about me
Lately, I have been really excited about the growing cloud computing and server consolidation industries.
It was a lot of fun finishing my last server consolidation project. I managed to save an old server with a dying motherboard by migrating it into a VPS in a high availability cluster. Once the server was migrated, I didn't have to worry about reinstalling or reconfiguring any software, it all just worked. It saved a lot of time and money because the company did not have the software or the product keys for an OS reinstall and it was a 24x7 production server. The best part of the project was that the whole migration was completed remotely with no down time and no lost revenue.
In another emergency, the company was fortunate that I had previously completed bare-metal backup images and online cloud file backups of many years worth of data from all of their engineering, sales, and designer files. I was able to restore everything and get the company back up and running very quickly.
core skills
- Amazon E2C System Engineer
- Amazon S3 Storage
- Advanced Computer Network Design
- TC/IP Networking, Subnetting, Routing, Security
- Business Planning and Operations
- Business Industry Networking and Consulting
- Corporate Network Anti-Espionage and Detection
- DoD Safe Encryption Technology with Plausible Deniability
- PCI-DSS and HIPAA Compliance
- Network Infiltration and Security Testing
- Application Programming and Database Programming
- Disaster Recovery and Planning
- Google Ad Campaign and Keyword Optimization
- Server Consolidation, Upgrading, Configuration
- SQL Database Optimization and Maintenance
- Great Interpersonal Skills
2010
One thing I really enjoy about my job is working with exciting new technology. Right now Cloud Computing is a hot topic. Specifically, I was hired to setup and maintain a private cloud system for a client. To reduce some of the start up costs I was able to broker significant savings from the vendor because of my VCP certification. The idea was to get all the old servers migrated into the private cloud and never to go down again because of faulty hardware like a bad motherboard or network switch. The host cluster was setup and in the network in no time. The SAN I chose was already a tried-and-true device with complete and total redundancy. I was able to save them a ton of money on the SAN using free open source Linux software. That software has been tested and used in production for years, so I knew it was mature. The hosts and SAN had bonded network cards for protection from network switch failures and Ethernet cable failures. At the end, they had a completely redundant SAN with more space then they could hope to fill anytime soon, a fully redundant cluster for the VPS's themselves, a redundant broadband Internet connection, and a redundant pair of jumbo frame switches. Migrating the existing Windows 2003, Windows 2008, Linux, and FreeBSD servers to virtual servers was a breeze. No reinstalls where needed saving many thousands of dollars in man hours. Once everything was up and running creating new servers was as simple as a right click. No need to wait a week or more for new expensive hardware to arrive. This also gave a new life to the old servers which where about to fail. No need to worry about a costly and time consuming hardware upgrade when they did not have the product keys and CD's for their software anymore. It was a lot of fun and exciting to see everything working together, like a finely tuned machine, performing better then they ever expected.
Over the last few years I have been excited to learn Amazon's E2C and S3 systems. It's great how easy it is to quickly provision 1 or 100 Linux servers as needed. One of my clients was expecting a ton of traffic for a single weekend for a concert event. The ticket system was used to check customers in at the door, as well as host pictures that where being uploaded during the event. I was able to leverage the Amazon E2C system to quickly bring up the servers they required as needed, without any hardware startup costs. After the Load-Balancer instance was setup, I started to build a few backend web servers. I carefully monitored the amount of traffic each web server in the farm was getting. As the traffic quickly spiked, I started a few more web server instances into the farm and watched in real time as the traffic was evenly distributed across the web server farm. It was a complete success!
2009
I recently got back from a project out in the bread basket of America. A large company had the misfortune of a hacker break in. First, I needed to prevent another attack into their system. Then, the priority was to determine if the credit card databases where accessed. While I was there assessing the infiltration, I created and implemented an encrypted disaster recovery plan. I sat down with the IT staff and the company owners and found a balance between sharing administrator passwords and IT administrator liability. After creating and installing an Intrusion Detection System, I am now able to monitoring internet attack attempts, as well as employee access to their servers in real time. I brought the company back into PCI-DSS compliance and everyone walked away from this project happier and safer.
2008
I was called out to a serious situation in Denver Colorado. A large company was in the midst of an ex-employee hack. I was called out to work with another forensic specialist to determine if employee broke in, how they broke in, and what was compromised if they did break in. Tensions where high and the Denver Police Department was even on speed dial for a while. After taking a very detailed look at the network and servers, I was able to tell exactly when and where the hacker came from, as well as what they did inside the private company network. Once the server and network logs where properly documented and handed over to the companies lawyers, I was asked to do a complete external and internet network security audit. After the audit, I went to work on plugging security holes and securing vulnerabilities the company was not aware they had. I created a strategic plan to secure all systems while I trained the existing IT department to understand what I was doing and why it was necessary. Before I left they had an A+ on their network security report card and all intrusions where well documented and vulnerabilities fixed.
2007
A large corporation hired me as an acting IT Director. One of the first large projects they had for me was to over see the computer and phone systems during the move across town. It was my personal responsibility to make sure the T1 PRI and the internet connection where up and running day one as well as all the servers and employee workstations, this included managing the transition for their email and web sites on Linux servers which they host themselves. I had two racks of computer and phone equipment to move safely, but everything made it without a single scratch. I even went to the new location weeks before to test the Ethernet drops. There where problems with a couple of the drops and I was able to fix everything before the big move. It took planning and a lot of phone calls, but on the day of our move everything worked perfectly from the moment we arrived.
One thing I really enjoy about my job is working with exciting new technology. Right now Cloud Computing is a hot topic. Specifically, I was hired to setup and maintain a private cloud system for a client. To reduce some of the start up costs I was able to broker significant savings from the vendor because of my VCP certification. The idea was to get all the old servers migrated into the private cloud and never to go down again because of faulty hardware like a bad motherboard or network switch. The host cluster was setup and in the network in no time. The SAN I chose was already a tried-and-true device with complete and total redundancy. I was able to save them a ton of money on the SAN using free open source Linux software. That software has been tested and used in production for years, so I knew it was mature. The hosts and SAN had bonded network cards for protection from network switch failures and Ethernet cable failures. At the end, they had a completely redundant SAN with more space then they could hope to fill anytime soon, a fully redundant cluster for the VPS's themselves, a redundant broadband Internet connection, and a redundant pair of jumbo frame switches. Migrating the existing Windows 2003, Windows 2008, Linux, and FreeBSD servers to virtual servers was a breeze. No reinstalls where needed saving many thousands of dollars in man hours. Once everything was up and running creating new servers was as simple as a right click. No need to wait a week or more for new expensive hardware to arrive. This also gave a new life to the old servers which where about to fail. No need to worry about a costly and time consuming hardware upgrade when they did not have the product keys and CD's for their software anymore. It was a lot of fun and exciting to see everything working together, like a finely tuned machine, performing better then they ever expected.
Over the last few years I have been excited to learn Amazon's E2C and S3 systems. It's great how easy it is to quickly provision 1 or 100 Linux servers as needed. One of my clients was expecting a ton of traffic for a single weekend for a concert event. The ticket system was used to check customers in at the door, as well as host pictures that where being uploaded during the event. I was able to leverage the Amazon E2C system to quickly bring up the servers they required as needed, without any hardware startup costs. After the Load-Balancer instance was setup, I started to build a few backend web servers. I carefully monitored the amount of traffic each web server in the farm was getting. As the traffic quickly spiked, I started a few more web server instances into the farm and watched in real time as the traffic was evenly distributed across the web server farm. It was a complete success!
2009
I recently got back from a project out in the bread basket of America. A large company had the misfortune of a hacker break in. First, I needed to prevent another attack into their system. Then, the priority was to determine if the credit card databases where accessed. While I was there assessing the infiltration, I created and implemented an encrypted disaster recovery plan. I sat down with the IT staff and the company owners and found a balance between sharing administrator passwords and IT administrator liability. After creating and installing an Intrusion Detection System, I am now able to monitoring internet attack attempts, as well as employee access to their servers in real time. I brought the company back into PCI-DSS compliance and everyone walked away from this project happier and safer.
2008
I was called out to a serious situation in Denver Colorado. A large company was in the midst of an ex-employee hack. I was called out to work with another forensic specialist to determine if employee broke in, how they broke in, and what was compromised if they did break in. Tensions where high and the Denver Police Department was even on speed dial for a while. After taking a very detailed look at the network and servers, I was able to tell exactly when and where the hacker came from, as well as what they did inside the private company network. Once the server and network logs where properly documented and handed over to the companies lawyers, I was asked to do a complete external and internet network security audit. After the audit, I went to work on plugging security holes and securing vulnerabilities the company was not aware they had. I created a strategic plan to secure all systems while I trained the existing IT department to understand what I was doing and why it was necessary. Before I left they had an A+ on their network security report card and all intrusions where well documented and vulnerabilities fixed.
2007
A large corporation hired me as an acting IT Director. One of the first large projects they had for me was to over see the computer and phone systems during the move across town. It was my personal responsibility to make sure the T1 PRI and the internet connection where up and running day one as well as all the servers and employee workstations, this included managing the transition for their email and web sites on Linux servers which they host themselves. I had two racks of computer and phone equipment to move safely, but everything made it without a single scratch. I even went to the new location weeks before to test the Ethernet drops. There where problems with a couple of the drops and I was able to fix everything before the big move. It took planning and a lot of phone calls, but on the day of our move everything worked perfectly from the moment we arrived.