Operating Systems

Many flavors of Unix, including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, SunOS, and some IRIX and HP-UX. I am somewhat familiar with various networking hardware interfaces, as well as most versions of Microsoft Windows and MacOS.

System Administration

DNS, DNSSEC, DHCP, HTTPD, SMTP, SSH, NTP, IMAP, POP, NFS, and virtually anything else that can be done on a Unix box short of database administration. It is impossible to list all of the hundreds of different tools and applications that I use every day.

Networking

TCP/IP, Ethernet, Switches, Routers, VLANs, trunking, anycast, security issues. I used to be a CCNA, but my certification has expired.

Languages

Perl, Bourne Shell, Regular Expressions, Awk, C, C++, and a number of others from my days as a student (Pascal, Ada, etc.).

• Manage Yahoo!'s entire production DNS infrastructure: over a thousand DNS servers, tens of thousands of domains, serving millions of cumulative DNS queries per second.
• Write and maintain thousands of lines of complex Perl code, and maintain and update a vast, complicated architecture of systems and processes related to our DNS data.
• Lead the DNSSEC efforts at Yahoo!, implementing both DNSSEC Validation on a growing number of our resolvers, and signed production zones with published KSKs and DS records.

Apple, Inc., Cupertino, CA (http://www.apple.com/)
Unix Administrator
May 2009 through November 2009

• Senior Administrator on the team supporting all of Apple's Hardware Engineering efforts worldwide.
• Wrote scripts, managed Storage and Operating System issues, mentored junior administrators, reviewed code.

Ariba, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (http://www.ariba.com/)
Unix Administrator
April 2008 through May 2009

• Managed Ariba's entire production environment, consisting mostly of Red Hat Linux boxes, with a few Solaris machines as well.
• Upgraded Ariba's Network-attached Storage systems to new clustered NetApp servers with zero downtime.
• Wrote numerous Perl scripts to monitor different aspects of Ariba's production network and servers.

Remote employee of Yahoo!, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (http://www.yahoo.com/)
DNS Administrator / Unix Administrator
October 2004 through February 2008.

• Managed nearly one thousand worldwide DNS servers, providing growth management, zonefile error-checking and distribution, new DNS server installation tools, failover planning, monitoring, and new domain acquisition & configuration.
• Coded custom modifications to ISC BIND.
• Trained and mentored Yahoo! India system administration personnel.
• Performed other Unix system administration tasks for Yahoo! as needed.
• Provided 24/7 emergency on-call support.

Yahoo!, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (http://www.yahoo.com/)
Independent Consultant -- September 2003 through September 2004.
Technical Yahoo / Unix System Administrator -- May 1999 through February 2003.

• Led a team of System Administrators maintaining Yahoo!'s worldwide collection of FreeBSD, Solaris, and Linux boxes. There were more than seven thousand servers that had to be monitored and maintained at all times. Wrote and maintained a number of scripts to help automate many of these tasks.
• Wrote a custom console-monitoring application in C utilizing the kqueue() kernel interface in FreeBSD. This application monitors the serial console output on all Unix servers in a location, and logs this output to separate files for each host.
• Supported all of Yahoo!'s developers with OS/shell help, problem-solving, trouble-shooting, and general efficiency advice.
• Served as the second line of defense (after the 24-hour NOC) for nearly any problem within the worldwide Yahoo! production server network.
• Acted as mentor to all of the other System Administrators, giving advice, approving and double-checking work, watching for mistakes and being proactive to prevent problems before they occurred. This also involved a lot of one-on-one training and overseeing, when necessary.

GeoCities, Marina del Rey, CA (http://www.geocities.com/)
Sr. System Administrator/Network Administrator
July 1997 through May 1999.

• Performed nearly all System Administration and Network Administration tasks for GeoCities, a large web presence provider with millions of customer-maintained web pages. GeoCities was acquired by Yahoo! in May of 1999, and closed in October of 2009.

Hughes Information & Technology Systems, Fullerton, CA
System Administrator
September 1996 through July 1997.

• Performed numerous System Administration tasks for a small network of Sun workstations running SunOS and Solaris.

Hughes Aircraft Company, El Segundo, CA
C++ Instructor
Summer 1996.

• Taught a group of software developers how to program in the C++ programming language, including some instruction in Object-Oriented (OO) methods.

Hughes Information & Technology Systems, Fullerton, CA
Systems Programmer/System Administrator
November 1995 through September 1996.

• System Administration as part of a team for a large network of HP workstations running HP-UX.

Hughes Aircraft Company, El Segundo, CA
Systems Programmer/System Administrator
October 1994 through November 1995

• Assisted in System Administration on a small network of Silicon Graphics workstations running IRIX.