Gary Merke Email & Phone Number

New York, Us

Leading a team spanning multiple locations to deliver financial and compliance reports to internal stakeholders and external regulators across all geographies that Oanda operates.

New York, Us

Collaborating with business and information management teams across the organization through multiple initiatives and providing analytic support to the BI user community.

DB2 for Linux, Unix, Windows Backup and Recovery TeamQuality assurance for backup and recovery group. Participate in agile development model, providing test planning, test writing and test execution. Educate team members on automated testing best practices. Automation of complex test scenarios for seamless upgrade feature of DB2 LUW. Previously, these test scenarios were only done manually by system test team. Automation of the tests allowed the tests to be executed by developers on new code prior to delivery. Defects were identified much earlier which allowed for fixes to be provided faster and a more reliable and robust product available to be delivered other teams and customers in a shorter time.

Quality assurance specialist for DB2 for Linux, Unix and Windows (LUW) products. Test design and execution of new features for DB2 LUW. Worked closely with development teams to develop tests that could find defect adn be executed reliably. Led test teams, locally and remotely, coordinating work and reporting status to stake holders. Tested features covering a broad range of the DB2 LUW product including:- federated databases- client access and connection to other DB2 family databases, DB2 for z/OS, DB2 for iSeries (AS/400), DB2 for VSE&VM (SQL/DS)- enhanced audit- security commexit- Oracle compatibility features- Module support- SQL PL for compiled UDFs, triggers and compound dynamic statements- automated runstats support- pureScale system and features- CF memory tuning- extended row support- explicit hierarchical locking- BLU acceleration I/O infrastructure testing- external key manager support for database encryptionAutomated complex, customer usage scenarios for pureScale systems that included stress testing and various failure and recovery scenarios. This resulted in reducing the manual test cycle that took a number of weeks down to a couple of days. DB2 Lab advocate for several customers. Meet regularly with customers and assist with problem analysis and implementation of features.- worked with WellPoint on DB2 HADR and pureScale systems- worked with Hitachi Data Systems to test HDS storage systems with DB2 pureScale- worked with Oracle applications (PeopleSoft, Seibel, JD Edwards) on DB2 issues

Developer on the SQL/DS relational database product for IBM VM and VSE operating systems. Later this product was renamed to DB2 for VSE and VM.Member of a small team (~12) people which was responsible for development of new features and customer support for existing features.Tasks included design, coding and testing. Also did technical writing of documentation for new features.Implemented key features in the DB2/VSE&VM product, including - Memory management enhancements- Stored Procedure support, - TCP/IP support for VM and VSE- Q Replication capture support.In customer support role, worked directly with customers, resolving problems, identifying product defects and providing fixes.Eventually took role of team lead and then became involved in requirements gathering and prioritization, product release planning and service planning. Trained new staff.

Systems operator and programmer on various MVS, VM, VSE and network systems running critical customer applications. Tasks included basic operations, backups and restores, availability reporting, disaster recovery planning and testing.