John J. Neely
Contact Information
Email: jjneely at linuxczar dot net.
More information can be provided on request.
Objective
This person is a driven self starter always looking to learn new technologies and techniques. Excels at systems administration and Linux architect positions. Experience with RPM based Linux environments, large scale deployments, disaster recovery, high availability, and server room design.
Education
North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
B.S. in Computer Science, May, 2002
Work Experience
Operations and Systems Specialist NC State University, Raleigh, NC, June 2006 – Present.
Lead architect of NCSU’s Linux deployment. RHEL clients, workstations, servers, and clusters built from a designed kit called Realm Linux via PXE, templated Kickstarts, Yum repositories, RPM packages, and configuration management techniques. Kits make use of centralized services such as Kerberos, LDAP, and OpenAFS to provide all types of services to the customer base. Kit infrastructure supports over 1,500 machines. Designed RPM package build system with Subversion and Mock. Implemented services using these kits to provide load balancing and failover with LVS and Keepalived, Apache, Subversion, Git, vsFTP, Cacti, Oracle, MySQL, Postgresql, Bcfg2, OpenAFS, RHN Satellite, and Xen virtual servers. Lead Kerberos admin. Experience with linux utilizing EMC Clariion LUNs. Also responsible for developing disaster recovery, fault tolerance, and high availability best practices for the linux infrastructure.
Systems Programmer I NCSU College of PAMS, Raleigh NC, September 2001 – May 2006.
Project lead and complete management of Realm Linux throughout NC State University on 1000 machines. Deployment of highly redundant, highly available services on Realm Linux using shared storage (AFS) and LVS load balancing. Management of an RHN Satellite and supporting Oracle database. Maintain knowledge of security issues, bugs, fixes for Red Hat style operating systems. Administration and design of Beowulf Clusters (over 100 nodes) used in hurricane prediction models. Beowulfs utilizing Sun Grid Engine, MPI, Linux NFS stack, fiber channel storage, Cisco ethernet switches, and Brocade FC switches. Server room planning and disaster recovery planning.
Systems Administrator NCSU Department of Physics, Raleigh, NC, August 2000 – August 2001.
Administration, maintenance, and testing of Realm Linux and other Linuxes.
Research NCSU Department of Chemistry, Raleigh, NC, August 1999 – December 2000.
Using Linux to create professional quality video. Wrote C programs to generate a model of a molecular “bridge” binding two molecules together. This code was used in cancer cell research.
Instructor Sandhills Community College, Pinehurst, NC, Summer of 1999.
Taught a basic class in using Windows 95/98.
Projects
NCSU Realm Linux NC State University, August 2000 – Present.
Project Lead. Realm Linux is a modified distribution of the latest version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux that integrates into NCSU’s computer environment. Including Kerberos, hesiod, OpenAFS, LDAP, custom applications, and completely automated management and installation of workstations and servers. Realm Linux is used at NCSU as the base OS load for student labs to back-end email, web, database, and AFS infrastructure. Collaboration with many people in and outside the university to effective develop centralized resources and services to support a distributed administration methodology.
Current http://current.tigris.org, 2004 – 2007.
Current is an open source implementation of a server for Red Hat’s up2date program. Long term goals including being a feasible replacement for the Red Hat Network. Released versions are capable of keeping thousands of machines updated.
Skills
Advanced distribution skills. Red Hat style Linux operating systems including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Fedora. Also including experience with Debian, Ubuntu, and SUSE. Advanced skills in creating and maintaining RPM packages. Skills in using automation tools and configuration management techniques to store, backup, and version meta data used to install and setup machines.
Software development skills. Fedora project contributor. Patches in Anaconda, MoinMoin, and Up2date. Extensive code in Yum. Familar with many version control systems including RCS, CVS, Subversion, Mercurial, and Git. Participated in developing a packaging standard for kernel modules in Fedora now used in RPMFusion.
Teaching experience. Developed and taught many training sessions for beginning users to advanced system administrators. Topics including RPM packaging, LVS and Keepalived, deploying Realm Linux, and introduction to Realm Linux. Collaboration with other technical instructors. Organized NCSU’s first FOSS Fair.
Languages. Development experiance in Python and C. System administration tasks in Python, bash, tcsh, and SQL. Documentation in LaTeX, XML, CSS, and PHP. Web application experience with Python, XML, and CSS.
Activities and Honors
Former President of the NC State Linux Users’ Group and member of TriLUG.
A tenor in many choral groups including the North Carolina Master Chorale, Capital Opera Raleigh, Christ Episcopal Church, and St. Michael’s Episcopal Church. Mu Beta Psi National Honorary Musical Fraternity. Affiliate of the Royal School of Church Music in America. Beginning choral directing.
References
References available on request.
