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My career
aim is to operate in a competitive environment, where I am challenged daily to
re-examine problems, and to find solutions for them in a creative way. This
perfect environment fosters intelligent, knowledgeable colleagues, little or
no business politics and a strong, motivated drive to succeed. In this
environment, I would be able to assist organisations to generate and develop
competitive advantage based on strong Information Technology-driven,
customer-orientated systems.
In the
short-term to medium-term, I want to work in an IT field, with companies that
have a strong IT emphasis. I believe that the benefits of an IT
environment is one which not only personally challenges one, but allows
organizational entities to have a reach and deliver services which are far
greater than without those benefits. A personally complementing
attribute of this field is the constant learning required, as the industry is
one which constantly innovates, invigorates and challenges.
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Current
From January 10th 2000 until July, I was working as a UNIX
systems administrator at UUNET South
Africa, Africa’s premier ISP. In late July 2000, I was given more responsibility
over the Servers team. It is proving to be a challenge in implementing
first world technology coupled with first world customer requirements,
within a third world regulatory environment. As part of this job, I have
been on Sun Solaris 7 system administration (I and II) training, Cisco security
training as well as Belle Systems IMS training.
My current focus is
on systems within our business, with specific focus on network and business
systems, in addition to server and services operations.
This includes
the hardware platforms, the software they run, the degree to which
the solution is customised, it's scalability and integration with other
systems; an unstated consideration is the integration of these systems
onto the Internet. This work requires a good working relationship with other teams
in the business.
My day to day
activities include overseeing the maintenance of systems in geographically diverse locations,
installing new or maintaining old systems, implementing new products or
technologies and generally watching over all computer-based systems. Other tasks include budgeting, projecting growth and finding scalable solutions to business problems within constraints (financial, operational and/or personnel). I am also responsible for 8 staff members spanning 2 teams, with remarkably differing objectives.
Some large projects I have been
involved in include the installation of a software VPN/Firewall; this included planning the installation,
designing a VPN and configuring firewall rules, and assisting in a limited degree with a subsequent
messaging system roll-out.
Another large project I was involved in was the installation, testing and roll-out of a
Radiator radius server and proxying radius server, which
integrated with the Exim MTA. This project involved the seamless migration of several thousand users,
which required a detailed degree of planning and minimal disruption of service. There
was no disruption to service.
A project that
was underway is the creation of a
FreeBSD-based server platform, that can scale, be maintained and
installed in a fashion similar to Solaris' Jumpstart system. This work is currently on hold, with some
stumbling blocks including how to get console on a PC, how to remotely
power on a device that doesn't have a physical on-switch (darn PC's
with their soft power switches), and how to change boot media without
having someone physically on site.
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University
During 1999 I worked as a tutor and helpdesk technician in the Department of Information Systems at UCT. Marking work submitted by
non-IS students taught me to be patient and to understand other people’s
perspectives of technology, while working as a helpdesk technician
re-inforced this.
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Other
During my vacation between 1998 and 1999, I worked as an Internet
consultant for Ndizani Technologies
at Yebo!Net. In this role, I
installed cacheing proxy servers, web servers, mail servers, setup mailing
lists, implemented a distributed fax system and contributed towards daily
operations meetings. This experience was valuable in terms of gaining the
skills required to work in a heterogenous environment, working with
consultants and employees from up to three different companies on the same
project.
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During my vacation between 1996 and 1997, I worked as an IT consultant for
the Cape Union Mart Group. In this
role, I assisted in many of the day-to-day tasks required in the successful
operations of a large retail store, with a large investment in IT. A
diverse range of work was performed, from installing new computers to
retro-fitting Internet software onto 386’s.
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Between January 1995 and January 1996, myself and two friends established a
computer retailing partnership, Strategic Software Services. This was an
invaluable process in creating a business from the ground up, and included
practical applications of business theory to real life. Examples of this
include creating a business plan, designing a marketing campaign, obtaining
financing, establishing legal structures and contracts, applying for VAT
certification and dealing with the SARS. The business was shut down due its
increasing conflict with university studies.
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Between November 1994 and December 1998, I worked as a support operator for
Internet Africa, a ISP whose primary market was dial up subscribers. In
this role, I initially worked as a telephone operator, but after three
months operated exclusively electronically, telecommuting from home to
work. This job taught me the discipline required to work on my own, but
proved to be too lonely for such a long period. I left this position to concentrate
on my Honours University studies.
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Buzzwords
Some of the skills or systems I've worked with include Cisco Systems routers,
FreeBSD, GCC, Perl, shell scripting, BIND (a.k.a named, a DNS server), ISC-DHCP
(a DHCP server), Nat, Pix firewlls, Cequrux firewalls, ipfw, TCP wrappers, building software from
source, NFS, AMD, Samba, Postfix, Sendmail, Exim, cucipop, Cyrus IMAP server,
OpenSSL-tunnelled POP3 and IMAP4 servers, SSH-encrypted tunnels, PHP3, Apache,
DNEWS, NetOp, Network Appliance filers and netcache's, Alteon Layer 4 switches,
Roxen, Solaris, Solstice DiskSuite, vinum, Citrix, IMS, Firehunter,
the usual gamut of Windows 2000, 95, 98 and NT 4 tools, everyday tools available
on FreeBSD and a large number of other systems and processes.
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