Information Technology

techoclientvert I’ve been an IT professional for over 30 years, and have deep experience in all aspects of MySQL and various flavors of Unix, and have utilized Unix heavily as an administrator since the mid 1980s and MySQL as a DBA and architect since 1994–the year before it went into GA–including all possible permutations of replication, clustering, query and server tuning, and advanced configurations. My Unix/Linux systems administration experience includes both conventional servers as well as a solid background in configuring, balancing, and maintaining Amazon Web Services products. Additionally, I have years of experience using shell scripting, PERL, and PHP to automate database tasks.

I work exclusively as a remote systems admin and MySQL DBA, and I have been doing for several years now with great success. With a very complete and configured home office—including 4 workstations and thirteen development servers in my setup, amounting to, all told, about $250K in computing and teleconferencing/web conferencing/video conferencing equipment—I am not the usual work-from-home employee, and have been working with this arrangement for many years for companies both large and small, including IBM. I wish to highlight my familiarity in working via a telecommuting arrangement with minimal supervision, as well as executing tasks and assignments from a ticketing/project management system environment.

Stuff I’m good at (from my cover letter; see here for the whole thing, plus my resumé):

DBA expert in MySQL and MySQL Enterprise environments (versions 3.23 through 6.0), including clustering and complex master/master-master/slave replication schemes, as well as variants (Percona MySQL, Percona XtraDB Cluster, MariaDB, TokuTek products, etc.)
Specific deep knowledge in the use of MySQL in standalone, master/slave, master/master and clustered environments (see below for a list)
Database architecture and design in a variety of industries, systems, and environments
Experience in designing, creating and maintaining both OLAP and OLTP systems. Extensive experience in ETL, EDI, XML, and other data transfer mechanisms.
Daily use of the Percona Toolset for backup, automation, and other database tasks.
Experience in caching, sharding, and partitioning of data for ease of access, high availability, and high speed.
Usage of Amazon Web Services products as a virtual datacenter, utilizing EC2, S3, RDS, SNS, and other resources both as server farms, database environments, and other uses. Well-versed in all aspects of EC2 in particular in creating a solid, resilient multi-zoned architecture.
Deep systems management and administration skills with Unix/Linux/BSD/ Solaris, Windows, and Macintosh systems, with a concentration in LAMP. Years of background as an administrator with many distributions of Linux, including RedHat, CentOS, Fedora, SuSE, Debian, Mandriva, Gentoo, Slackware, and others. Daily usage of standard monitoring tools such as Nagios, Cacti, Graphite, MySQL Enterprise Monitor, MonYOG, and others. Usage of various tools to automate deployments.
Expert level development skills in PHP, PERL, and Javascript, as well as various other languages (Ruby, Python, etc.) for both UI, systems, web, and automation applications for 20 years; extensive use of source control both as a user and an administrator of SVN
Extensive experience in modifying, creating plugins and modules, enhancing, and coding for industry standard content management systems and social platforms, such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla/Mambo, Drupal, BuddyPress and many others.
Almost three decades of practical, hands-on IT experience in a variety of roles
Systems engineering and design in copper, fiber, and wireless networks
Datacenter design, implementation and maintenance experience
Over 20 years of intranet, extranet, and web application design, creation, and implementation experience
Deep familiarity with document management applications, guidelines, and implementation, including Sarbanes-Oxley regulations
Consulting work with healthcare providers and ancillary organizations
A multifaceted background it leading and managing IT development teams and divisions
Personnel management and recruitment, project budgeting and estimating
Project management background, with projects of all sizes and scopes
IT auditing methods and practices
Full P&L responsibility, at the department, division, and company-wide levels
Background and experience with ITIL concepts and guidelines
Process architecture and design experience
Ability to give clear, concise, and succinct presentations to corporate and board-level executives in an lucid manner