Danny Howard - Unix Systems Administration

Danny Howard	Sunnyvale, CA
Unix Systems Administration	dannyman@toldme.com

Coupling my length and breadth of experience with a personal ethic of service, I will develop, maintain, and support your Unix-based infrastructure and tools, to ensure maximum organizational awesomeness.

Operating Systems:	FreeBSD, RHEL/CentOS, Ubuntu
Software Development: (Tool Smithing)	Python, Django, shell, Jython, web RPC, Perl, Makefiles, SQL, PHP, C Extend existing tools, build "glue" between tools, build new tools when needed
Documentation:	Bachelor of Arts: English Rhetoric Proficiency in HTML and CSS, learning JavaScript Extensive experience with blog, wiki, knowledgebase software
Issue Tracking:	JIRA: workflows, dashboards, plugins, notifications, SOAP, Jython magic Wrote e-mail interface for ancient Bugzilla
E-mail Infrastructure:	Postfix, Cisco IronPort ESAs, Courier, Qmail, Sendmail, Cyrus Virus scanning, content filtering, anti-spam, e-mail list administration, archiving
Disaster Recovery:	AMANDA, Bacula, off-site storage, dump, tar, gzip, tape robots
Certifications	KCS Practices v5 Certification -- how to build a strong support organization by facilitating knowledge sharing ITIL Foundation Certification -- how to efectively organize and manage an IT organization

Senior Unix Systems Engineer
Cisco Systems (San Bruno, CA - Brooklyn, NY - San Jose, CA 2007 - present): Maintained operation of Cisco IronPort's spam analysis infrastructure, including problem analysis, software and hardware deployment, policy maintenance, and participation in pager rotation.; Collaborated on the design and led technical implementation of ITIL Incident and Problem Management: JIRA workflows, Confluence KB, launch offshore NOC.; Designed, developed, and promoted a production "Change Management" process based on ITIL standards, built around JIRA workflow and regular CAB meetings.; Developed modular system to present team work activity in a "social media" style interface.; Extended server inventory application to support management, audit and visualization of server location within racks, automated configuration of DHCP servers.; Documented existing practices to facilitate training of new members. Collaborated with Engineering teams to improve deployment documentation. Mentored junior staff and served as "go to" guy for folks on other teams.
Lead Unix Systems Administrator
Yelp, Inc. (San Francisco, CA 2006 - 2007): Expanded production network infrastructure to accommodate rapidly growing traffic. Improved monitoring procedures and extended trend analysis. Re-implemented Disaster Recovery services.; Collaborated with development team to create and maintain an operations "run book". Promoted cultural best practices via routine status reports, incident reports, and forensic analyses.
Senior Unix Systems Administrator
Nextrials, Inc. (San Ramon, CA 2004 - 2006): Re-designed production network to improve manageability, resiliency, and performance. Built new networks in Reston, VA and San Jose, CA. Maintained systems documentation for internal use, and third-party audits. Deployed improved monitoring and trending software.; Supervised staff and tracked expenditures to ensure technical execution met management expectations.
Manager of Technical Support and Managed Hosting Services
Server Central Networks (Chicago, IL 2003 - 2004): Ensured that technical support requests were fulfilled on a consistent basis by staff operating 24x7. Developed documentation, deployed and monitored software knowledgebase systems for customers and staff. Ensured that all escalated issues were resolved.; Managed daily operations of Cobalt and Plesk-based web and e-mail hosting services on Linux and FreeBSD. Managed internal systems for issue tracking, knowledgebase, and systems monitoring. Interfaced with service and software vendors to resolve issues. Managed additional systems as required.
Lead Unix Systems Administrator, Corporate Operations
Tellme Networks (Mountain View, CA 1999 - 2001): Developed and maintained core Unix-based Information Services as company grew from twelve to 250 employees. Transferred responsibilities and services to new teams and technologies as they became available. Continuously (re)implemented and migrated to improved solutions, emphasizing user-level transparency.; Implemented flexible and scalable e-mail architecture that included virus scanning. Developed web-based mailing list software. Maintained original firewall and office network. Implemented first co-located "production" service. Thoroughly researched and deployed LDAP re-implementation.
Systems and Network Administrator
EnterAct, L.L.C. (Chicago, IL - 1998 to 1999): Managed FreeBSD servers, supporting web, e-mail, and shell access for over 15,000 users. Performed DNS and subnet allocations. Authored, documented, maintained and audited support software and systems for employees and customers in Perl, C, csh and sh. Provided routine Unix support for other departments.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: BA in English Rhetoric: Professional Writing
Minor in Computer Science: Programming Languages, Compilers and Networking
Additional course work in Linguistics

I grew up in Chicago. I still miss the seasons.
I love trains, public transportation, and maps.
I listen to NPR and read a fair amount.
I live with my wife and our baby in Sunnyvale.
I spent the dot-com bust backpacking around the world, serving pizza, and making espresso.
I contributed a few transit maps to the recent book "Human Transit" by Jarret Walker.
Technical Notes on my blog: http://dannyman.toldme.com/category/technical/
Bonus Cool: http://dannyman.toldme.com/sjc-tubes/