Chris Esser
Monmouth County, NJ
kc2rgw AT gmail DOT com
Attn: Human Resources Department
To whom it may concern;
I am seeking a career as a Senior Technologist or Unix Systems Architect. I am open to positions not specifically related as long as technology plays a heavy role.
I'm a self driven technologist, If I had to pick a title, to borrow a term from a friend, it would be "Smart Person". I bring to the table a broad base of experience, centered in the Unix enterprise and it's operations. I am a solutions Swiss army knife.
My core strength is in analysis of work-flows, process and architectures. I enjoy looking into business technology issues and deriving the best practices solutions to enhance efficiency and stability. Dealing with vendor evaluations or participating in design and requirements meetings is my daily existence.
In addition to systems architecture, I bring with me a broad base of career experience. My skill-sets range from retail and corporate sales, sound engineering and tour management in the music industry, as well as a background in RF communications.
Excellent communications skills are not only a requirement for these fields but come as second nature to me. Bridging the chasm between "The Business" and the technology groups is my daily mission.
I am seeking a dynamic environment with varied challenges. I like an active and casual environment that moves at a fast pace. One of the things I have missed in the last few years is the variety of field or mobile type situations. Frequent variety of people and situations is a must.
I would prefer a position that is not anchored to the depths of the cubicle farm of typical technology departments.
My goal is to continually further my expertise in my field, broadening my experiences with as wide a range of technologies as possible. I miss the insanity of the media markets and in a perfect world a position in the media field would be a great direction.
I am confident that with the proper position I can offer your organization a tremendous yield in both leadership and technical expertise. If you should have a position that may suit our goals please contact me at your earliest convenience.
Thank you for your time;
Chris Esser
Objective
Provide value to an enterprise through the eyes of my experience.
Skill-sets
Hardware
- Sun Enterprise Hardware from E25k through the rack mounted Netra/LOM series
- PC Hardware workstation through server class PC hardware.
- Nokia High availability IP Security Appliances.
- 3Par, EMC, HITACHI SAN and Brocade/Cisco SAN Switches
Operating Systems
- Sun Solaris 2.6 through current
- Linux - Ubuntu, Redhat, SuSE, Debian
- FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD
Network Infrastructure
- Network Hardware Cisco, Juniper, Nortel Networks, Alteon, Foundry, Arrow Point
- General knowledge of networking concepts up through more advanced routing designs
Applications - Too Many to List, None too hard to learn.
- File Systems UFS, HFS, ext2, ext3, JFS, XFS, reiserfs, Veritas
- Volume management Veritas Volume Manager, Solstice On Track Disk Suite, lvm, vinum
- System Backup tar :-), Veritas Net Backup, Legato Networker
- Network Management and Monitoring HP Openview, SunMC/Symon, BigBrother, NetSaint/Nagios, mon, rrd tool (ORCA), mrtg
- Standard system services proftpd, sshd, rsyncd, CVS, BIND 4,8,9, djbdns
- MTA (Sendmail, Postfix, exim, qmail)
- Security related utilities and packages Checkpoint Firewall, Stonebeat Full-Cluster, ISS Real Secure, nmap, snort, dsniff, strobe, ethereal, etherpeek, CyberCop scanner, ipfilter, packetfilter, iptables, ipchains, nessus, SATAN, Saint, John the Ripper, l0pht crack, crack, pgp, gnupg, openssl, openssh, SnortSnarf, snort-net, tcpdump, netcat, Dragon IDS,Network Monitor, nbtscan
Languages
- Perl, php, C (some), Python (some)
- Bourne and Korn shells
Work Experience
4/2006 - present => Major VOIP Provider
Systems Architect
- Bridging the vast chasm between technology and the business
- Day to day architecture and support of a 5000 server global enterprise
- Analysis of work-flows, products, and hardware for application in the environment
- Developing and proposing solutions for operational issues
- Developing tools or evaluating products to enhance ease of operation and stability
3/2001 - 4/2006 => Solutions Provider / Systems Integrator
Senior Solaris Administrator
- Manage day to day operations in a 200 server environment.
- Environment ranging from E25k frames through E3500 mid-range servers.
- Design and deployment of enterprise wide monitoring and integrity applications (HP OVOW, SunMC, and a customized Perl/HTML->mail->www server application that I co-wrote).
- Procedural documentation of supporting applications as well as SLA and escalation policies to coordinate with the monitoring systems as deployed.
- Design and deployment of a ticketing system
- Design and deployment of DNS infrastructure
- Design and deployment of Mail infrastructure
- Staff training and education in all systems deployed
Systems Integration and Security Team Lead
- Team lead handling site deployment staff and client relationships through the full business cycle. requirements->proposal->presentation->execution->support
- Deployment and design of security architecture solutions to meet changing client demands.
- Re-design of existing client infrastructures.
1/2000 - 1/2001 => A financials based .COM
Unix Systems Lead
- Management of 40 Sun Enterprise servers
- Deployed fully separate test/development/production environments with emphasis on platform consistency.
- Transitioned web and application tiers from Solaris 2.6 to 2.7
- Maintained patch level and version updates for all production systems.
- Handled administrative dealings with the co-location center
- Handled licensing and service contract issues with our vendors.
- Streamlined vendor data feed processes. Standardized data formats.
- Implemented NDM/Direct Connect for incoming data queues
- Performed systems benchmarking and load testing.
- Reallocated existing architecture to optimize hardware utilization
- Managed site DNS and mail systems
- Performed systems level security audits.
- Designed and implemented a release management system. Trained staff in its use.
- Implemented enterprise monitoring systems and notification systems.
- Integrated Solaris and Windows development environment for development team
- Configured system backup scheduling and increments to meet SEC retention requirements.
- Operations team lead
- Took lead in hiring and training operations team candidates in all aspects of daily site operation.
- Headed team of six operators.
- Handled daily feed transactions, managed all data feeds in and outbound
1995 - present => UNIX systems research and freelance consulting
- Began UNIX systems work with an introduction via RedHat Linux 4.1
- Active participant in the Freenode network, providing support for all manner of Unix variant users on the network
- Submitted patches and bug reports for many open source development projects
- Submitted documentation changes to the Linux Documentation Project and several UNIX man-page maintainers.
- Studied RFC's for many protocols as they pertain to systems administration and security.
- Installation of mail/firewall/DNS/NAT servers for varying small business applications
- "Windows Free" since 1995 ;-) UNIX is my platform of choice, due to essential issues of value, simplicity and integrity.
1994 - 1999 => Freelance sound engineer and tour manager
- Handled all the business travel and venue booking arrangements
- Dealt with the wild variety of venue technical challenges
- Handled all the press contacts for the client
- Broad experience with hardware and software for signal processing
1990-1994 => Security Officer
- Security staff member US Military Facility
- Chief communications officer and shift supervisor.
- Trained in and also taught all facets of physical security.
1985-1990 => Industrial Sales Representative
- Handled supply contracts for manufacturing plants and public utilities.
- Managed multi-thousand line item contract bids.
- Managed several million dollars in annual contracts.
Education
- Sun Premier and Advanced Solaris Certified
- Brick Computer Science Institute - Route 70 Brick, NJ
- Course of study - Computer Programming
- Brookdale Community College - Lincroft, NJ
- Course of study - Electronics and Circuitry
- Middletown High School South - Nutswamp Rd. Middletown, NJ
- Course of study - College Prep.
- Graduate
Hobbies and Interests
- Amateur Radio - KC2RGW
- Software Defined Radio (SDR) tinkering and hacking
- Sea Kayaking
- My pets
- Seeing the country by car when time allows