Linux CLI | Bash | Python | Docker | Azure | AWS | OpenStack | Node.js | Drupal 7 through 10 | Aegir | Apache | Nginx | MySQL | Ansible | Behat | Drumkit | Gitlab | GitHub | Terraform | Vagrant | GNU Make for DevOps | Data Engineering | SaaS Development | Behaviour-Driven Development | Test-Driven DevelopmentDevOps and Cloud consulting. Bespoke Drupal development. Helping small teams do big things every day!A blend of hands-on DevOps consulting with Agile team coaching/leadership, along with the added excitement of managing a bootstrap startup.

Assessed and made recommendations on a Canadian non-profit’s use of their Drupal/CiviCRM membership database.Conducted workshops, and wrote documents capturing requirements, user stories and personas relevant to the organizations’ data about its membership and donors. Architected four work streams via which the organization piloted improvements to its membership database. Reviewed progress weekly, and advised the team on obstacles in each work stream. Activities for each stream included providing architectural advice, design and technical documentation:Data Integrity - Rearchitected and streamlined the organization’s data model, which had previously been inconsistently administered; identified and fixed data ingestion processes that were creating inconsistent data, and established shared conventions for simplifying financial and membership data types.Data Governance - Architected an iterative process for executive, technical and front-line staff to identify and prioritize requirements gathering activities, and provided technical documentation to ensure consistent implementation by technical staff.Data Curation - Architected an iterative process for database administrators and web developers to ensure that ongoing membership application usage conformed to the standards established under the Data Integrity initiative above.Data Engagement - Architected a requirements pipeline workflow, enabling front-line membership staff’s UI improvement requests to be actioned consistently by back-end technical staff.

Reviewed cross-cloud (AWS, Azure) containerization and DevSecOps practices and requirements with application technical owners.Presented workshops on cloud vendor container offerings.Advised decision-makers and provided architecture documents on which cloud container management services (AKS/EKS, ECS/WebApps for Containers, Azure Functions/AWS Lambda, ACR/ECR) to provision and support, and how to build CI/CD deployment pipelines for them using GitLab.Researched, experimented hands-on, and provided recommendations to technical project leads on optimal data platform architecture solutions, integrating Azure ML, Azure Data Bricks and Azure DevOps.

Built custom Docker compose configurations for client development team. Provided consistent production implementation strategy for clients. Integrated Docker networking and storage configurations to allow for troubleshooting simulations of client production deployment environments. Provisioned and managed API endpoint test infrastructure in AWS and Azure.Created scripts, automation and CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps) to provide:Node.js/Typescript deployment on Azure Kubernetes Service with Azure Container Registry.Integration of client’s Node.js application with Azure Vault for secret management.Provisioning and execution of lightweight API endpoint performance testing infrastructure.Integration of developer scripts into end-to-end automated functional tests.Aggregation and publication of client JSON data on both scheduled and ad hoc bases.API, linter and unit testing and reporting for continuous integration (CI).Led documentation and knowledge transfer efforts with client technical team:Coached client team on using automated build, test & deployment processes.Ensured documentation was organized effectively for client team handover.Automated provisioning of cloud managed Kubernetes infrastructure across multiple client environments.Provided Kubernetes proof-of-concept implementation for client production environment.Crafted a custom ETL solution for efficient ingestion and batch processing of global medical records. Coached client team on data consistency and cleanliness, and supported their technical staff in rolling out the solution.Created an automated build solution that wrapped full application stack and dependencies in a single self-extracting Windows executable.

Integrated Drupal Aegir with web hooks, managed database service and NFS storage back-end for scale set management in client’s Azure environment.Deployed and administered hosting and managed services for client Drupal sites via Terraform.Developed Ansible roles and CI/CD pipeline for streamlined infrastructure-as-code deployments across multiple client projects on OpenStack cloud provider.Integrated DigitalOcean droplet provisioning using Ansible and Vagrant for efficient creation of disposable Aegir development environments.

Solved complex multi-agent blockchain performance problems in Behave (Gherkin for Python) on Azure through systematic behavioural testing, Docker container engineering, and experimentation.

Drupal 7/8 | Aegir | OpenStack cloud | Apache | Nginx | MySQL | Ansible | Behat | Drumkit | Gitlab | Vagrant | Scrum | KanbanA blend of hands-on DevOps consulting with Agile team coaching/leadership.DevOps:- Identified and documented reusable behaviour-driven development practice for automatic presentation to clients using Behat (Gherkin) via continuous integration pipeline.Agile leadership:- Improved morale, client satisfaction and productivity by reviewing and streamlining interactions between client and consultant teams:- Reduced meeting times from multiple 1.5-to-3-hour sessions per week, to a daily 15-minute standup, along with coaching participants on focusing their communication.- Made bottlenecks visible and reduced churn by adding feedback/approval columns to the team kanban board, and added review of items for approval at weekly demo.- Facilitated internal retrospectives to inspect, adapt and continuously improve customer collaboration.- Identified and documented reusable behaviour-driven development practice for automatic presentation to clients via continuous integration pipeline.

Developed comprehensive DevOps strategy for a 25-member Drupal development team.Standardized build, CI/CD and deployment architecture across dozens of projects to allow better code re-use and shorter developer ramp-up times.

Bash | Ant | Capistrano | Ansible | Java | Artifactory | Jenkins | Sonar | WebSphere MQ | Apache | Tomcat | ServiceMix | MySQL | Postgres | Univa Grid Engine | Cisco/Hitachi UCS hybrid cloud| Informatica | Sunray RedHat Enterprise Linux | Solaris | AIX | Windows Server 2000 through 2012 | ServiceNow | JIRAProvided leadership and direction to a distributed team of deployment, automation and tier 2/3 application support specialists. Managed up, down, and across, amid shifting priorities, resource pressure, and organizational transformation. Coordinated and supervised deployment of code to infrastructure on dozens of concurrent initiatives for internal and external clients, including:Three-year migration of thousands of application servers from physical to virtual architecture in a mission-critical, 24/7 application stack.Advised application owners on automation strategy and pathways to adoption of corporate virtualization standards.Member of interdepartmental (architecture/infrastructure/automation) technology modernization teams that formulated the company’s virtualization and DevOps strategy.Reviewed technical options with vendors.Coauthored recommendation documents (Business Case Analyses, Statements of Work, Technical Recommendations) for executives and implementation teams.Managed build-outs and upgrades of complex enterprise applications, often involving dozens of interoperating components, e.g.: upgrade of the company’s 7-year archive of all cheques processed by all major Canadian banks from IBM OnDemand to in-house custom Federated Object Archive (WebSphere MQ, Apache, Tomcat, SOAP and Postgres).Led revitalization of company’s mission-critical file transmission pipeline, serving thousands of files to hundreds of client nodes per day. Ahieved 50% incident reduction in a single quarter (Q2 2018) through incremental data-driven problem analysis.

Bash | Ant | Capistrano | Ansible | Java | PHP | WebSphere MQ | Apache | Tomcat | ServiceMix MySQL | Postgres | Univa Grid Engine | Informatica | Sunray | RedHat Enterprise Linux | Solaris"Yes, but how do we actually get it into production?"Build, configuration and release management; deployment automation; project technical "sherpa:" As Implementation Analyst, performed hands-on deployment and automation of code delivery to infrastructure on multiple concurrent projects:- Managed local and remote stakeholder expectations while balancing competing priorities and seizing opportunities for automation. Typical project responsibilities included:- Translated architecture requirements into deployment strategies.- Identified and implemented integration points between proposed systems and legacy systems (e.g. scripted data exchange and synchrontization, SOAP or REST API calls).- Configured and scripted deployment pipelines, reusing code and deploying applications into multiple environments (Development, Test, Production).- Identified and automated manual troubleshooting and day-to-day operational processes for production support teams.- Introduced web-based automation server (Webistrano), allowing entire team to collaborate and reuse deployment code while providing customized self-serve deployment dashboards to Development and QA teams.- Reduced build time 94% on complex project via Maven dependency optimization. - Chaired interdepartmental (QA, Development, PMO, Deployment) working committee, increasing project forecast accuracy and enhancing internal / external customer satisfaction.

Novator was a <100-person e-commerce platform delivery company, serving global retail clients. Perl | Java | Maven | Groovy | CruiseControl | Debian Linux | MySQL- Spearheaded improvements in build and deployment processes.- Reduced e-commerce platform’s build / release / deployment lifecycle from days of manual work to a 20-minute automated build and deployment pipeline.- Achieved consistent and repeatable deployment processes by designing and implementing Maven repository infrastructure and code for globally distributed development teams (Canada, UK, India).- Championed best practices and trained developers on use of technologies, persuading upper management to accept new approach that eliminated duplication of deployment efforts between teams.

PHP | Perl | Debian Linux | MySQLJoined, then led a small agile team (3 to 5 direct reports) responsible for a video game startup’s Linux servers. Coached and participated with the team in using eXtreme Programming practices (The Planning Game, Pair Programming, Test-Driven Development, Small Releases, and Coding Standards) to accomplish key initiatives:- Achieved maintainability by consolidating multiple legacy user databases onto a single e-commerce platform.- Implemented watermarking in collaboration with the product development team to track pirated versions of the company’s software back to the users who purchased it.- Reduced live deployments from hours of manual developer intervention to a single fifteen-second command.

See computerActive, below; computerActive was acquired by Renaissance Learning in 2000.Part of a 7-person development team that produced a feature-rich (several-hundred-thousand-line) web-based school administration system in Objective-C and Java:- Translated senior developers’ design specifications into working code for attendance and scheduling modules.- Reduced software release times from days to minutes by automating cross-platform (Mac OS X/Windows 2000) deployment on behalf of remote operations teams.

Part of a 7-person product startup that produced a feature-rich (several-hundred-thousand-line) web-based school administration system in Objective-C and Java.

Part of a 20-person web/media services startup.- Investigated the feasibility of using Java 1.0 to deliver web content.- Developed supplementary online exercise and exam material in Java, perl, TCL/Tk and javascript for clients' textbook sales.