BOB DESINGER
Senior Unix System Engineer

650.988.0607 bob@desinger.com

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C R U C I A L   S K I L L S

Unix system administrator and software engineer with 15+ years of experience. Expert with Solaris, shell scripts, Perl, Awk. Excellent documenting skills. Have taught certification and operating system classes.

Languages:	Perl, ksh, sh, csh, sed, (n)awk. Have also written JavaScript, C++, assembly, troff, and LaTeX. English y español también.
Server SW:	Apache with SSL, Netscape with Verisign. Sendmail, Majordomo, Postfix. NFS, NIS, DNS, Automounter. Veritas VxFS, Legato Networker.
Op systems:	Solaris, MacOS X and 9, FreeBSD, Linux (Red Hat, Fedora, Gentoo, Mandrake), HP-UX, Windows XP et al.
Hardware:	Sparc (2, Netra T1, E3000, E4500, ...), x86. Switches, routers, portmasters. RAID arrays: EMC 4500 & CX600/700, Sun T3, MetaSTOR. iMac, iBook, PowerBook. Qualstar tape jukeboxes.

H I G H L I G H T S   A T   H O T M A I L

• Senior Unix admin for MSN/Hotmail disk farm (275+ Solaris servers). Each box has 6–8 CPUs, 2 Gb memory, 1.5 Tb of RAID 1+0 storage. Troubleshoot hardware, software, applications, networking. Set up new hosts, decommission old ones.
• Specialist in scripting (sh, ksh, sed, Perl, Awk) and documentation. Postmaster and Majordomo list-mom for Hotmail admin network. Fix apache on internal servers. Go-to guy for Sendmail setup.
• Liaison to external teams: Sun support, monitoring group, vendor who manages backups, tier-1 SOC analysts.
• Project lead in upgrading firmware on 4000+ Sun T3 RAID controllers. We kept all disks online and available while upgrading.
• Represent Operations (100+ people) on a project implementing the next-gen documentation system. Designed the layout, fonts, and color used on every page.

C A R E E R   H I S T O R Y

Microsoft: MSN/Hotmail — System Engineer, 4+ years (Oct 2000–now)

• Unix system admin for disk farm detailed above handling nearly 200M users.
• On-call duties 24×7, a week at a time every month.
• Script scribe. Perl person. Awk advisor. Docs doctor. Team tutor. Linux lover. FreeBSD fanatic. Mac maven.

C O N T R A C T S   T H R O U G H   T A O S ,   1 9 9 3 – 2 0 0 0

Inktomi — Senior system admin, 3 months (Aug–Sept 2000)

• Moved R&D lab servers and workstations from Sunnyvale to new offices in San Mateo. Also did QA of next Inktomi release on FreeBSD and Solaris.

ClickAction — Lead Unix system admin, 5 months (Mar–July 2000)

• Installed and configured ~50 Sparcs for production at data center.
• Responsible for uptime and connectivity of servers 24×7.
• Wrote monitoring tools, admin tools, procedures for the team.
• Handled postmaster and customer-complaint mail for ClickAction.net.
• Installed, configured, and maintained Postfix mail servers: customer aliases, virtual domains, bounced mail, performance monitoring.
• Maintained seven Netscape Enterprise 4 web servers, including a secure server with Verisign certificate. Set up cgi-bin tools.
• Troubleshot network outages (DNS, NFS, TCP/IP) and app-server problems.
• Taught junior administrators shell scripting, tuning, system startup, network troubleshooting, and other Unix/Solaris issues.
• Maintained InterNIC records for production systems.

Annuncio — Senior system admin, 7 months (Sept 1999–Mar 2000)

• Installed Solaris 7 on their Sparcs; installed machines at data center.
• Installed & maintained Netscape Enterprise web servers, Sendmail, wu-ftp servers. Designed & implemented an automatic synchronization service for their distributed ftp directories.
• Designed and implemented (in Perl) custom software for their largest customer.

Taos — Course designer and instructor (Sept–Nov 1999, at night)

• Created and taught a Certified Solaris 2.6 Administrator course for Taos consultants.

BoldFish — Senior system admin, 2 months (July–Aug 1999)

• Set up production Solaris 7 boxes (Sparc; dual x86, SCSI, RAID) at data center.

Sony Electronic Systems — Intranet developer, 1 month (June 1999)

• Evaluated OO code written in Perl by an earlier contractor.
• Architected a new system for tracking cable connections to 2500 desktops.
• Maintained and improved Facilities Engineering work-order system in CGI/Perl.

Network Appliance — CGI programmer, 2 months (Mar–May 1999)

• Wrote Perl modules and OO classes for NetApp.com support site.

Adobe — Web developer, 1 month (Jan–Feb 1999)

• Wrote CGI for queries to a partner “database” on Adobe.com.
• Created a proof-of-concept CGI for web publishing on Adobe.com.

Encanto Networks — Web developer, 12 months (Nov 1998–1999)

• Converted Java product-registration OOBE to HTML and CGI. The redesign won press recognition as “excellent.”
• Wrote CGI scripts in ksh and Perl with LWP and CGI.pm for customer sites: error handlers, timers, e-mail gateways, secure e-commerce registration.
• With their user-interface designer, redesigned their web site using HTML, JavaScript, and graphics.
• Installed, configured, and maintained Apache servers with SSL.
• Maintained and enhanced e-commerce registration web site in HTML, JavaScript, CGI. Supported the online help shipped with the product; wrote tools to configure and maintain two versions.
• InterNIC liaison: Registered customer domain names and handled all InterNIC interplay. Wrote tools to automate registration.
• Project manager: Assistant to VP Engineering getting their new product, a web appliance for e-commerce, shipped on time.

LSI Logic — 21 months (Mar 1996–Nov 1998)

• Senior Unix system admin: Installed, configured, and tuned LSF batch-queueing system on 600+ hosts running SunOS, Solaris, HP-UX, Digital Unix, IRIX, and AIX. Trained engineers. Architected and created a site-wide automounted /usr/local/ for 1000+ workstations and servers. Designed and created two small web sites (40 pages and 20 pages) for engineers and LSF administrators. Supported Netscape browser & mail system.
• Web designer: Redesigned corporate intranet hub (22K pages, 55K files) using dynamic HTML, frames, JavaScript, graphics. Handled daily production editing, writing. Created web sites to instruct and to promote other departments.
• Web developer: Designed new guided tours in JavaScript, monthly statistics, speed-dial buttons. Analyzed navigation from logs. Created forms used by the entire company for phone book, work orders, and equipment orders. Began outlining LSI’s extranet strategy. Designed UI for purchasing system in Java. Resolved Help Desk tickets for the web team. Administered Netscape Calendar during the company-wide roll-out.

Hewlett-Packard on-site at Intel — 12 months (Feb 1995–Mar 1996)

• Software engineer: Created Motif/C++ front-end for software build & release system. Converted CAD tools to a new configuration management system based on CVS. Rewrote makefiles for GNU make, created software for nightly builds. Installed & configured NCSA httpd, Apache, Perl 4 & 5, Majordomo.
• Senior Unix system admin: Rolled out 100 new HP-UX state-of-the-art workstations to CAD designers. Co-authored paper on how to configure and install 100 workstations in a weekend. Ported FVWM window manager to HP-UX.

Hewlett-Packard — 12 months (Feb 1994–1995)

• Senior Unix engineer: Wrote over 400 answers to HP-UX 10.0 questions. Encompassed hardware, system admin, analysis tools, diagnostics, documentation, file system, kernel configuration, I/O system, languages, LVM, networking, system startup, trusted systems, virtual memory, VUE, and X11.
• Senior Unix instructor: Developed HP-UX 10.0 training course material and syllabus. Instructed the course several times to HP Response Center software engineers from different countries.

B E F O R E   T A O S

Tom Sawyer Software — 12 month contract (1992–1993)

• Senior software engineer: Maintained and enhanced this Berkeley startup’s flagship product, a graph layout library written in ANSI C. Also created a 50-page tutorial in FrameMaker.

Hewlett-Packard — employee for 14 years (1978–1992) and contractor (1994)

• Unix system admin: Administered servers, workstations, PCs, X terminals. Troubleshot performance using sar, top, monitor, iostat, vmstat. Installed systems. Configured Sendmail, handled postmaster mail. Supported 250 kernel hackers at HP Cupertino; admin for a 12-VAXen network with 500 terminals across Cupertino site.
• Software engineer: Defined project goals, managed beta test for European and Asia-Pacific customers, supported testers via email. Created C++ browser/editor for HP SoftBench CASE toolset: Designed and implemented Motif GUI, investigated and integrated graph layout software, analyzed customer requests. Designed, implemented, and shipped the HP SoftBench mailer, a Motif wrapper around mailx integrated into the SoftBench message bus. Ported the MH mail handler to HP-UX.
• Course developer and writer: Taught Intro to HP-UX course to HP support engineers. Authored 450-page Programmer’s Guide for InterViews Plus, a C++ toolkit for Motif development. At Pinewood (England) branch, redesigned a CASE programming course. Taught customers in Italy, France, Holland, Sweden, and England. Guided customers with products written in C, FORTRAN, and Pascal in porting their products to HP’s first RISC machine. Ran and tuned benchmarks for large deals. Wrote articles on migration and performance for field engineers.