Phone: +44 (0)789 777 2100
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Profile
As a Technical Consultant, I am authoritative on medium and high-end UNIX systems design and configuration. With deep and wide knowledge of operating systems, servers, storage and clusters, as well as LAN, SAN and Virtualisation, I have the knowledge and understanding to propose, design and configure high-end systems within multi-million dollar projects. I bring high levels of professionalism, commitment and attention to detail to every project. I match customer requirements with industry best practices to deliver a design and implementation which provides the best of both.
As solutions do not end with a design, I also have excellent troubleshooting skills to address any issues which may arise later on in the project lifecycle.
UK Government & Defence Security Clearance (SC) valid until 10/03/2017.
Key Technologies
- Unix/Linux - design, configuration, performance tuning, hardening.
- Solaris (Solaris 10 SysAdmin, Data Management, and SunCluster Certified Installer certifications)
- RedHat Certified Engineer (RHCE) #110-278-421
- SolarisCluster - design, configuration, administration, repair
- Oracle / Sun High-End and Volume Servers - design, configuration, administration
- Storage / Volume Management - NAS, DAS, SAN, Veritas, SVM, ZFS, LVM, MD - design, configuration, administration
- Programming - Unix Shell (Bourne Shell, Bash, Ksh, etc), C, and many other languages
Recent Successes
- Author of the Wiley book Shell Scripting: Expert Recipes for Linux, Bash and more (ISBN 1118024486). facebook.com/shellscript has over 2,500 followers.
- Have designed and deployed the Linux strategy and infrastructure for the UK's third largest supermarket, and delivered and supported the first six projects based on that design.
- Wrote software to format Sun iRunbook documentation for publication, which reduced a 5-week Write / Format / Review process into a 1-week Write-and-Review process, dramatically increasing the project's profitability.
- One Sun customer's satisfaction with my E20k design directly led them to nominate Sun as their preferred supplier for high-end UNIX systems and to immediately purchase a further eight E25k servers
Work History
December 2011 - Present: Infrastructure Specialist, IBM (Contract, renewed twice)
The Unix / Linux Subject Matter Expert on IBM's contract with Department for Work and Pensions. Providing expertise on RedHat Linux 4 and 5, Solaris 9 and 10, AIX 5.2-7.1 and HP-UX 11.31. Working with VMWare, Zones and LDOM, vPAR, LPAR and WPAR virtualisation technologies, on x86, SPARC, Itanium and Power hardware.
Delivering standardised, secure, best-practice builds of Operating Systems and Middleware technologies. Creating detailed and accurate documentation of requirements and installation procedures. Working with and debugging many versions and combinations of Oracle, DB2, MySQL, Informatica, Siebel, Tomcat, Apache, Samba, Perl, JBoss, and many other technologies, from 10 year old legacy releases to cutting edge configurations.
Responsible for Defining and Documenting infrastructure standards and procedures, from user account creation and management to access control and patch management. Mentoring and training offshore resources in best practices as well as in methodologies for troubleshooting and diagnosing problems.
Supporting over 500 users across 200 OS instances, providing direct assistance with Build and Deployment, Database, Shell, Java and Perl development tasks.
June 2009 - December 2011: Linux Design Consultant, Sainsbury's (Contract, renewed 7 times)
Consultant designing and implementing a Linux infrastructure to follow on from the existing Solaris environment. I used my deep understanding of Solaris and Linux, as well as SAN, Networking, Clustering, Monitoring and Application requirements to deliver a suitable solution for the business. Defining standards, procedures and best practices for design, deployment, resilience (VCS and Oracle RAC), storage and backup strategy. Delivering documentation and training for Project, Support and Operations staff to build, use, support and extend the design. Having put all of this into place, I have guided through the next six projects using the standards and procedures provided. Also worked on a virtualised Linux design using VMWare, as well as a specialised build to be rolled out to 200 stores.
September 2007 - June 2009: Technical Consultant, iNTEQ Professional Services
For Sun Professional Services, Sun Resellers and other partners, a technical authority providing Enterprise services specialising in design and build of Clusters, High-End Servers (E25K, M3000, M4000, M5000 to M9000) and Volume servers (CMT/Niagara T2000, T5000, X Series).
Designing and implementing Solaris and Linux systems and Clusters, Servers and Storage. Also writing technical documentation on ESX, RedHat, MySQL and other technologies for Sun.
September 2005 - September 2007: Technical Architect, EDS
Designing implementations (Solaris, HP-UX, Linux) for a large international Bank, taking this design through to obtaining quotes, arranging purchase and organising the delivery, installation and configuration of the servers across multiple environments, within EDS and Client datacentres. Providing cost models for the deployment and ongoing support of the implementation.
Similar work for a large UK government department, high-end Sun servers (E25K and SunCluster), but also working with the Unix, SAN and network teams to provide detailed and accurate designs, coordinating across multiple internal departments to provide a single point-of-contact for the project to arrange the implementation. Working closely with multiple suppliers to design a coherent solution as well as taking a close involvement in the change management process across all environments.
I was also responsible for capacity planning, to ensure that we deployed sufficient capacity for current and planned future workloads. This involved analysing volumetrics and workflow of the application.
June 1999 - Sep 2005: Technical Consultant, Sun Microsystems (via Netops, Sun Strategic Partner)
Design, onsite installation, configuration and testing of all Sun Professional Services offerings for Sun Microsystems clients in all markets including Financial, Telco, Retail, Utility and Public Sector.
- SunCluster design and installation, HA-API (aka GDS) Scripting
- Full range of Sun Servers and storage including Hitachi HDS 9960/9970/9980 arrays.
Also responsible for all aspects of Netops' and customer internet presence, including determining security policies and procedures, installing and administrating firewall, webserver, mail server, DNS.
September 1998 - May 1999: Systems Specialist, Datel Computing Ltd
AIX and SCO Systems Specialist responsible for providing consultancy, installation, and ongoing maintenance and support of systems running on RS/6000, NetFinity and other servers. Sole company expert in SCO UNIX. Personally responsible for all aspects of the server hardware, operating system, network and networked devices.
May 1997 - September 1998: Unix Installations Engineer, Siemens Nixdorf
Unix and networking for Mercedes, Tesco, Dixons. Taking the role of a Senior Engineer, I replaced the whole network – Unix clients and servers, PCs, printers, and (Unix/X11 client) Electronic Parts Catalogue systems for a Mercedes dealership within one working day without disrupting the business. This involved co-ordinating a team of 12 engineers to complete the dealership-wide upgrade.
February - May 1997: Support Engineer, GEC Alsthom Signalling Ltd
Administration of Solaris 2.5.1, Windows NT 4 and Novell NetWare. Technical support and management of PCs plus Solaris SPARCstations. Administration and maintenance of Internet gateway, ISDN connection, Intranet including Perl CGI scripting, NIS+.
September 1996 - February 1997: PC Support Technician, Refuge Assurance PLC
As part of a team of 6, on-site helpdesk support for 600 PC users running networked Windows / NetWare. SCO UnixWare and programming of utilities for its data-entry system. Administration and installation of the NetWare servers. Responsible for virus control and backup / restore facilities.
June 1994 - June 1995: Validation Engineer, ICL (Sandwich Year as part of Degree)
DRS/NX, SCO, UnixWare and Windows NT 3.5, 3.51 validation and certification, involving systems administration, hardware and software, and my specialisation in Networking - including TCP/IP, OSI, X21, V24/X25, Token Ring, UUCP, Internet Services (DNS, NNTP, etc).
Working closely with ICL's Unix developers, I got involved with the development team right down to Kernel level. This gave me a great insight into Unix internals. I also wrote a shell script which turned half a day of test preparation work into a two-minute task.
Education / Qualifications
- BSc. 2(i) (Honours) Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire (1996)
- 3 A-Levels in Computer Science, Pure & Applied Mathematics, General Studies (1992)
- 9 GCSEs including "A" in Maths & French, "B" in English Lit. and Language (1989)
- Red Hat Certified Engineer 110-278-421
- Sun Certified Systems Installer for Sun™ Cluster 3.x
- Sun Certified Data Management Engineer - VxVM + SDS
- Sun Certified System Administrator for Solaris 10 OS (Part I & II) - SR1388196
Industry Training
- SunCluster 2.2, 3.0, 3.2
- HDS 9970/9980 V/Lightning
- Sun Fire 15k Admin For Sun Professional Services
- Applied SunCluster 3.0 Technologies
- SunCluster 3.0 API
- SunFire 3800-15000 Server Range
- Solstice DiskSuite (Solaris LVM) 4.2.1 Update
- Volume Manager 3.2 Update
- Sun SKIP, EFS, FPS Firewall
- Sun E10000 (aka Starfire, E10k)
Other Technologies
- Solaris: Author of tools including SMF Generator, VxVM Translator.
- Linux: Active community member 1996 - Present. Creator of http://speedtouchconf.sourceforge.net/; Author of 600-page Wiley book Shell Scripting: Expert Recipes for Linux, Bash and more and other projects.
- AIX, DRS/NX, SCO OpenServer and UnixWare, HPUX, SINIX, *BSD Unix.
- Unix / Linux Community: Author of the Bourne Shell Scripting Tutorial which is online at at http://steve-parker.org/sh/sh.shtml as well as many other articles on that site - normally ranked in the top 3 by most major search engines. I also write http://nixshell.wordpress.com/, at more of an introductory level, a widely followed *nix blog..
- Android Development: Netmask Calculator and other projects.
Personal Details
- Year of Birth: 1973
- Nationality: British
- Email: steve@steve-parker.org
- Website: http://steve-parker.org/ / http://sgpit.com/
- Location: Manchester / Cheshire / North West England
