Personal Details

Formal Education

Professional

Information Technology

Military

Secondary Education

Grens Höer Skool (Completed in 1984)

Employment History

Eirteic Consulting (Africa)

October 2007 - Present

Overview:

Eirteic approached me to fill in a role in their consultancy as a combination Senior NMS Consultant and Systems Architect.

Detail:

Duties included both the Design and Implementation of NMS systems at various Customers’ sites, as well as being on call to assist in the troubleshooting of thorny issues on-site at particularly sensitive clients.

Vodacom

April 2004 - September 2007

Overview:

Vodacom needed a senior UNIX Systems Engineer to oversee the administration of their Motorola Operational Management Centres for Radio (OMC-R) systems team.

Detail:

While my primary duties were initially related to the Motorola OMC-R systems, additional duties included assisting in the management of all Vodacom’s OSS (Operational Support Systems) and being seconded to various other departments to assist in projects as diverse as EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) and Network Performance Management from the very beginning.
During the EAI Project the evaluation team and I assisted the company in evaluating the two products (webMethods and WebSphere) for applicability to their business processes and in evaluating the ease of integration into company processes. In doing so we had to evaluate the products with vendors assistance in implementing a very comprehensive POC (Proof of Concept) in an extremely limited time-span to demonstrate concrete value.
I thereafter moved to the Enterprise Management team where I assisted in the management and administration of the Network Management systems and the automation of manual processes to allow the team to better utilise its people.
Mast of my time in the latter end of my tenure at Vodacom was spent involved with custom external reporting of data in Concord (now CA) eHealth and writing a combination of rules-files, policies and custom probes for Micromuse (now IBM/Tivoli) Netcool and Impact in addition to the usual Shell, Perl and Python scripting.

Reason for Leaving:

I had decided to relocate back to Gauteng for personal and family reasons.

Dimension Data

August 1999 - March 2004

Overview:

I was employed by Dimension Data as their senior UNIX systems engineer at their “bridge” at Epsom Downs in Randburg and later as Technical Team-Leader for their Global Services Support Team.

Detail:

My duties originally included the management of the “Facilities” (Back-end Support) Team — including the UNIX, the Windows NT, the Checkpoint Firewall-1 and the Network Administrators. Subsequently, I, at own request, became an internal consultant to allow me more time to be involved in technical matters and architectural design.
I assisted the GSOA (Global Services Operating Architecture) Team in defining a Operational Distribution system for GSOA programs and data and in defining and implementing a support version and configuration management system.
After that I assisted DD-Professional Services on-site at one of their clients as a UNIX and Network Management resource, especially in resolving UNIX systems and services problems as an integrator and troubleshooter.

Technologies:

During my time at Dimension Data, I was involved with the following technologies:

• Network services:
  • SNMP
  • RMON
  • UNIX system routing
  • UNIX based Firewalls
    • CheckPoint FireWall-1
    • Linux IP-Tables
    • Linux IP-Chains
  • Cisco
    • Auditing
    • Remote Management
  • UNIX Web, Telnet and SNMP Proxy systems
  • HTML and CGI systems, including, but not limited to:
    • Web Enabling Management Systems
    • Creating Dynamic HTML systems
  • DNS (BIND 4/8/9)
  • TACACS and TACACS+
  • SMTP (Sendmail 8/9)
• System services:
  • Sun Enterprise, Netra and Ultra Systems
  • Solaris 2.6, 7 and 8 systems
  • SunOS 5.6, 5.7 and 5.8 systems under the above mentioned
  • Linux (RedHat, Slackware, Debian and SuSE) Systems on Intel and Sparc Architectures
  • (Free, Net and Open) BSD Systems on the Intel Architecture
  • System Monitoring Systems for all of the above
• Databases:
  • Oracle
  • MySQL
  • PostgreSQL
  • OpenIngres
  • Embedded Sybase

Reason for Leaving:

I wanted to diversify my skill set while still specialising in Unix and Linux. Vodacom afforded me the opportunity to accomplish this goal.

Advantage Group

November 1998 - August 1999

Overview:

Assisting Advantage Group’s UNIX Subdivision’s clients and doing the Groups’ UNIX Administration and Web Development.

Detail:

The Advantage Group was an initiative to supply the computer industry in South Africa with high quality and professional support resources.
One of my sites were the “Academy of Computer Education” where I trained students on OpenServer 5 and UnixWare 7 Advanced System Administration and Network Administration as part of The Santa Cruz Operation’s ACE (Advanced Certified Engineer) Certification.
In addition to the Academy I also assisted Pin-Point Training as a SCO Instructor at various stages.

Technologies:

I was involved in the following technologies during my time with UniNet Advantage:

• NNTP (INN and C-News)
  • Including Mail-to-News and News-to-Mail gateways
• SMTP (Sendmail 8)
  • Including Mail-to-Mail gateways
• LDAP
• HTML and CGI
  • Dynamic Data systems (from Mail, News and LDAP back-ends)
  • A complete Web based LDAP management system
• UNIX systems, including:
  • OpenServer 5
  • UnixWare 7
  • NeXt Step
  • Linux
• Networking (Ethernet, Token Ring and FDDI)

Reason for Leaving:

The owner of the company decided to let UniNet lie fallow while he concentrated on his other companies. I left with his blessing and in good will.

Systems Integration

August 1998 - October 1998

Overview:

I was approached on behalf of Systems Integration to fulfil their need of an experienced UNIX Systems Engineer.

Detail:

The company’s primary requirement was for someone who could assist their clients in resolving UNIX and TCP/IP networking problems in relation to Legato’s NetWorker (a network-based and SAN integrated Backup system). Additional duties included the administration of SI’s UNIX servers and assisting their clients with Disaster Recovery Planning and Management and the support of Legato’s NetWorker.

Technologies:

• Sun Solaris (2.6)
• Legato NetWorker
• TCP/IP Network design

Reason for Leaving:

Incompatible goals with company. They required me to become a product specialist and I wanted to expand on my UNIX/Networking knowledge. I left in good standing.

Pin-Point Software (SDD Project)

March 1998 - July 1998

Overview:

I was in the employ of Pin-Point Software as a UNIX Systems Administrator and UNIX Support Engineer.

Detail:

My primary duty was the Operational upkeep of the UNIX Network and Production UNIX Servers at Siltek Distribution Dynamics. Additional duties include the assistance of the Network Engineers during times of heavy workload or in case of UNIX specific network congestion, Troubleshooting of TCP/IP communications issues, Client relations and report-back to the Pin-point managers regarding site-specific issues.
During my time on site I managed to automate the Site-wide UNIX Backup system, and to completely automate the Technical Operational Notification System.
I also assisted the COBOL programmers on-site with UNIX Integration issues.

Technologies:

• SCO OpenServer 5
• Linux
• Generic TCP/IP
• Networking (Ethernet, Token Ring and FDDI)
• UNIX Mail and DNS systems

Reason for Leaving:

Pin-Point cancelled the SDD contract. I was made the offer to join another division being formed at the time or assisting internal IT in their corporate network. I decided to rather move along, both a good and a bad decision as time has proved.

Möbius Group (Datavia Project)

December 1996 - March 1998

Overview:

I was originally approached and subsequently employed by Möbius as an on-site consultant for their clients.

Detail:

I was placed at Datavia (now `Arivia.Kom’) to assist the Datavia personnel with fault-finding and emergency repairs of their mission critical “GEMINI” sites, — then running under OS/2 — some of which sites could cost Transnet in the region of two million Rand per hour of downtime at that point in time.
My duties had, however, been expanded far beyond even that; in the end including fault-finding during problematic network, hardware and/or software related faults, arbitrating during contention faults, assisting Datavia LAN Administrators and Network Analysts with OS/2, UNIX and Windows NT system and network related problems and assisting in problem determination of TCP/IP networking and network printing related faults.

Technologies:

• Linux
• Sun Solaris (2.5)
• IBM OS/2 (2.1, 2.11, Warp3 and Warp4)
• TCP/IP
• IBM SNA
• Networking (Ethernet, Token Ring and FDDI)

Reason for Leaving:

Career decision to specialise in UNIX and UNIX related Networking.

South African Air Force

January 1986 - November 1996

Overview:

Since this time spans a period of nearly eleven years, I’ll highlight only relevant details.

Detail:

Mustering:

My official mustering was “Airspace Control Operator”.

Additional Duties:

Since “Airspace Control Operator” was (and still is, as far I’m aware) a “GD” (General Duties) mustering — The only non-aircrew (Pilot/Navigator/Flight Engineer/Loadmaster) mustering to be so — I was utilised in various fashions; from Information Technology advisor to various units and unit members, to squadron P.R.O. in a couple of instances, to keeper of Squadron Lines Books/War Diaries, to Instructor to new Squadron members and Supervisor.
I was also required to assist Infoplan and their representatives on-base with PC-support and Unit personnel with software support.

Technologies:

• SunOS 4
• Sun Solaris
• OS/2 (2.0, 2.1, 2.11 and Warp3)
• Desktop Support on various systems, including:
  • WordPerfect 5.1
  • Various Macro Languages
  • AutoCad 10
  • DBase4 (and other xBase variants)
  • Operating Systems (DOS 3, 4, and 5)
  • DOS GUIs (Windows and the like)
• Networking (Ethernet, Token Ring and FDDI)

Reason for Leaving:

Opportunity to broaden my Networking experience.

References

References are available on request.