Nicholas J. DeClario
Summary
- Senior Technical Analyst with 5 years of financial experience.
- Senior Developer and Engineer with over 4 years as a lead developer for a secure Linux distribution.
Languages, Software, Technologies, and Hardware
- Perl, BASH Scripting, C/C++, Perl::DBI, Expect, PHP, SQL, LaTeX/TeX, Newt.
- KDE/QT, MySQL, CVS, bind, RPM, GRUB, QIP, LILO, Snort, postfix, OpenSSH, OpenLDAP, Linux Software RAID, NFS, SquirrelMail, Vi, LYX, LVM, Software RAID, VMWare, Xen, stunnel, sophie, networking and system administration tools.
- Red Hat Linux (RHEL4), SuSE SLES, EnGarde Secure Linux, Debian Linux, Sun Solaris, HP-UX, Windows x86 based systems.
- Hardware SCSI and IDE RAID, 1U and 2U x86 rack mount systems and Sun Fire Sparc rack mount systems.
Professional Experience
Member of a small team of Linux administrators and developers who build and maintain a grid computing farm of over 30,000 x86 based 1U tier 2 client servers and over 1,000 infrastructure x86 and Sparc-based servers. This farm is spread across 10 co-location sites located in different regions of northern America.
- Reduced day-to-day management and administration responsibilities for
the grid compute farm by improving existing methods, standardizing
routines, increasing automation and re-writing existing scripts.
- Streamlined the troubleshooting process during OS installation within
the grid computer farm. This was accomplished by designing and
writing a Perl client/server monitoring system which consolidated all
installation related data for easier and more efficient review.
- Substantially improved environmental health of grid compute farm by
incorporating environmental monitoring systems at co-location sites.
- Data was monitored, evaluated and logged for automated alerts
and end-user reports.
- Implemented an end-user web-based GUI for environmental data
retrieval.
- Significantly increased remote infrastructure deployment of Sun
Solaris systems. Unified and automated existing methods by utilizing
Perl and Expect scripts designed and written to confirm proper network
configuration and physical wire connections for Sun SunFire systems
and attached Hitachi AMS500 disk arrays. The prior method included a
manual checkout of each 40+ servers per co-location site.
- Authored manuals for co-location staff; these were used for hardware
racking, re-racking and complex wiring of infrastructure systems.
- Scheduled sessions to review documentation with co-location staff were
given, as well as support to help co-location staff fully understand
this intricate process.
- Improved communication with partnering teams to meet goals in a timely
fashion. This was achieved by organizing and conducting meetings to
establish business goals while maintaining open communication
conductive for all teams involved.
- Maintain relationships with other business units within the company to
help support and work with them in regards to the grid computer farm.
Lead developer and key member for a small team of developers assembled to build the next generation Linux based system for NYSE trade floor embedded devices.
- Utilized Perl and BASH to create an object oriented environment for
booting and configuring the systems. Each system had a custom
configuration that was pulled down from network TFTP servers at each
boot time with proper fail-over techniques to assure a working device.
- Designed and implemented an XML-based scheme for handling specific
hardware configurations.
- Wrote kernel modifications to properly manage core dumps and handle
custom input devices.
- DHCP and TFTP were used to design a PXE network bootable environment.
This environment was used for building these systems as well as for
diskless systems.
- Designed and wrote a remote, automated upgrade system using BASH to
move between versions of the OS. This handled the LVM partitioning,
networking, GRUB configuration, as well as maintaining functionality
on all hardware profiles.
- Developed a remote, automated upgrade system was built to upgrade
devices to new versions of the OS with full support to fall back to
prior versions if necessary.
- Developed a diskless remote NFS-based version of the NYSE floor device
and required servers to handle configuration, management and version
control of 3000+ floor device clients.
- Administered several training sessions when major enhancements were
introduced, for NYSE trade floor technicians.
- Collaborated with other SIAC and NYSE departments to determine system
requirements and objectives.
- Utilizing CVS, Perl and BASH scripting a series of build scripts and
a build environment for handling RPM package building, release builds
and release management was implemented.
- Designed project plans and documentation for ongoing development.
- Used C++ with QT to build custom configuration interfaces.
Responsible as a lead developer, systems engineer and key member of a small team for providing the technical expertise necessary to build a secure Linux based open source platform.
- Primary developer and project manager for several major projects including:
- the operating system’s installer based on the Newt libraries written fully in C which included technology for automated partitioning, hardware auto-detection and software and hardware RAID support.
- an integrated intrusion detection and prevention system based on Snort, Perl, Perl::DBI, MySQL and barnyard that logged incoming attacks, created and archived graphical user reports, real-time attack statistics and custom prevention rule sets.
- an integrated shopping cart system based primarily on osCommerce.
- Partnered with development teams to research and develop a number of products including
- an integrated mail suite based on the postfix mail server
- an integrated proxy system based on squid and LDAP
- a PHP based management system for cable modems
- Wrote, designed and published all documentation for the operating system and all add on suites using LATEX.
- Head technical support engineer responsible for all levels of customer support, troubleshooting, and development, which included custom hardware and software configurations.
- Maintained relationships with lead technical employees of large clients.
- Took on a managerial role, responsible for project management, and managed up to two other employees and their training.
- Built numerous test networks with VMWare systems to simulate live environments for testing system security.
Education