UNIX Systems Administration and
UNIX Systems Engineering
Consultant
Portland, Oregon
YES: I am available for *NIX/Microsoft Systems Administration
and Network Admin work in the Portland, Oregon and Vancouver,
Washington areas. Contract "fill-in" work is a specialty. I can
get up-to-speed on your operation very quickly and will hold down the fort
until a replacement, full time IT Administrator can be recruited and hired.
Short term rates: $50/Hr W2 with benefits; $75/Hr 1099.
Now that you've found me, why don't you bookmark this page and/or
contact me while you're thinking about it?
YES: I do occasionally take on out-of-town assignments. However,
unless you really need someone with my extensive skills and experience,
you may find it less expensive to hire somone locally. Note that I do not
accept out-of-town assignments unless ALL of my travel and living expenses
are 100% reimbursed.
YES: I do remote *NIX systems administration and systems engineering.
This can be occasional, on-call emergencies or short/long term project
oriented work. I can quote you a rate based on your requirements.
Sorry: I am not interested in relocating for so-called
"permanent" employment opportunities. I am willing to travel to where ever
the job site happens to be (provided that I am suitably compensated
for my efforts), but Portland is my home base and I have no desire to
leave.
My profile: I started working with BSD UNIX in the early 1970s.
I couldn't tell you what it was ported to but in the days before the Amiga,
TRS-80, Texas Instrument TI-99 and waaaay before the IBM PCDOS "personal
computer", UNIX was a very, very cool operating system. Support for
UUCP made worldwide e-mail possible (albeit difficult... and you had to
provide every hop along the way in the address header) long before DNS,
sendmail, Exchange and all of that came along. Just the fact that
UNIX is still going strong 40 years later says a lot about just how good
it truly is. I have worked with one *NIX distro or another on a pretty
much daily basis ever since. Although in the early years I was much more
expert with D.E.C. PDP-8 and later PDP-11s running RSX-11m and still
later D.E.C. VAX VMS machines. Unlike those other operating systems,
working with UNIX can be very humbling. The more I work with UNIX, the
more I realize how little I know. UNIX is truly the richest OS out there
and probably always will be so. I currently have two Linux servers running
Red Hat in a colo facility that have not been rebooted for years. Try
that with a Microsoft server sometime.
UNIX Systems Administration and Engineering: Filling in for key
UNIX/Microsoft server Systems Administrators or Network
Engineers who have left your company until a full time replacement can be
recruited is a specialty.
To Hiring Managers: An incompetent or inexperienced Tech can do a lot of
damage real fast with root authority on your servers! And I've long since
lost track of how many "Network Engineers" I've met who don't know the
difference between UDP and TCP. Please take this into
consideration when comparing my resume skill set against others you may
receive. I was managing high SLA networks and production UNIX servers before
most of the other candidates you are hearing from were born. A "bargain"
rate isn't such a bargain if they can't keep the equipment running! Even
brief outages can be very expensive.
Have a NOC Design or deployment project in mind?: Pretty much
anyone can open up the shrink wrap on new sofware and install it. But
building a proactive, responsive, professional grade Network Operations
Center is a lot more than just installing software! Most high end
monitoring products do very little "out of the box". Designing a NOC
involves gathering requirements, deciding what software to purchase,
negotiating and creating a design specification, establishing a
methodology, policies and procedures as well as a whole lot of training.
Have a look at some of the less obvious
NOC design considerations for
more insight into just how complicated this process can be. There are
only a handful of professional NOC Architects Worldwide and I believe I
am the only NOC Architect in the whole wide world who works with more than
one monitoring product. And I offer my services for a lot less than what
VARs and Vendor professional services folks charge. Even a very modest
250 server NOC can easily run $500,000 in software alone. It only makes
sense to protect that investment by hiring someone who actually knows
what they are doing to build your NOC. If minimizing your project's risk is
important to you, you need to be talking to me.
My work ethic:
I am an "old school" Engineer who believes that job responsibilities come
first. My sole motivation, admittedly for selfish reasons, is to make you,
the hiring Manager, look good. Why? Because if I do a great job and make
you look good, you will be much more likely to want to hire me again and to
recommend me to your friends and associates. It is my primary goal
to make sure that nothing happens to make you regret your decision to
hire me.
Why is UNIX so popular with many data centers?:
Notwithstanding the level of coverage given to Microsoft Windows by the
popular
press, UNIX systems stand at the core of most mid-sized and large
organizations. These systems run everything from mission-critical database
applications to
enterprise grade network operations centers (NOC)s.
The task of keeping these systems
humming falls on the shoulders of the UNIX systems administrator. While the
job description for a UNIX systems administrator may vary between
organizations, the job carries a fair degree of respect within the industry;
is often harried, but satisfying; and is reasonably well-paid. Becoming a
UNIX systems administrator is thus a career goal worth striving for. Getting
there, however, can be a challenge.
UNIX system administration
is one of the few master/apprentice jobs still in
existence, much like the old apothecary in medieval times. Usually,
on-the-job training for a new apprentice is about the only training offered.
Most organizations cannot afford to have a sys admin out for a week of
vacation, much less for several week-long training sessions. However, times
are changing. UNIX administration is now being taught at schools and
employers now emphasize academic credentials and certification. The
apprenticeship method of training, however, has produced many skilled
administrators in the market place. Employers are starting to realize that
the background, self-training, and the expected job performance is difficult
to maintain for any system administrator. System administration is starting
to be considered a career path, and professional salaries are beginning to
be more consistent with the level of the skills required.
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Last modified December 21, 2007
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