Nicholas “Nick” Van Tassell

Senior Enterprise Architect

acxc4s@r.postjobfree.com

678-***-****

Over 25 years IT experience

Hands-on experience in several .NET technologies: C#, VB.NET, ADO.NET, and ASP.NET through .NET Framework version 4.5 and Visual Studio 2012

Exceptional understanding of Agile development, specifically SCRUM

In-depth knowledge of XML, XSL, XSLT, XPath, DOM, SOAP

Experience developing widely available ‘shrink-wrapped’ software

Database experience creating stored procedures and triggers

Excellent communication and interpersonal skills

Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD)

Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD)

Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA)

Working toward Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT)

Full knowledge of current .NET Framework 4.5, CLR, and C# extensions including LINQ, Extension and Anonymous Methods, and Lambda Expressions

Experience with WPF, WCF, MVC, Web API, Windows Workflow, Microsoft Azure and SOA concerns

Operating Systems

Windows NT through Windows 10 12+ years

Windows 95/98/ME 8 years

OS/2 through version 3.0 (Warp) 3 years

DOS+Windows through version 3.11 4 years

DOS through version 6.22 5 years

Languages

C# 15+ years

VB.NET 2 years

ADO.NET 10 years

ASP.NET 10 years

Delphi 2 years

C 13 years

C++ 11 years

JAVA / J2EE 1 years

Assembler 6 years

Pascal 5 years

Turbo Pascal for Windows (Object-Oriented) 2 years

ASP/VB Script/Java Script 12 years

Visual Basic 4 years

Visual J++ year

Software Development Packages

Windows .NET Technology

Microsoft .NET Framework / CLR / .NET Framework Class Library through version 4.05

(Including ADO.NET, ASP.NET, VB.NET, and C#) 15 years

Windows DNA 2000 Technology (ADO, ASP, COM+, VB, VC++, MSMQ, etc.)

Microsoft Visual C++/Visual Studio 7 years

Including MFC (Microsoft Foundation Class library)

Microsoft Windows SDK (Software Developers Kit) 10 years

IBM OS/2 SDK (Software Developers Kit) 5 years

(Including CSet++ - IBM User Interface Class libraries) 1 years

Borland Language Products (Including Borland and Turbo C++) 5 years

Microsoft DirectX (including Direct 3D – through version 9) 3 years

Database Knowledge

Active Directory and ADSI 2 years

Microsoft SQL Server through 2014 17+ years

(Incuding Transact SQL/DTS/SSIS/Reporting Services)

Microsoft Access 3 years

Oracle / PL/SQL (including 9i and 10g) 2 years

Training

Formally trained by Rational Corp. in OO/OOD and the Rational Unified Process

Formally trained in Requisite Pro, Test Manager, Clear Case, and Clear Quest

Formally trained in Agile/Scrum Project Management and Development

Certifications

MCP - Microsoft Certified Professional

MCAD - Microsoft Certified Application Developer

MCSD - Microsoft Certified Solution Developer

MCDBA - Microsoft Certified Database Administrator

Architecture Experience

SOA – Service Oriented Architecture

MSF – Microsoft Solutions Framework

UML – Unified Modeling Language

OR/M – Object-Relational Mapping

Development Tools

Weblogic 10

Dot Net Nuke version 4.0

Microsoft content Management Server 2002

Visual Studio .NET through version 2013 (Framework version 4.5 with extensions)

Visual Studio through version 6 sp 5 w/ MFC

Delphi through version 5.5

Rational Suite – Rose (UML / Booch / Rumbaugh), Clear Case, Clear Quest

Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Power Point, Publisher, Visio)

Microsoft Project

3D Studio Max version 5

PhotoShop version 7

Dependency injection frameworks: Ninject, Caliburn Micro, Prism/Unity

Spring, NUnit, Star Team, Subversion, Cruise Control, Continuous Integration

WORK EXPERIENCE

About Nick Van Tassell

I have had the privilege to architect and design many software projects including web portal software, company intranets, corporate business software, and much more; all using .NET technologies. Highlights include architecture and development n-tier systems (Presentation, Façade, Data, Rules, and Data Access), Legacy COM/COM+ support, and Web Services enabled with C# and VB.NET code base. I have also designed numerous custom controls for both Windows and Web applications. These custom controls incorporate the latest technology including data binding and templates. I have studied, analyzed, and used virtually all of the Microsoft Application Blocks and Service Oriented Architecture guidelines including Policy and Dependency Injection, Exception Management and logging, Cross-cutting concerns, Data Access, Caching, Security, and Software Factories. I follow SOLID coding guidelines and can run a development team. I have also professionally trained upwards of 20 students at a time and am well trained in Agile/SCRUM project management.

As Founder of Live Video Dealers (10/2014 – present)

As the founder of Live Video Dealers, I have had the opportunity to harness all of my architectural and developmental experience into an application of significant scope. The system is a live camera feed poker system. Features include a single-page website using Angular-JS for the front-end and Web API/Entity Framework for the back end. The website is portal based since it serves three types of customers: Players, Dealers, and Casinos and hosted in Azure as a PaaS application for scalability and redundancy. The WPF based poker system GUI uses WCF NET.TCP for bidirectional communication to the actual game engine, which uses Entity Framework for data access. UDP sockets are used to stream live video and sound in a Peer-to-Peer connected network. There is also a hardware system, the Rapi-Deal table, that allows a person to deal cards in real-time. The cards are embedded with an RFID chip that is read via Arduino hardware and software system that connects the table to a GUI which also allows live video streaming and bidirectional communication to the game client. The Arduino system also indicates various game states such as card dealing, betting, folding, winning, etc. through the use of tri-color LEDs and sensor controls. To support a massively scalable model, all hand logic (bets, folds, raises, etc.) is controlled by the table. However, the database of record is stored in the Azure cloud and an IaaS service interface receives all transactions when a hand is completed. This Reconciliation service processes each bet transaction and commits the data to the database, and returns either an error code or participating players current chip counts. Through Hyper-V provisioning, this service can be scale out virtually unlimited. Team Foundation Server with the Agile template is used for source the code repository, backlog tracking and prioritization, and change management.

As a consultant to Meggitt Aerospace Corporation (07/2015 – 08/2016)

As a consultant, I worked on a weapons training simulation system for military and police forces located around the world. The main system was architected using WPF, Caliburn Micro for MVVM functionality and Ninject for dependency injection. The application controlled the lifetime and runtime aspects of several other systems such as a military training system, a collective military training simulator, and a police/SWAT situation emulator; all of which I could write volumes on how the applications worked and communicated. The main communication medium was through Distributed Distribution Service (DDS) topics coordinated through workflow aware state machines. Jama and Jira, were the Agile tools used and StarTeam and Subversion were the code repository tools.

As a consultant to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee (11/2011 – 4/2015)

I converted two Visual Basic 6 applications to .NET. Applications utilized a generic database access component which I authored for the call center application below as well as MVVM technology. Created several Windows Services that handled claims sent via fax and over the internet. One service has a WCF hosted interface so it can be called remotely when a new job submission occurs. Job submission is performed via the document prep application; which was part of the VB 6 to .NET conversion. Rational ClearCase and ClearQuest were the code tracking software and Scrummy.com was the Agile board used.

Architecture and design of medical call center application. Application incorporated WPF / Model View ViewModel (MVVM) technology. Application features include multiple threading, multiple asynchronous web service access, custom controls, and a telephony interface. As a WCF expert, I laid the foundation for all services including a generic data access component. I also provided code and guidance for dependency injection and provider models, which were essential in paving the way toward a loosely coupled, message-based infrastructure. I also authored many architectural and technical reference documents.

Architecture and design of service interface based on Web API for RESTful service initiative. I helped the web architecture team to come up to speed with ASP.NET MVC and Web API by conducting a series of tutorial sessions.

As a consultant to State of Florida Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO) (12/2012 – 3/2013)

Taught some 20 state employees C#, WCF, and ASP.NET development including, but not limited to:

The C# programming language through version 4.0

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF)

oSynchronous vs. Asynchronous

oConcurrency

oPer call, session, singleton

oHandling transactions and TransactionScope

oVersioning

ASP.NET

oDatabinding

oAsynchronous web calls

oCustom control creation

oForms authentication

oAnd much, much more

As a consultant to Convergent a division of Sony Corporation (5/2011 – 10/2011)

I was hired to not only write concise technical documentation and perform business process analysis, but to also train the existing team on Agile/Scrum methodology, the latest in .NET technology (WPF, WCF, Linq, JSON, MVC, etc). I also took the technical lead and management position in rewriting a key piece of their infrastructure application; which I ended up not only writing the entire application, but also offering guidance as to the why’s and why not’s of my architectural decisions. The company is primarily a help desk data center so their ticket routing application was in desperate need of a rewrite since the original system was written back in 1998-99. The rewrite was based on MVC 3 technology and used the Razor rendering engine as well as jQuery.

As a consultant to International Gaming Corporation (7/2009 – 7/2011)

As the sole architect and programmer, I created an exhaustive on-line poker application which boasted live video feeds. Technology included development of many duplex (net.tcp / WAS) and standard WCF services, WPF for the front-end (which was based on MVC/MVVM architecture), a robotic player component, stress-test modules, Windows Services for card dealing and failover, many stored procedures, Linq to XML, and Linq for SQL data access. The front end included many animations, a message queuing system, and net.tcp duplex connectivity to the Bet Controller web service, which is fully balanced for load as well as failover. The web portal application was developed as an MVC 3 application and hosted via Microsoft’s new Azure platform.

As a consultant to Fiserv SOA Team (10/2009 – 1/2010)

As a member of the SOA team, I helped define the method of database interaction for the coming decade. I also created a custom thread-pool and dispatcher system responsible for routing messages throughout the large scale system. My first system was a database stress-test application that sent multiple DB2 queries in rapid fashion through a defined threading interface. Helped architect a version-enabled service repository.

As a consultant to Department of Veterans Affairs (12/2008 – 6/2009)

Data architect and web programmer for a portal initiative that will serve all the needs of veterans including loan applications for education and home ownership, online medical, and other benefit information currently server by non-homogeneous sites.

As a data architect, I designed all the database tables, single table auditing triggers, and Hibernate annotations for OR/M based data access. Also created many HTML templates for a Spring MVC / tiles based content management system. I also created many java-script custom controls such as a cross-browser DHTML menu system, image rotator, field info highlighter, and an AJAX framework. Subversion and Cruise Control were used for code repository and build automation.

As a consultant to Department of Defense (8/2008 – 12/2008)

Analyzing and proposing alternative architectures for a secret project that will interface with the GIG (Global Information Grid). I can’t say much about the project, but the technology includes ASP.NET and WCF. Cruise Control was used for build automation.

As a consultant to Microsoft (4/2008 – 7/2008)

Data mining and map reducer programming and report analysis for the MSN and Windows Live verticals. The environment, called Cosmos, is accessed via a C# based scripting library called SCOPE (Structured Computations Optimized for Parallel Execution). SCOPE scripts are created using C# constructs as well as language extensions that support a query language much like LINQ. The Cosmos environment consists of a cluster of over 3500 machines and processes hundreds of petabytes worth of data a day!

Please see more Microsoft history below.

As a consultant to Matria Healthcare (1/2008 – 4/2008)

Performed guidance for new SOA initiative based on Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5. Guidance included proof of concept prototyping for various ESB components including AOP, Dependency Injection (DI), Inversion of Control (IOC), BPEL, XAML, LINQ, ADO Entity Framework with LINQ and NHibernate, Test Driven Design (TDD) patterns with NUNIT, NMock and Rhino Mocks. To alleviate server load, asynchronous data access, asynchronous web services calls, and asynchronous web page features were employed.

Operational frameworks utilizing the AOP, DI, and IOC capabilities of Spring.NET were developed. Various Model View Controller (MVC) and Model View Presenter (MVP) concerns including creating a prototype based on the new ASP.NET MVC add-on and creating a custom Front Controller were researched and prototyped. The delivered solution was my own custom design which was a highly optimized XML-based solution which allowed dynamic page and control handlers to be attached to various SOA services and custom controllers which effectively decoupled the typical ASP.NET page-behind concept without losing postback functionality; which is the case with Microsoft’s MVC add-on. Coupled with Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) and Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML), page behavior can be dynamically modified without refactoring the software or recompiling the solution.

I also created an XML-based Service Adapter which allowed new front end systems to consume the latest version entity objects while still calling legacy WCF-based services. The solution utilized a custom proxy interception architecture (similar to the Microsoft Policy Injection Application Block, Spring.NET, PICO, and other DI/IOC frameworks) which intercepts service methods of interest and returns new entity objects, created by reflection and filled with properties exposed by the legacy entity objects. Entity hierarchies and generic collections were fully supported.

The proxy interception architecture above also included dynamic inclusion of advanced program metrics, including Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control processing to provide runtime problem resolution via Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and a custom Complex Event Processing (CEP) subsystem for failover, exception handling, logging, for performance metrics, and other cross-cutting concerns.

The Windows Workflow Framework was chosen for the orchestration portion of the SOA framework. The workflow is completely customizable via XAML. The overall system architecture had the requirement for being absolutely loosely coupled. Loose coupling was achieved through judicious use of the Abstract Factory and Provider Model design patterns.

A Federated Service Repository was also developed. This framework was supported by LINQ and the new ADO Entity Framework to support an OR/M based Entity Aggregators in order to provide Single Sign-On and Enterprise Master Patient Index (EMPI) solution. All services were created with the new Service Factory Modeling Addition guidance package utilizing WCF and exposed through a custom Service Repository.

Also included were various training sessions intended to get the team familiarized with Agile Methodology concepts in order to maximize team effectiveness.

As a consultant to Rare Medium (8/2007 – 12/2007)

Please see description in the original Rare Medium entry below.

As a consultant to CNN (5/2006 – 8/2007)

Architected and developed a loosely coupled interface based on SOA practices so two disparate systems can share data seamlessly via Java Messaging System (JMS). Work entailed the creation of many extensive SQL Server DTS packages and stored procedures for ETL (Extract-Transform-Load operations, Oracle stored procedures, complex SQL Server triggers, and modification of existing web services to support a more object-oriented data provider model. Created web service interfaces to feed into a WCF based messaging system in order to de-couple existing framework and conform to new SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) initiatives.

I also developed a custom Session State Management Server capable of maintaining state in a distributed fashion for all web client connections across the entire server farm.

As a consultant to Wintellect - Zimini Inc. (11/2006 – 3/2007)

Architected and developed a Win Forms based application used for direct marketing directed to merchant and consumer interests. The Win Forms based application links to and synchronizes with local and back-end servers to publish new interest selects and merchant coupons and promotions via asynchronous web services in a threading timer. The application also utilized asynchronous data access, ThinkGeo mapping component, and Infragistics UI controls.

As a consultant to Microsoft (5/2006 – 7/2006, 10-2006 – 11/2006)

Architected and developed Team Sports demo web site for Mix ’06 technical exhibition. This application highlighted ATLAS, Microsoft’s new, AJAX enabled web control library. ATLAS and AJAX are used to allow server interaction without performing traditional postback and full-page refresh. The results are a higher server throughput and enhanced user experience. Also highlighted was a Mashup example. In the emerging Web 2.0 standard, a Mashup is regarded as seamless interaction between two or more websites that deliver different content. For example, a mapping application may contain address information, whereas another site may take that information and provide global positioning in the form of latitude and longitude, and a third site will actually display a map with position markers for the content. This is exactly what Team Sports does on its location page. In traditional Microsoft fashion, the latest and greatest technologies were used including SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 with .NET Framework 2.0.

Train-the-trainer materials were created including C# applications, lab manuals, and Power Point presentations on the topics of Virtual Earth and Windows Live Messenger, including all new features such as 3D display and messenger plug-ins.

As a consultant to World Travel / BCD Travel (8/2005 – 6/2006)

Architected and developed portal software framework and components. First 3 months of the contract was developing a custom portal page generation components which enable clients to create and manipulate content pages by dragging and dropping web components onto various content layout areas. A custom style sheet editor was developed which allowed the user to modify all web component styles. The next phase of the project was spent modifying the DotNetNuke portal system to support the portal system previously constructed. Many custom DotNetNuke modules were constructed including a custom login module. Many of these modules used custom controls supplied by Infragistics. Custom skinning was also part of the project to customize the look and feel of the portal for various individual clients. A great deal of time working with the new SQL Server 2005, especially in regards to Integration Services.

As a consultant to Turner Broadcasting (1/2005 – 7/2005)

Lead architect and developer for an n-tier system revolving around the use of XML Web Services, Windows Form based application written in C# for the .NET platform. Oracle 9i was the key database. The UI had several custom controls and had a rich set of base classes to aid in construction. The back end had a more typical architecture which included business and data access tiers as well as a rich set of typed entity classes. I considered using typed datasets however, using datasets would not as efficient as custom entity classes over HTTP with XML/SOAP as the transport protocol. Anticipating that creating custom entity classes could be time consuming, I created a database driven code generator that created all the entity, entity list, and data access queries.

As a consultant to Tech Discovery (9/2004 – 1/2005)

Responsible for single sign-on and single workstation log in for El Banco, a rising star in the banking business. Also architected and created base class functionality for Home Site, a construction management application. Development environment for Home Site was the beta version of .NET framework 2.0 (Whidbey).

As a consultant to Rare Medium (several projects - consulting since 10/2003)

Overall .NET architect for many .NET initiatives including Publix Supermarket bid portal, Sun Bank customer relations portal, Teacher Network resume scraping and reporting tools, Am South Bank promotional web software, and corporate training for Rare Medium employees. Most of the technology centered around n-tier web development including ASP.NET, ADO.NET, .NET Remoting, and Web Services – including Web Service Enhancements v2.0. ASP.NET and ADO.NET technologies speak for themselves. .NET Remoting was used along with the Factory Design Pattern, Binary over HTTP via IIS, and also Binary over TCP with a Windows Service (two separate projects). Web Services were used in the Publix Supermarkets Bid Portal and the WS-Policy, WS-Security, and WS_SecurityPolicy enhancements were utilized throughout.

(8/2007 – 12/2007)

Maintained and created new content for the Ritz-Carlton Hotel chain. The Ritz-Carlon.com website is based on the Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) framework. Many custom templates, admin controls, and custom placeholders were created within the MCMS framework. This framework is very similar to the DotNetNuke portal system utilized by BCD Travel also listed below.

Key differences are that the system incorporates the new Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) programming model in a C# / ASP.NET in a .NET Framework 3.0 environment to effectively manage the process of managing portal site content for the various Ritz Carlton hotels. Branch managers routinely create content change tickets, which are routed to the correct content provider (for example Japanese site manages submit their changes to a content manager who is fluent in Japanese), once the content is approved the ticket will be passed on to a coordination manager who will prioritize and schedule the changes. The process will continue until the content goes live on the site, at which time all tickets will be closed.

Workflow components were hosted inside services exposed using Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). Tight system integration was achieved by following a request/response pattern via callbacks configured with duplex channels defined by custom DuplexChannelFactoy objects.

As a consultant to ComFrame Inc. (4/2003 – 6/2003)

More ASP.NET development targeted at the heath care provider market. Helped architect, design, and code a billing resolution web site for AIM Health Services based in Nashville, TN. Highlights include n-tier design, typed data sets, and charting via Swiff Charts, 3rd party COM application.

As a consultant to Wurzburg Inc. (3/2004 – 5/2004)

Consulted on a warehouse inventory intranet application for use in all 13 Wurzburg warehouses throughout the Southeast. This software tracked shipments, inventory, and intra-warehouse transfers using ASP.NET, ADO.NET, and Web Services. The WS-Security Web Service Enhancement from version 1.0 was utilized throughout.

As a consultant to Recellular Inc. (3/2003 – 5/2004)

Responsible for may web application pages written in ASP.NET and ADO.NET using C# and jscript for which I am fully Microsoft Certified (C# / .NET). Certain web applications had to be integrated into a Microsoft Great Plains / CRM environment. Responsible for front-end, data access, and stored procedure development on a Sql Server 2000 environment. Used may of the advanced features in ASP.NET including the Data Grid and Repeater controls, Cascading Style Sheets, SOAP, XML, and Web-Services, and custom behavior code.

As a consultant to White Plume Technologies (4/2003 – 11/2003)

Lead architect, team lead, and technical trainer for a Windows Forms / Tablet PC based application written using VB.NET and targeting the health care provider market. Responsible for the architecture of the entire project including the Front-end, data access (using ADO.NET), Windows Service and .NET Remoting, as well as the stored procedures on the database side of the fence. The application is able to work in a connected as well as disconnected state on a wireless network. Data synchronization was accomplished using Sql Server 2000 Linked Server technology and some very interesting stored procedures. In fact, the entire, optimized stored procedure code responsible for synchronizing remote systems is well over 50 pages long and will synchronize data in less than 10 seconds. I also headed 3 weeks of training sessions at 4+ hours each to instruct White Plume technologists on .NET technology ranging from basic Windows Forms and ADO.NET to the more advanced topics of .NET Remoting, Windows Service Applications, as well as threading and synchronization techniques. Several reports were written using the Crystal Reports version 9 engine. I was also responsible for a WYSIWYG form generation tool. There was much to this project, please call for more details.

As a consultant to Ctec Academy (2/2003 – 5/2003)

Instructed other developers in the disciplines of the C# programming language and the .NET framework. This included topics such as ADO.NET, ASP.NET, and Web Services as well as Web and Windows Forms. Responsibilities were the instruction of students on how to obtain their MCAD / MCSD certificates.

As a consultant to Royal & Sun Alliance (2/2003 – 4/2003)

Short 3 month project that was extended to me to handle all security aspects of the Software Development Lifecycle including securing .NET Remoted objects in both IIS and custom containers. Securing Web Services via WS-Security (Web Services Security) and WSE (Web Services Extensions) was also paramount. When to use Secured Sockets Layer (SSL), encryption, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), and Active Directory authorization and authentication was also considered in the many documents and code samples I produced. I also created an Active Directory query engine that allows users to key in specific queries to Active Directory, and receive a report on the findings. Web security specialist. Provide architecture procedures for securing web based initiatives using Active Directory, WMI, .NET Remoting, Web Services, SSL / TLS, Authentication, Authorization, and Encryption. Write standards for the use of Digital Certificates, Kerberos, IPSec, and Impersonation / Identity flowing.

As a consultant to Fidelity Investments (9/2000 to 4/2002)

Architecture, design, and coding of international on-line securities trading system. Developed ASP front end web pages, middle tier COM objects, and back end database schemas using Visual Interdev, Visual C++, Visual J++, Visual Basic, SQL Server 2000, then Oracle via OleDB.NET connectivity. SOAP / XML / CORBA, Style Sheets, Dynamic HTML, Java Script, and VB Script were also used to enhance web content. Created the middle tier database access components. Worked on various option trading strategies such as spreads, straddles, butterflies, and other combinations along with real-time data feeds and alerts to notify users that a particular strategy would be advantageous. Responsible for the architecture of highly available and scalable web components as well as multiple browser support concerns, Web security, Entitlements / Role-based security, and Project Management aspects. Managed the direction and output of 15-20 individuals and directly responsible for milestone deliveries. 6 months were spent migrating to .NET, specifically ASP.NET, VB.NET, ADO.NET, and C#.

As a consultant to Cincinnati Financial Corporation (2/99 to 9/2000)

Architectural, implementation, mentoring, and project management role developing the middle tier of a three tier system. System features include TCP/IP Sockets, Microsoft Message Queue (MSMQ), Transaction Server, Load Balancing service, Cluster server in a DCOM environment. Lead architect of fail-over proxy methodology. The primary tools used were Visual Studio ’98 (including the use of ATL) and Delphi for the front end components. Midway through the project, a decision was made to scrap the Delphi front end and incorporate thin client (Web Browser) techniques. This included ASP, Java Script, and VB Script, as well as HTML / DHTM programming. Some time was also spent identifying key

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