CURRICULUM VITAE – NICOLA WORTHINGTON

PERSONAL DETAILS

PERSONAL SUMMARY

I am an experienced Linux system administrator (RHCE, VCP) and Perl programmer, working in the ISP and software development industries. I enjoy writing Perl software, much of which I have released publicly as open source software on CPAN. PSMON, RRD::Simple and iNagios are used by system administrators around the world. I am also currently a silent director of TFB Technology Ltd.

I am a highly motivated individual and pride myself on completing tasks to the highest possible standard the first time around. As such I find designing, planning and improving networks and other systems' infrastructure very rewarding, and is an area that I would like to continue to work in and develop. I am specifically interested in continuing my career in LAMP Development and/or System Administration and monitoring (in or out of a NOC environment), and related areas where I can continue to use my Perl knowledge.

I prefer to work within 1 hour's drive of Watford outside the North Circular / A406, or close to London Euston. I am currently passively seeking and interested in full-time permanent opportunities.

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY

Aug 2009 - The Cloud Networks Ltd, Senior Systems Engineer

Core Roles/Skills:

2006 - McAfee International Ltd, Senior Infrastructure Engineer

Core Roles/Skills: Linux system administration, monitoring (Nagios/SNMP/RRD), VMware ESX VI3 virtualisation, automated infrastructure deployment & consolidation, backend LAMP software development, ad-hoc automation scripting, out of hours on-call cover.

The AVERT (Anti-Virus Emergency Response Team) division of McAfee is the core of McAfee's product development and back-office service delivery. I worked on all back-end services and infrastructure in the ASE (Anti-Spam Engineering) team within AVERT. I implemented and maintain comprehensive monitoring of the ASE & AVERT infrastructure (>500 hosts, >2000 services) using Nagios and a custom installation of my open source RRD monitoring software. For my RRD software, see rrd.me.uk & RRD::Simple. I have recently migrated to a scalable distributed Nagios configuration (10 interconnected Nagios servers worldwide) to allow monitoring of more hosts and services throughout the company, worldwide.

I have worked continuously to consolidate and improve the building, installation and continuing maintenance of servers and services within the AVERT organisation. I have done this, where possible, through standardisation of hardware and automated unattended OS installations using PXE network boot servers and Kickstart with RHEL & CentOS. I have played a central role in further consolidating existing physical infrastructure through VMware ESX VI 3.5 cluster and NetApp SAN and NAS storage, and have since achieved VMware Certified Professional certification. My experience and knowledge of Nagios, RRD, SNMP and Perl have enabled me to provide valuable tools to monitor virtualized service availability and capacity utilization, enabling us to better plan and budget for future infrastructure requirements.

2005 - BBC Technology, Internet Operations, UNIX Engineer

Core Roles/Skills: Perl software auditing, participating in Perl coding standards guidelines working group and Internet Operations steering meetings, system administration, monitoring (in-house solution/RRD), ad-hoc automation scripting.

BBCT (now SIS/Siemens IT Solutions & Services) provide and manage the BBC's online internet presence. I worked in a team of nine UNIX engineers who managed a large farm of Solaris Apache web servers, mod_perl application servers and Real streaming servers at multiple locations throughout the UK and US. These provide all dynamic and streaming content to www.bbc.co.uk and news.bbc.co.uk. My primary responsibilities were managing the core mod_perl application server farm and their hosted Perl applications. This included auditing Perl code before installing it in the live production environment, to ensure that the code was secure, efficient, and would not adversely effect the smooth operation of the mod_perl server pool.

Other projects I managed include the migration of mod_perl instances from legacy Perl 5.004 and 5.6.1 installations to Perl 5.8.7, and development and implementation of automated mod_perl server performance monitoring and analysis tools. I also rewrote and optimised the in-house Perl monitoring software suite "statuschk" (used to monitor all servers, devices, services and network circuits), to be multi-threaded for faster performance and better fault diagnosis through it's comprehensive scoreboard.

2004 - BBC, Interactive Factual & Learning, Software Engineer

Core Roles/Skills: Linux, Solaris & Windows system administration, database administration and development, monitoring (Nagios/RRD), backend CMS and customer facing LAMP software development for www.bbc.co.uk, software peer-review, ad-hoc automation scripting.

Working within a team of six other software engineers responsible for maintaining the CMS and development servers (Linux, Windows and Solaris), developing new Perl applications and reusable development tools for the department, webmasters, technical project managers and client-side developers. Primary technologies were Perl, Apache, mod_perl, MySQL and Oracle 8 and 9. Examples of iF&Ls work were the integration of interactive technologies for "Test The Nation" and "The Big Challenge".

2001 - Frontier Internet Services Ltd, Network Operations Engineer

Core Roles/Skills: Linux system administration, building core and customer managed server hardware, on-site customer leased-line installations, network administration, administraton of all online customer services (Exim, Apache, BIND, QPopper, ProFTPD etc.), monitoring (in-house solution/MRTG/RRD/SNMP), ad-hoc automation scripting, out of hours on-call cover.

I worked in the core Network Operations Centre team of six in London Docklands, managing and maintaining all aspects of core servers, services and network infrastructure. We exclusively used Linux on our servers (primarily, but not limited to, Red Hat 6.0 through to Red Hat 8.0), which helped me develop strong Linux administration skills. I also learned to configure Lucent/Ascend NAS (Network Access Server) hardware and Cisco 1600 & 3600 series routers. My Cisco router knowledge played an essential role during configuration of leased line installations while visiting customer offices. During my time at Frontier I developed an appreciation of the Exim MTA and MySQL, and how to integrate them in to highly flexible and performant mail routing and delivery farm. Other responsibilities included server provisioning (from building server hardware, to installing and configuring both operating systems and hosted applications and services), CGI application development, ad-hoc systems automation programming in Perl + shell scripting, and 24 hour out of hours on-call for network emergencies.

2000 - Optio Software UK Ltd, Technical Consultant

Core Roles/Skills: Designing and programming business documents for customers in OptioDCS DCL, teaching customers DCL scripting language, on-site software installation and troubleshooting, project management, on-site customer support.

I worked in a small team for UK and European operations (four in the UK, ten in France), primarily focused on customer specified programming rojects. My responsibilities included managing projects from initial concept to installation, programming, through to final user acceptance testing, documentation and project completion. Also included training customers OptioDCS DCL programming language and general product support for all Optio Software products. I was frequent required to visit customer sites throughout the UK and Europe which required a high degree of professionalism and self-confidence. My last major projects inclued writing document generation code for Dell EMEA and HJ Heinz including invoicing, statements and order acknowledgments. Troubleshooting and integration with various host UNIX and Windows operating systems and often unfamiliar customer software installations was an integral part of my duties, which required good analytical skills and the ability to quickly adapt and learn on the job.

1996 - Interactive (UK) Ltd, Software Integration Programmer

Core Roles/Skills: Customisation programming in UniData and SB+ of the Infoflo and Avanté ERP products to customer specification, telephone and on-site customer support, teaching OptioDCS DCL training courses, integrating a host of third party products in to the Infoflo and Avanté ERP products.

Responsibilities included on-site installation and integration of third party products in to the Avanté ERP database. Including custom development, sales demonstrations and training with COGNOS ODBC, Smart Forecasting, BACSTEL, UniData RDBMS, OptioDCS and OptioFAX. I gained experience with many flavours of UNIX during this time, including HPUX, AIX, DG-UX, SCO, Solaris and Linux.

QUALIFICATIONS & COURSES

• Aug/2008 - ExpertRating Unix Test (Expert Level) GPA 3.3 (Transcript #1817269)
• Feb/2008 - VCP310 / VMware Certified Professional on VI3 (VCP #22953)
• Feb/2008 - TVD-901-LVW / Live Virus Workshop (2 day)
• Jan/2008 - VMware Infrastructure 3: Fast Track Program (5 day extended hours)
• Dec/2006 - MySQL 5 Cluster for High Availability (3 day)
• Apr/2006 - ExpertRating Perl 5 Test (Expert Level) GPA 3.6 (Transcript #1031056)
• Feb/2006 - Red Hat Certified Engineer (100% exam pass mark) #804006064719004
• Apr/2005 - ITIL foundation course (1 day)
• Nov/2004 - Learning Tree Course 590, Oracle9i: A Comprehensive Hands-On Introduction (5 day)