David Brown 1758-34 Kawarabuki Ageo-shi Saitama-ken 362-0022 JAPAN Phone: +81-90-6549-8110 E-mail: dagbrown@lart.ca SUMMARY Experienced sysadmin and software developer with more than 25 years of experience across many varieties of UNIX seeking new challenges, opportunities and knowledge. SKILLS Spoken languages English (mother tongue) Japanese (daily business) Computer languages Ruby; Perl; Python; Bourne, Korn and C shell; C/C++; FORTRAN; HTML; Java; Common Lisp; Make; PostScript; SQL; XML; many others. Operating systems Unix (system administrator and programmer level; several versions, most recently Linux and MacOS, but also Solaris, NCR Unix, HP-UX, IRIX, SUPER-UX, Reliant UNIX and others). Microsoft Windows NT/2000/XP (administrator and programmer level). A few others. Hardware Lots of x86/PC experience; MacOS; Sun, HP and other servers. Open Source projects * Lunar Linux, a source-based Linux distribution: developer. * Gurgitate Mail, a mail filter and local delivery agent: creator and lead developer. * Percolate Mail, an SMTP server framework: creator and lead developer. * Flooterbuck Infobot, a fork of Kevin Lenzo's Infobot: lead developer. Certifications Passed the Japanese IT Standards Examination in April 2006. EXPERIENCE Systems Administrator January 2021-June 2021 Spamhaus Technologies, Technical team * Technical environment: Linux virtual machines on diverse cloud hosting services around the world, plus a physical datacenter using VMWare vSphere * Evaluated the production environment with an eye to improving data transfer and maintainability * Built new Linux servers as needed to maintain service levels worldwide Systems Administrator/Architect July 2007-present GMO Internet, Shared Hosting Product team Tokyo, Japan * Technical environment: A production environment consisting of a large collection of SuperMicro servers, mostly running Solaris 10, but with some OmniOS. Test environment: mainly SmartOS. Desktops were either Linux-based or MacOS, and I did some development work in Visual Basic for an internal Windows system. * Migrated the configuration management to a Git-based workflow, and then later to a Gitlab-based workflow, to ensure consistent configuration across multiple systems. * Introduced standard software packages, again to ensure consistency across different networks. * Migrated the development and test networks from the previously anarchic collection of Xen VMs and Solaris 10 zones, to a new, standardized SmartOS-based network. While I was at it, I moved the build, wiki and Gitlab servers to SmartOS VMs. * Spearheaded the use of a Sun x4500 disk storage solution to replace the existing NetApp solution, saving the company tens of millions of yen in hardware cost and millions of yen in support costs. * Discovered the once-thought-missing source code for an old but profitable service, and ported it so that it continued to be usable after its original hardware had been retired. * Envisioned and implemented an effective, disciplined configuration management system using open-source tools, allowing easy recovery from errors and discovery of the details of changes that had been made. (In other words, I discovered that Git is a better tool than RCS so I convinced my coworkers to use Git.) * Created an automated software build-and-packaging system for the increasing number of third-party open-source software tools that needed to be deployed. Basically, I ported the Lunar Linux build system to Solaris, with great success. Programmer/Systems Administrator February 2005-May 2007 Rightweight Process/Invio/USE, Internet Solutions Division Tokyo, Japan * Technical environment: A mixed environment, generally with Linux on servers and Linux, Windows and MacOS on desktop. Network equipment was Yamaha, Dell and Cisco. Programming was mainly done in Ruby with Rails, but there was also some PHP, Perl and Python development. My supervisees used Microsoft technologies like C# and .NET. * Supervised a team of University of Waterloo students, making them immediately productive by implementing a learn-by-doing training program where early results were immediately management- and customer-visible. This fostered a positive relationship between team members and the rest of the company by rapidly demonstrating the quality of their work. * Quickly identified and capitalized on areas of strength in new employees, leading new team members to be quickly accepted by the rest of the company, and encouraging new employees to quickly take on new and challenging tasks. * Designed and built a high-performance, high-availability load-balancing network for customer's ad server and discovered inexpensive and simple solutions for subtle problems by investigating and diagnosing performance bottlenecks, * Performed rapid and effective needs analysis for another service for the same customer. Upon receiving amended requirements for their ad server, quickly perceived their actual requirements based on their requests and clearly explained my perceptions. The customer accepted my amendments to their original request. * Designed and implemented robust, high-performance email systems, including smart distribution-list management, spam and virus filtering, and email hosting solutions, for both internal and external email customers. * Worked with a customer to devise an offsite backup solution for their web site, working within the constraints of a hostile environment, which saved the customer large amounts of money and gave them control over their own data. * Designed and implemented Subversion and Trac systems for intranet, with special exceptions for access by outside contractors. Webmaster (contract) June 2004-April 2006 XBRL Spy Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada * Technical environment: Apache web server on a hosting service with PHP. * Researched and recommended content-management software and hosting providers, with a focus on highest quality and maximum flexibility combined with greatest value. * Rapidly set up the website and its content within the Drupal CMS framework * Handled system administration tasks including software installation, backup and email management. Systems Analyst 2003-2004 Blast Radius Products Division Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada * Technical environment: A mixed environment consisting largely of Linux servers and Windows workstations. Most of my own development was in Python on Linux systems, but there was also a large amount of development in C++ and Java within Windows environments. * Wrote a bug tracker using the Roundup framework to enable Quality Assurance to accurately track problem resolution. * Authored a lightweight document management system which used out-of-the-box components including SAMBA and DocUtils, enabling the design and development teams to quickly exchange project documentation and information. * Implemented a system backup and archive scheme to meet government and software release requirements, and to ensure protection of the software development environment. * Supervised and mentored a practicum student, leading directly to his being hired on a permanent basis in the IT department. * Administered the development team's Perforce and Subversion source code repositories. * Provided general IT support for the Products division, including acquiring hardware and software for development, Quality Assurance, and customer-facing demonstrations, and assessing network performance and topology issues. * Liaised between the Products division and Blast Radius's IT department, ensuring that IT issues were solved in a timely, satisfactory manner. VOLUNTEER WORK Developer, build master 2004-present Lunar Linux (Open Source distribution) * Technical environment: A source-based Linux distribution, like Gentoo but with a curses-based installer rather like Debian or Red Hat. * After the project had a lengthy hiatus without new install media releases, I took the initiative to figure out how to build the install media, fix what was broken with the build, and institute a daily build. * Made considerable improvements in the installer for the distro, including adding support for installing with a (virtual) serial, and streamlining the interactive installer. * Made, reviewed and accepted many pull requests in the distro's Github repositories. * Mentored several others, providing resources and encouraging them to experiment and take risks. Prior to 2004 * Did building, packaging and source code management for NCR Corporation in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. * Repaired and reinstalled some less-well-known computers for Mortice Kern Systems in Waterloo. * Wrote some LISP code as a research assistant at the University of Waterloo. * Wrote a GUI for the settings file for Advanced Scientific Computing in Waterloo. * Learned how to be a system administrator at the Computer Science Club at the University of Waterloo. * Ran a bunch of HP-UX workstations for scientists working at Environment Canada in Downsview, Ontario. * Worked in a VMS environment at Labatt Breweries of Canada, providing system and user support. EDUCATION * Completed two and a half years of a 4-year Computer Science program at the University of Waterloo.