LAURENCE THOMAS JOSSERAND

*** ******** ***** / **** ****, South Carolina 29730

TELEPHONE: 803-***-****

eMail: advdt5@r.postjobfree.com or advdt5@r.postjobfree.com

SUMMARY

20+ years of experience with UNIX/Linux Systems Administration, including Operating System (OS) installations, system/application architecture design, virtualization/clustering, network configuration, filesystems such as EXT3/4, JFS, ZFS, kernel and server performance tuning, OS patches/version upgrades. Managed servers running Sun Solaris, IBM AIX, HP-UX and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) versions 5, 6 and 7. Excellent programming ability with Unix/Linux shell scripting languages (ksh, bash, perl). Strong root-cause analysis and problem-resolution skills, based on experience at all support levels solving a wide variety of challenging IT issues.

EDUCATION

Bachelor of Arts in Economics, magna cum laude, from the University of Texas at San Antonio

"C" Language Programming and Intel x86 Assembler courses at San Antonio College (Texas)

Database Design and Statistics with SAS courses at the US Army Academy of Health Sciences

TECHNICAL SKILLS

UNIX (Sun Solaris 7-11, IBM AIX 5.3-7.2, HP-UX 9-11, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5-7, CentOS)

Databases (Oracle RDBMS 7-11, Unify 4.0, Informix, MySQL, IBM DB2, Ingres, Microsoft Access)

Programming/Scripting (Korn shell, bash, awk, SQL, Perl, Javascript, WebSphere App Server)

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY

May 2019 to the present – occassional freelance roles as Unix/Linux Systems Analyst

Worked on several short-term contract engagements in the Carolinas and in Texas

Performed troubleshooting jobs such as restoring crashed Unix/Linux servers to service

Handled a hosted Oracle database instance to address post-crash transactional issues

Programmed and debugged shell script programs using Bash, Korn shell and Perl

Aug 2018 to Feb 2019 - Linux Systems Engineer

CHARTER/SPECTRUM Communications (contractor Pyramid) – Charlotte, NC

Worked for the Charter Network Systems Management / Commercial Tools team. Performed root cause analysis and problem resolution. Installed multiple network monitoring tools.

Programmed custom network bandwidth reports for numerous Charter corporate customers using CA Performance Center and CA Business Intelligence software packages.

Monitored Linux servers and investigated vital Alarms via CA SPECTRUM app interface.

Programmed ad hoc Linux shell scripts using GNU bash and Korn shell (ksh) languages.

April 2017 to Dec 2017 – AIX/Linux Systems Specialist

SCANA Corporation (contractor SystemTec) – Cayce, SC (suburb of Columbia, SC)

Worked as a member of the SCANA Transmission Operations Center server support team, responsible for operations and maintenance of all IBM AIX 7.1 servers (IBM POWER7 and POWER8 CPUs) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 6 (on Intel x86 and Xeon CPUs). These servers supported 24x7 power grid control operations with sophisticated control room displays handling much of the South Carolina electrical power grid. Control technology included SCADA interfaces for the real-time control of power-generation equipment settings in the field, by operators using AIX graphical displays. Supported virtual server environments using VMware Server and with IBM's HMC devices for AIX server management and virtualized sharing.

Reviewed Security Bulletins and handled security updates/patches for IBM AIX 7.1 servers, which hosted many critical enterprise applications at SCANA. Successfully completed AIX security updates for IBM POWER-based servers with minimum downtime and maximum availability of resources for continuation of production operations. Investigated daily IBM server error logs for software and hardware issues and arranged for on-site maintenance/repair of AIX servers by IBM Support. Hardware issues required detailed knowledge of IBM POWER-based server platforms, HMCs and other related IBM equipment. Supported stand-by AIX servers, maintained at a Disaster Recovery (DR) site near Columbia which enabled failover of all essential SCANA power grid control operations if needed.

Primary responsibility for Anti-Virus (AV) scans. Setup regular downloads of daily AV data files for all AIX and Linux servers using McAfee AV software.

Supported multiple Federally-mandated CIP (Critical Infrastructure Protection) regulations for safeguarding US electrical power grids from hacking, network penetration and terrorist threats.

Aug 2015 to Aug 2016 – Unix Systems Engineer

TIME WARNER CABLE (contractor Principle Solutions Group) – Charlotte, NC

As a member of the Unix Ops team supported over 1,500 Unix/Linux servers. Work involved problem determination and resolution of Unix/Linux server issues via both Help Desk requests and as part of larger projects such as OS patching/version upgrades, remediation of security vulnerabilities, and application integration/scripting. Supported platforms were Oracle/Sun Solaris 10 and 11, RHEL 5 and 6, and IBM AIX 6.x and 7.1.

Developed/documented new procedures for applying large updates to IBM AIX 7.1 servers, which ran some of the most critical enterprise applications, but some of which required very large and sometimes problematic update packages from IBM.

June 2014 to Dec 2014 – Unix Video Sources Engineer

TIME WARNER CABLE (contractor Principle Solutions Group) – Charlotte, NC

Supported Cable TV provisioning applications, as used to define channel availability and delivery specifications (like video stream encryption and On-Demand options) in multiple U.S. markets.

Video provisioning work involved CISCO/Scientific Atlanta DNCS (Digital Network Control System) and TWC’s MAS application. DNCS defined program “sources” for specific markets, and these newly defined or revised channel sources were then “published” into all appropriate user channel/content guides and dynamic on-screen listings using TWC’s MAS software.

Dec 2013 to May 2014 – AIX Systems Engineering Specialist

GULFSTREAM Aerospace Corp (contractor PARAM Software) – Savannah, GA

Provided technical support for IBM AIX and Linux x86 servers (RHEL and Oracle), some running Oracle databases and others hosting high-end 3D CAD applications for aerospace engineering work, such as ‘Dassault CATIA’. Investigated and resolved AIX, Linux and Windows-related performance and network problems, as Remedy helpdesk tickets.

Served on the IT "RUN Team" for Engineering apps, performing one week of 24x7 On-Call duty per cycle, for all supported servers and applications.

April 2008 to July 2013 – Unix/Linux Software Engineer

OPENET Telecom Ltd (HQ Dublin, Ireland) – Charlotte, NC

Provided systems analysis, shell script programming (Korn shell) and UNIX/Linux systems administration for major telecom clients, including AT&T and Time Warner Cable; Supported OPENET’s FusionWorks application suite for Mediation of call data records. Scope of the Mediation process was between call data streams arriving from the client’s production switches in the field, with eventual transfer of mediated data to the clients billing applications.

Supported OPENET’s Voice Mediation applications at AT&T, hosted on HP/Intel Itanium 2-based servers running HP-UX version 11. Performed migration of AT&T help desk ticket content and reports from an in-house tool called 'WebTrax', to a newly adopted HP Quality Center(QC) application for problem ticket management and related testing of code updates.

Used IBM WebSphere Application Server for management of hosted web pages.

Worked for OPENET’s Solution Performance Team in support of performance testing to validate applications as meeting targeted transaction rates and other service level thresholds, as developed with, and expected by, given clients. Used Atlassian JIRA to document progress.

Configured PUPPET profiles on a master server for automatic installations and configuration updates to multiple Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers. Completed formal AGILE Training.

Aug 2004 to Oct 2007 – Senior Unix Systems Administrator (contractor STG)

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) / Unix Support - Asheville, NC

Performed Unix Systems Administration duties for over 60 SUN Solaris (8,9,10), and IBM AIX 5.3 servers; Systems supported the official federal archive for US historical weather data.

Setup NFS file-sharing among AIX servers, to include auto-mounting of file systems for near-instant availability upon initial user access request

Administered NCDC email servers using SUN’s iPlanet 5.2 Enterprise Messaging Server

Used ZFS file systems as introduced in Solaris 10. Also, tested Solaris 10 version for Intel x86.

2003 to 2004 – Solaris/AIX Systems Administrator (contractor SystemTec) - ENTIGO Corp, Greenville, SC

Provided systems administration for Solaris 8 and AIX 5.x servers in support of in-house Java developers; Supported Windows 2000 servers for software development and testing as well as standard file sharing and messaging. Used Microsoft Active Directory and Exchange servers to facilitate email messaging between Unix and Windows.

Worked with Java developers to identify and test fixes for outstanding bugs.

1998 to 2002 - Technology Solutions Analyst - SPRINT e Solutions, Charlotte, NC

Engagements included The Southern Company (Georgia Power / Alabama Power), the Georgia State Department of Agriculture, Deloitte-Touche (Charlotte, NC), Motorola (Boynton Beach, FL)

Unix Systems Administration work included Solaris 8 (SPARC) on SUN Enterprise 250 servers, AIX 5.x on IBM p-series servers and HP-UX 10 on HP K-series servers.

Used Clarify eSupport 10.0, Oracle 8i, IBM DB2 and BEA WebLogic Server version 5.1.

Installed and configured RAID-5 disk arrays under HP-UX, and configured/tested backups using Veritas NetBackup.

Did network monitoring using HP OpenView and with the ‘nmap’ network monitoring tool.

1997 to 1998 - Unix Systems Administrator (contractor NATIONAL SOFTWARE)

United States Postal Service, Central Inventory Depot Operation, Topeka, Kansas

Served as primary HP-UX systems administrator for migration project to transfer a large Oracle 7 application, the database host for all centralized inventory control in the U.S. Postal Service. Migration was from a single-cpu HP PA-RISC server running "Berkeley-style" HP-UX version 9, to an HP K420 4-way server running HP-UX version 10, an "AT&T Unix SVR4-style" OS.

1996 to 1997 - Unix / NT Systems Administrator (contractor SOURCE SERVICES)

TRANE Manufacturing, Charlotte, NC

Worked on a transition of CINCOM CONTROL 1.3 ERP manufacturing software, from an IBM MVS mainframe and COBOL-based applications to an HP K420 server running HP-UX 10.01 with the same COBOL code running against an HP-UX-hosted Virtual Machine emulating an IBM/370 mainframe processor (like Java portability via JVMs).

Support included shell script programming and managing HP K420 server maintenance.

1995 to 1996 - Unix / IVR (Interactive Voice Response) Software Developer

AT&T Inc. (contract as Sr Consultant for KEANE), Greensboro, NC

Developed custom AT&T-wide IVR application for secure employee access to key personnel data of AT&T Human Resources. Used the AT&T Intuity/Conversant 6.0 server platform running Novell UnixWare for x86 (formerly AT&T UNIX System V.4) with an embedded Oracle 7.0 database instance. Attended AT&T's IVR training courses in Los Angeles and became certified as an AT&T Conversant 6.0 IVR Developer.

As part of the same project, programmed IBM 3270-style “screen-scraping” logic as executed from the Unix-based IVR server to capture selected HR data fields (during real-time phone calls) from a DB2 database hosted on an IBM MVS mainframe system. Defined Oracle 7.0 tables/indexes and did shell script programming to integrate application components. Developed custom Reports using a shell script-driven user interface with embedded SQL.

Availability of this critical HR system was legally required by multiple union contracts, as related to the planned AT&T/Lucent/NCR corporate split-up. Put new IVR application successfully into production at a rate of over 1 million calls per year from then current AT&T and Lucent employees.

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