Michael Garfias

Mike+jobs@garfias.org

Summary

•  Second hire and sole Systems Administrator at sphere.com, acquired by AOL in April 2008 
• 14 Years Unix Administration Experience
• Extensive experience with configuration management 
• Proven experience scaling websites/applications

Relevant Skills

Employment

March 2006 to Present - Sr. Systems Administrator, SphereSource, Inc.

Scaled production environment to 175+ servers in three years. Implemented configuration management system (Puppet) which decreased time to production for new systems from 1 day to 15 minutes. Implemented caching proxies that reduced web server requirements by sevenfold. Automated package building systems and wrote code distribution scripts. Wrote deployment, monitoring, polling, and miscellaneous glue scripts using both Perl and Python. Supported developers with networking, client setup, test environments, tools, and code fixes. Isolated performance problems using PHP profilers. Setup a continuous build process using PHPUnderControl. Transitioned CVS repositories to Subversion and began a transition to Git/Gitorious.

• Investigated new technologies, developed tests, and kept what worked
• Wrote contingency plans for disaster recovery
• Responsible for network infrastructure - OpenVPN, Cisco ASA and Fortigate firewalls, DNS (MyDNS/Bind)
• Databases: installation, configuration, tuning, replication, and recovery
• Monitoring: Nagios, Munin, Cacti
• Extensive Apache configuration/Tuning
• Security: log audits, intrusion detection, service audits and SSL certificates
• Tools/Services Implemented:

Apache, OpenVPN, DNS, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Nagios, Munin, Cacti, Postfix, Dovecot, OpenFire, IRC, Subversion, Git, rdiff-backup, rsync

 

July 2004 to November 2005- WebSphere Administrator, Honeywell (Contracted through IBM Global Services)

Supported:

• 120 AIX servers and 25 Solaris servers
• WebSphere and Apache in both clustered and non-clustered configurations
• 250+ java applications

July 2002 to July 2004  - Systems Administrator, Fatcow Webhosting

Managed two datacenters with 60+ web servers (with 99.99% uptime and over 2+ million hits per day)

• Network comprised of four DS3 fiber connections to the internet, along with a fiber point to point link between data centers using Cisco routers
• IronPort e-mail appliances in round robin cluster
• Three DNS servers (running BIND)
• Qmail SMTP servers supporting 100,000+ email accounts
• Acted as escalation point for tech support
• Responsible for security audits, including intrusion detection systems
• Installed Legato Networker for network-wide backups

October 2000 to June 2001 - Lead QA Engineer, Consilient 

• Administered all Unix machines on the network; handled user accounts, installed operating systems and third-party software, and migrated user authentication to LDAP for integration with Active Directory 
• Compiled and configured Apache/Tomcat connector for Solaris and Linux
• Tested the Consilient Sitelet platform on Solaris and Linux - install scripts, user interfaces, functionality, and scalability
• Wrote install scripts one week prior to ship date when engineering ran out of time
• Wrote build and test scripts using Bourne Shell and Perl

December 1999 to October 2000 - Senior QA Engineer, Network Associates 

• Performed all testing and automation for the product on Solaris: build acceptance, regression, security research, test case/suite creation, Perl programming/scripting
• Provided support throughout the development cycle for the development team, sales engineers, and technical writers
• Wrote scripts to isolate flaws in the product's kernel module and used kernel debugger to provide developers the information needed to fix the flaw
• Trained tier-3 technical support and documentation writers in the use of the product

June 1999 to December 1999 - LAN Manager, PIA Communications 

March 1997 to June 1999 - Systems Administrator, Paragon Industries 

August 1995 to March 1997 - Network Technician, California State University Fresno

Education

Aug. 1993 to May 1997 - California State University Fresno (CSUF) Computer Science