Management Human Resources
Resume:
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Publishing / Graphics
Joshua Jacobsen ***************@***********.***
**** ********* **, *****, **, 75075
Web Server Administration Experience
Web server administration has usually been a side-effect of the positions that I've been in for most of my career. While making web pages and developing dynamic data-enabled applications has been my responsibility from the earliest parts of my career (1995), there was a "hole" in the technical infrasture at the time -- the installation, configuration, administration and related maintenance of the web server. Without someone to do that work, there would be no web site, and that kind of expertise just didn't exist.
Apache (1995) At the very beginning of my IT career, I worked at Wiltel developing desktop software to track engineering equipment and engineering business processes. My superior at the time, Scott Schad, was impressed with the web and had a vision of us using the internet as a content-delivery system for our database content. He procured a spare desktop computer for me to work with, and asked me to explore the possibilities. I installed a slackware distribution of linux along with the Apache web server on this computer, and developed a rich interface to our data. However, this solution was only "somewhat" dynamic, inasmuch as I couldn't query our databases directly. I ended up using MS Access to frequently generate HTML files, which were saved directly to the server. This was "my web server of choice for the next few years." Most of my administrative work with apache involved simply installing the apache web services. As part of the install, I configured PERL as a scripting language for the common gateway interface (CGI) and enabled server side includes (SSI). I also handled some file system permissions as appropriate.
Netscape Enterprise Server (1997) A few years later, I worked for Alcatel. My original position involved simply converting white papers into HTML format. I took it upon myself to created some 3D graphics with an open-source 3D package called Persistence of Vision Ray-Tracer (POVRay). I impressed the manager of web services -- Ammad Jilani -- with my work and my interest in learning new things. He was in the unfortunate position of doing everything by himself. His webmaster position was vacant and his intern was bright but unreliable. Ammad was technically sharp and capable of performing web server administration, supporting our desktop web software, presiding over the "web council" and doing a large amount of web content. He invited me to fill his vacancy for web master. At the time, I needed a mentor, which Ammad was more-than-happy to be. He used portions of his budget to have me trained and certified in Netscape Enterprise Server administration, and delegated a great deal of responsibility to me. Our infrastructure was primarily on Sun servers. Under the solaris operating system (a type of unix), I performed web server installion, configurations, and upgraded servers as new versions were released. We also trained in Apple's Web Objects application server technology, which faced a lot of resistence in the organization.
During a massive reorganization, following the DSC / Alcatel merger, I was laid off. Ammad left the company soon, when the reorg created a convoluted and beaurocratic management chain that left him paralyzed and without control of his budget. Ammad took a job at Occidental Chemical Corporation in the customer relationship management department and hired me as a consultant to create the corporate web site. At first, we installed linux on desktop computers, with Netscape Enterprise Server providing web services. Ammad's reputation in the industry was good and he received his "dream job offer" to head up technical marketing for Apple's dynamic web content technology -- Web Objects. While my admiration for Ammad remains strong to this day, I chose to stay with OxyChem and work in Dallas.
Internet Information Services (1999) Ammad's successor at Occidental Chemical Corporation (OxyChem) was Jeff Brewer. OxyChem was just emerging from some economic difficulties and underwent a major renovation of its technical infrastructure. My 60 Mhz Pentium computer -- an artifact at the time -- was replaced with a more-modern computer. The servers were replaced and we were moved from my familiar unix/linux platform to Windows NT 4.0. I had used it before, but had mixed feelings about it. IT management wondered why we weren't using Microsoft's Internet Information services (IIS), to stay inline with our "all Microsoft" philosophy. Jeff Brewer didn't want the antagonistic reputation that a few of his management peers perpetuated about Ammad, and asked me to explore it as a replacement for Netscape. Discovering that IIS had been unfairly maligned, we soon moved all of our web technologies to IIS, and it continues to be my web server platform of choice. My responsibilities have encompassed every possible aspect of IIS administration. I have installed it, configured it, purchased and installed SSL certificates into it, developed ISAPI extensions, configured 3rd party ISAPI extensions, configured logfiles (and written software to parse them), installed and configured 3rd party development languages, configured virtual directories for ASP applications, installed and managed Frontpage Extensions, installed Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS), installed Sharepoint Portal Server (SPS), installed Microsoft Content Management Server (CMS), Microsoft Project Server, and Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA Server).
BEA Weblogic Java Application Server (2006) Occidental Petroleum Corporation purchased the Peoplesoft suite of Human Resources tools. Peoplesoft was installed on top of BEA Weblogic Java Application Server. While this technology wasn't in-line with our corporate "Microsoft-only" philosophy, it became an exception for this one purpose. I was trained and certified in BEA Weblogic Administration although my duties were light and infrequent. One of my coworkers had primary support responsbility for the several Java Application Server Technologies that we used, and I served as backup administrator. My duties included the installation of a few applications, one version upgrade, and periodic cache flushing and server rebooting when BEA Weblogic quit responding. Honestly, I don't consider myself much of an authority on this product, although I have done all of the important and common administration tasks in my training sessions.
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