Hire Me

Hello!

I am a senior Linux administrator with 20+ years of experience managing Linux systems including HPC, cloud, and on‑prem Linux desktop and server infrastructure. My recent experience has proven my expertise in automating large‑scale environments to support scientific research, teaching & learning, and enterprise workloads, as well as custom solutions for metrics gathering and report generation. I am adept at translating business needs into reliable, scalable solutions while mentoring teams and driving process improvements.

Core competencies

• Operating systems: 20+ years of server experience with Red Hat-based OSes (CentOS, Rocky Linux, Fedora), Debian, Ubuntu. Past experience with Solaris and FreeBSD
• Automation & configuration: Ansible, Terraform, Packer, SaltStack, Puppet, GitLab CI/CD
• Container Platforms: Docker, Kubernetes, Apptainer
• Cloud & Virtualization: AWS, OCI, VMware vSphere/Automation, Proxmox, CloudStack
• Programming & Scripting: Bash, PowerShell, Python, Java, C#, PHP, C/C++
• Databases: MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQLite, InfluxDB / Flux
• Monitoring: Grafana, InfluxDB, Telegraf, ELK stack
• Networking: HP and Cisco switches, software firewalls, NAS systems
• Security: Kerberos, LDAP, PAM, PKI, log‑based threat hunting, network packet analysis
• Hardware Platforms: x86_64, ARM64, Sun, Dell, HP, IBM Tape Library (TS4500)

Education & Training

• Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, University of Calgary
  • August 2007 - May 2011
  • Notable courses: CPSC 550; System Administration with Darcy Grant, Wayne Pearson (2010 – 2011)
• Red Hat Satellite 6 Training
  • Completed August 2018
• VMware vSphere 6.7
  • Completed January 2019
• VMware vRealize Automation 6.5
  • Completed January 2019

Professional experience

HPC System Administrator - University of Calgary (December 2019 - Deecmber 2025)

One of three lead architect and operators for the HPC resources at Research Computing Services (RCS). Tasked with the successful transition of the 1PB+ storage system at the Centre for Health Genomics and Informatics (CHGI) at the Cumming School of Medicine (CSM) into RCS's service offering. Streamlined over 1000 HPC cluster nodes to Ansible, automated account vending, and implemented a robust metrics collection and reporting system.

Major accomplishments include:

• Transitioned our HPC cluster of over 1000 nodes to Ansible and automated configuration deployments and leveraging CI/CD pipelines to automate account provisioning and systems configuration.
• Automated HPC cluster usage report generation from various sources (Eg. sensors, servers, network gear). Visualize CPU, memory, storage usage by users, department, and faculty which was used to drive proactive capacity planning.
• Developed custom log-parsing scripts to ingest Slurm jobs, system metrics, and audit logs for reports, alerting, and governance reporting.
• Created RCS's Open OnDemand portal and containerized scientific apps, improving user productivity and easing the learning curve for users new to HPC.
• Implemented and maintained CloudStack as a private cloud solution and authored training materials and one-on-one workshops with researchers.
• Facilitated researchers into RCS managed AWS Control Tower environment while ensuring instutional security compliance and governance

Infrastructure Automation & Containers Specialist - University of Calgary (December 2018 - December 2019)

Part of a newly created team tasked with spearheading the University's first internal kubernetes as a service platform and VMware vRealize Automation pipeline for delivering virtual machines for secure research workloads.

Achievements include:

• Ensured the smooth operating of around 8 CoreOS Tectonic Kubernetes clusters
• Evaluated Pivotal Enterprise PKS and Red Hat OpenShift as a new managed Kubernetes solution
• Coordinated with our internal web team to transition all of the University's websites onto our Kubernetes infrastructure
• Built and migrated custom applications into a containerized environment using Helm charts
• Automated VM deployments on the University's private cloud with VMware vRealize, enabling zero-touch VM provisioning from ServiceNow and integration with Red Hat Satellite
• Authoried change-management documentation compliant with ITIL and IT policies, ensuring audit readiness

Technical Systems Analyst for Linux Desktop - University of Calgary (July 2018 - November 2018)

I spearheaded the standardized Linux desktop environment for the Customer Technology Services (CTS) group at the University of Calgary. Building on my past experience from the Computer Science department, I transitioned and unified disparate Linux desktop infrastructures across various departments into a single standardized solution managed by central IT.

• Deployed TheForeman, an open source alternative to Red Hat Satellite, for unattended Linux deployments supporting Fedora & Kali Linux on both Intel and ARM based computers. Used by over 250+ Linux workstations for the Department of Computer Science
• Wrote and integrated Puppet manifests with TheForeman for desired state configuration on all hosts
• Created and updated custom Linux based packages used by teaching and research
• Consulted with faculty members to ensure software requirements required for teaching are met
• Authored support materials on the new deployment system for technical staff in Computer Science

Linux System Administrator - University of Calgary (October 2012 - July 2018)

I was a Linux system administrator that oversaw over 400 Linux-based servers and workstations for the department of Computer Science at the University of Calgary. I ensured that all teaching and learning needs were met with a consistent and reliable computing environment while providing end-user support for faculty, staff, and students within the department.

• Spearheaded a rewrite of the departmental firewall and intrustion detection system. Firewall rules were parsed and pattern matching was deployed to block malicious traffic patterns from reaching the department network
• Modernized over 400 machines from an aging CFEngine configuration management system to SaltStack, simplifying systems provisioning and account management
• Enabled visibility into lab usage with custom machine telemetry data, integrated automatic data polling of student data and courses from the IT data warehouse, and data dashboards
• Deployed Logstash + ElasticSearch for internal logging of both Windows and Linux servers and workstations
• Converted applications on dedicated servers into containerized solutions, reducing server count by half and ensuring new teaching and research apps are supported, including WebCAT, OwnCloud, Moodle.
• Authored support documentation and end-user guides with a focus on undergraduate student experience

C# Developer - Onstream Pipeline Inspection Ltd.

May 2011 – September 2013, Full Time, http://onstream-pipeline.com/

I was one of two C# developers at a pipeline inspection company, developing their new version of pipeline analysis software.

• Debugged existing in-house software written in Borland C++ on the Windows platform
• Low-level hardware interface with custom designed pigs
• Developed the next version of their analysis software from scratch using C# .NET4

Freelance Web Developer & Designer – Steamr

June 2005 – 2014, Freelance, http://steamr.com/

I am a freelance web designer and developer and provided clients primarily in North America with custom web designs and applications. I am responsible for ensuring projects are completed on-time, on-budget and satisfies client requirements.

A sample of my work can be found on my portfolio at: http://steamr.com/portfolio

Responsibilities:

• Consulted with clients for every project for budget, timeline and user requirements and delivered frequent deliverables and project updates.
• Created and deployed custom web designs from scratch using Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Notepad++, and half a dozen web browsers.
• Ensured all websites were optimal, standards compliant, cross-browser compatible, and search engine optimized (SEO) based on web analytics.
• Created and maintained over 20 projects under the LAMP stack, along with using PHP frameworks and libraries including: Kohana, CodeIgniter, FPDF, Smarty.
• Created over 40 individual websites from scratch for businesses and individuals.
• Customized design themes for WHMCS, SolusVM, Kayako Support Suite for hosting companies.

Related Work:

• Previous webmaster for GlobalTech Communications including: nworks.ca, gtcomm.net, unmeteredserver.net, zenprotection.com
• Responsible for updating content and promotions while ensuring website correctly interfaces with the point of sale application.
• Developed an internal network management application for gtcomm.net in PHP utilizing MRTG. Abnormal network patterns will notify an administrator via email and SMS.
• Created a distributed network monitoring system based on Java, PHP and MySQL, which utilizes http and ping tests to determine the availability and latency of remote services. Results are then recorded and monthly reports generated.
• Designed the front-end of an in-house inventory system used by gtcomm.net used to track networking/server hardware along with managing available IP pools.
• Designed the front-end of an in-house project enabling end users to purchase and manage DDoS protection services by zenprotection.net.

Server Administrator - SwiftHost.net

January 2004 – May 2012, http://swifthost.net/

With a partner, I created a web hosting company, focusing on affordable shared and reseller hosting. Servers utilized were based on the LAMP stack along with the use of the cPanel control panel.

Responsibilities:

• Managed production servers hosting over 400 individual websites
• Responsible for responding to many customer support tickets within 6 hours for issues under the technical, abuse and billing department.
• Technical issues handled by me ranged from fixing simple permission issues to handling requests for specific software such as Apache/PHP modules, system libraries, and Caching / PHP Accelerators
• Performed security audits and server hardening by disabling or restricting services, configuring the firewall, detecting compromised websites and spam control in a shared hosting environment.
• Configured weekly, network-based backups to an off-site location using cronjobs, rsync and shell scripts. Performed account or file specific restores from backups.

Projects:

• Designed a custom billing solution for account management using PHP, MySQL and the PayPal API.
• A status page which monitored and reported live server status information such as processor load, traffic load, service availability, memory usage to customers.
• Developed a custom web control panel, similar to cPanel, targeted to free hosting accounts. The control panel based on PHP, MySQL, Shell + Perl Scripts, enabled end users to manage their websites, domains and databases while automatically maintaining and enforcing disk and bandwidth quotas.

AS/400 Night Operator - Calgary Programming Factory

May 2007 – July 2007, Part Time

I worked as night operator as part of the AS/400 support team at the Calgary Programming Factory for The Sovereign General Insurance Company as a summer job.

Responsibilities:

• Operated the tape backup system, ensuring backups are valid and without errors.
• Operated the AS/400 system to print system logs and claim checks
• Ensured paper was loaded and aligned properly to the printers before printing
• Researched feasibility to migrate their existing projects based on JSP servlets to ASP.NET

Personal

• Canadian; Speaks English & Cantonese
• Interest in anything Linux related, System Infrastructure, Systems Security, Game Development, Electronics & Tinkering