OMAR SIDDIQUE
omar@heedme.com
Ellicott City, Maryland, USA

Summary Omar Siddique is a senior systems and network engineer whose skills emphasize design, architecture, technical direction, and team leadership. He has over 13 years experience in academic, research, web-hosting, and ISP environments.
 
Relevant Skills
and Experience		 Operating Systems Unix, Linux, Windows server & desktop. Installation, usage, automation, customization with focus on Solaris, Redhat Linux, FreeBSD.
Network Services Extensive experience running and customizing all common network services, such as: large-volume SMTP mail servers, POP/IMAP mail-reading servers, web servers, e-commerce & SSL, infrastructure services such as DNS, DHCP, NFS, NIS, NTP, FTP, rdist. Spam-blocking with SpamAssassin and milters. NNTP, bootp/TFTP, Sun Jumpstart, mailing list software including Majordomo and Sympa. Expertise with Sendmail and Apache.
Networking In-depth understanding of network topology and IP-based technologies. Expertise in administering and troubleshooting LAN hardware. Cisco IOS. Network programming. NAT, DHCP, load balancing.
Coding Programming in Perl and C, including segmented projects. Automation of repetitive tasks. Collaboration with developers. Java, SQL, shell scripting, RCS/CVS.
Security & Encryption Extensive experience translating security methodology into practice, including: hardware & software firewalls, Kerberos, AFS, network & filesystem ACLs, SSH, SSL/TLS, public-key encryption such as PGP. Security analysis including: system auditing, log processing, packet stream analysis.
Server Hardware Intel, Sparc, MIPS architectures. Dell Poweredge, Sun Sunfire and Enterprise, many other server & desktop platforms.
Storage Technologies RAID hardware & software disk arrays. Fault-tolerant storage. Tape- and disk-based data archiving. Many varieties of SCSI, FC, SAN. NetApp NAS.
Misc. Hardware Terminal servers, KVMs, UPS power backup. Network attached printers, Sunray thin clients, IP cameras, various other peripherals.
Content &
Markup Languages 		Expertise in HTML, able to hand-code/debug complex pages. Creating dynamic web content. XML, CSS, Postscript, nroff.
Databases MySQL, PostgreSQL, Sybase, Oracle and use of DBI/DBD Perl API to access them. Coding SQL queries.
Other Conducting technical training. High availability systems. System monitoring tools including OpenView and Netcool. X11 windowing system, FlexLM license manager, Tomcat Java Servlet Container, Cumulus Digital Asset Management System.
 
Education Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with a minor in History from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, May 1998.
 
Work Experience Technology Officer Oct 2002 - Present
OIT / A. J. Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park College Park, MD
UMCP is the flagship campus of the University of Maryland system, with 40,000 students, and many highly ranked programs, including the world-class A. J. Clark School of Engineering. Computing facilities are both run centrally as well as by individual campus and college units. The Technology Officer is responsible for addressing computing needs specific to the School of Engineering, as well as spearheading adoption of new technologies in the College.

  • Responsible for adoption of and support for Canto Cumulus Digital Asset Management System.
 
Technical Lead/Senior Systems Administrator Feb 2001 - July 2002
Genuity Columbia, MD

Genuity is a leading ISP with wholesale dial-up and broadband, VPN, managed webhosting, and connectivity offerings.

Responsibilities:

The technical lead on the Access (wholesale dial-up and broadband) team must take a lead role in resolving technically complex issues and mentoring junior technical staff, as well as in shaping policy and plans. Details:
  • Responsible for lead role in stability and reliability of 150 server ISP production network, consisting of radius, DNS, capacity monitoring, database, openview, netcool, web, NFS, and log servers, running on Sun Ultra2, E420R, and Netra hardware with Clariion RAIDs.
  • Responsible for LAN of 250 Sun Ultra10 workstations. Coordinated junior staff members to ensure user hardware and software issues were promptly addressed.
  • Staged and deployed new server and workstation hardware.
  • Provided technical expertise and advise to Genuity software engineering and operations groups.
  • Wrote perl scripts to automate system administration tasks.
  • Set up and troubleshot user environments, diagnosed system and network load related problems, served as "on-call" systems administrator.
  • Diassembled physical environment during company downsizing.
Projects:
 
Client Services Engineer Apr 2000 - Feb 2001
Digex Beltsville, MD

Digex is a leading "managed" webhosting company, with large corporate customers.

Responsibilities:

The Client Services Engineer was the technical liason on Client Services teams assigned to support "premier" webhosting customers. His role was to understand the customers' needs, and act as liason between Digex technical staff and the customer. He provided server and network analysis as well as troubleshooting support to the teams providing customer service for these large customers. Details:
  • Monitored site performance on Solaris and Windows servers dedicated to "premier" customers. Made recommendations to improve site performance and fault tolerance through system configuration changes and upgrades. Forecast system and site enhancement needs based on customers' business plans.
  • Acted as a technical resource to Client Services account managers. Provided one-on-one tutelage and mentoring for team members.
  • Helped diagnose customer issues. Worked with Digex Operations and Client Services account managers to ensure customer technical requests were completed properly. Analyzed recurring problems and worked with operations groups to identify solutions.
  • Acted as Client Services technical liaison during conference calls, meetings, and client site visits.
Projects:
  • Wrote and maintained a Solaris system profiling tool in Perl to summarize detailed system information and present it in a human-readable HTML format.
 
Senior Systems Engineer Apr 1999 - Jan 2000
Consultant On site at Cadmus Journal Services, Linthicum, MD

Cadmus Journal Services is a publishing company with a web-based unit ("E-Doc") that specializes in online scientific journals including high-visibility titles such as Nature.

Responsibilities:

The Senior Systems Consultant was brought in to repair an overwhelmed system architecture at this ambitious dot-com. Consultant was tasked with stabilizing the environment and positioning it for future growth. Consultant would also perform day-to-day systems administration while helping to hire permanent systems staff. Details:
  • Managed 30 node network consisting of Solaris and IRIX systems. Network included web farm, as well as database and mail servers, development workstations, and NetApp NAS units.
  • Installed, maintained, and patched IRIX and Solaris operating systems, with heavy local customizations. Tracked and countered security vulnerabilities. Integrated third-party and commercial software.
  • Managed and maintained network services, including high-traffic web servers, as well as SMTP, POP/IMAP, DNS, NIS, NTP, NFS, and FTP servers.
  • Built, tracked, and maintained a body of open-source software and freeware.
  • Performed Sybase DBA and tuning.
Projects:
  • Rebuilt webserver farm, tripling the amount of deployed equipment. Upgraded application and OS software on all servers and workstations.
  • Designed robust new webserver architecture for scalability and worked with management teams to ensure that the system would address foreseeable growth.
  • Wrote custom monitoring software in Perl and implemented FreeBSD-based console solution to ensure system availability.
  • Implemented Year2000 software updates. Assisted development team in Y2K testing and audits.
  • Performed TCP and server tuning to increase responsiveness during peak web-traffic.
  • Interviewed and made hiring recommendations for permanent new systems administrators.
  • Evaluated backup and data-recovery requirements. Chose and implemented Workstation Solutions' QR backup package.
 
Senior Systems Administrator Jul 1998 - Apr 1999
Raytheon ITSS On site at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD

Raytheon ITSS provides contractors to NASA GSFC. Senior Systems administrator supported UNIX systems in the Laboratory for Terrestrial Physics Computing Facility and in Goddard's Earth Sciences "Code 900".

Responsibilities:

The senior Systems Administrator was responsible for the functioning of a diverse network of servers and workstations. He was responsible for maintaining a high state of functionality to enable the Space Flight Center's scientists' to do their groundbreaking research. Details:
  • Managed 130 node network of Solaris, IRIX, Digital UNIX, and HPUX systems. Network included NetApp NAS units, web, mail, and login servers.
  • Installed, maintained, and patched operating systems including local customizations. Tracked and countered security vulnerabilities. Integrated third-party and commercial software.
  • Managed and maintained network services, including Mail/POP/IMAP servers as well as Web, NTP, NFS, and FTP servers.
  • Monitored and responded to technical user helpdesk email.
  • Built, tracked, and maintained a body of open-source software and freeware.
  • Diagnosed hardware issues and performed necessary maintenance.
  • Wrote tools in perl and shell to automate sysadmin tasks.
  • Operated backup system using Workstation Solutions' QR software.
Projects:
  • Designed and implemented site system security audit. Created and implemented baseline per-OS security profiles compatible with the Center's scientific mission. Installed and operated scanner software to probe for deviations from the baseline. Ran crack password checking package.
  • Designed the site's first custom Solaris Jumpstart network installater. Used custom Jumpstart to methodically upgrade Sun systems to Solaris 2.6, resulting in the most consistent, up-to-date Solaris environment the site had yet experienced.
 
Senior Systems Administrator Jan 1995 - June 1998
July 1998 - Dec 1999 on as-needed basis
University Computing Services, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Baltimore, MD
UMBC is a state university with particular strength in technical curricula such as computer science, engineering, and biology. Campus computing facilities are centrally run by University Computing Services.

Responsibilities:

The senior Systems Administrator was responsible for the functionality and upkeep of core systems and network services, along with associated public labs and applications. He was reponsible for charting the future infrastructure growth and preserving the University's cutting-edge technological placement. Details:
  • Managed 150 node network consisting of SGI IRIX systems. Network included web, mail, computational, and login services for 20,000 user base. Provided tier-2 support and services for staff running an additional 100 IRIX and Sun Solaris systems.
  • Installed, maintained, and patched IRIX and Solaris operating systems with heavy local customizations. Tracked and countered security vulnerabilities. Integrated third-party and commercial software.
  • Managed and maintained network services, including high volume Mail/POP/IMAP servers as well as Web, DNS, NIS, NTP, and FTP servers. Managed and tuned high-demand NFS servers.
  • Maintained "24x7" availability for systems and services.
  • Supervised and trained junior systems staff. Directed system operators. Served as escalation resource for all systems issues.
  • Monitored system and network related helpdesk email. Responded to escalated issues.
  • Diagnosed machine hardware problems, performed server hardware maintenance.
Projects:
  • Programmed tools in perl, C, and sh to automate repetitive tasks, such as mass disk-quota manipulation, user additions and deletions, generation of statistics from logs, and a homegrown service and system monitoring package for the use of operations staff.
  • Designed scheme based on NFS and rdist to maintain consistent software installations for all systems.
  • Built, tracked, packaged, and maintained a body of open-source software and freeware, including GNU and X11.
  • Monitored and troubleshot load for multi-user systems. Tuned uniprocessor systems to handle 200-300 remote users each.
  • Planned and implemented regular additions and mass removals of user accounts and data.
  • Installed and operated campus-wide Majordomo electronic mailing-list software with over 400 mailing lists.
  • Designed tape backup solution based on AMANDA software and multiple backup hosts/drives.
  • Configured and ran first and second generation WWW servers including Apache, CERN, and Netscape. Used analysis tools to generate web usage statistics and monitor performance. Configured and maintained first generation RealMedia Server. Created and maintained web content. Wrote CGI programs for dynamic web content.
  • Installed and operated first-generation websearch engines: Harvest, Infoseek, Webglimpse.
  • Planned, supervised, and implemented the move and reconfiguration of 50 IRIX workstations in one building into the role of web-surfing stations in another. Designed an evolutionary system layout for new lab workstations, maintaining customized UMBC end-user look-and-feel on a major new OS revision while revamping system organization and back-end infrastructure. Performed installation and roll-out of new system layout on 60 SGI Indy workstations to replace the original 50 systems.
  • Installed and configured Oracle 8.
 
Assistant Systems Administrator Jan 1994 - Jan 1995
University Computing Services, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Baltimore, MD
Responsibilities:

The Assistant System Administrator role required staffing and monitoring of a central operations center. Error conditions were to be noted, and repaired or reported to senior staff. Additionally:
  • Performed daily backup activities and restores.
  • Troubleshooting and helpdesk for faculty and staff.
  • Acted as tier-2 helpdesk for students.
  • Maintained public UNIX and PC/Mac labs: checked for problems, maintained hardware, opened and closed labs to public access.
  • Wrote perl scripts for monitoring and analysis.
Personal US Citizen. Speaks casual Spanish. Knows good food and wine.
References References available upon request.
 
Original document available from http://www.heedme.com/~omar/resume.html