), internal DNS (djbdns), firewall (OpenBSD’s pf), and network intrusion detection system (Snort and ACID).  I also spent some time evaluating and demonstrating the viability of moving from Microsoft’s Exchange to an open-source solution such as SuSE’s OpenExchange and OpenGroupware.org.

As I was employed on a contractual basis I was required to maintain documentation for basic administration procedures and provide some level of training for support staff.

Academic Information

BSc with Honours in Video, Imaging & Communications Technology
University of Salford, September 1997 to June 2000

Modules studied included digital signal processing, network theory, communications and broadcasting, project management, photography, acoustics, and analogue and digital electronics.

Hobbies and Interests

I maintain various websites and hosting services (web, email, DNS) for several friends and associated online communities running on colocated FreeBSD and Debian GNU/Linux servers at datacentres in London and Derby.

I have a passion for photography with work published in several magazines.  I love to travel, and have spent nine months in the US, visited various European countries, India, and most of the UK.

In my spare time I also enjoy riding my BMX, playing sports (football, squash and tennis), and driving.  I love music, and to that end have regularly contributed articles to an internationally distributed magazine as well as helping out a friend’s record label by aiding in the organisation of gigs.