Terry Dooher

Personal Details

Education

Work Experience

• Testing and repair of 10-Base-2 network for existing office. Later supervising upgrade to structured Cat5, including the installation of a Samsung DCS telephone system. On relocation to new premises in 2001, I specified and supervised the full installation of a 128-port under-floor Cat5e network with mains sockets and negotiated the SLA with the structured cabling firm.
• Construction of a Linux-based disk-imaging system for the installation on clean test bed PCs. Software release builds needed testing under clean installations of various versions of Windows, service packs and development environments. This required the creation of several image files that could be used to refresh the boot partition of the test bed hardware.
• Laptop backup system to allow mobile users to backup their files from laptops whilst in the office, since they rarely had the opportunity to leave them in the office overnight. Such a system had to be as fast as possible and unobtrusive. Used an rsync script to minimise network traffic and overall backup time.
• Secure VPN access system. Users required a method of using email and checking source code from the internal repository whilst telecommuting or providing on-site customer support. One of the requirements was that client-side applications need not be reconfigured dependent on location. Using a Linux SSH server and a cygwin-based ssh client to establish port forwarding connections allowed me to create a system that could be tailored to each individual's requirements allowing access only to the necessary services, whilst remaining user-friendly for the non-technical users.
• Intranet based demo repository. MathEngine's core technology required various pieces of demonstration software to be written. Most of this work was ad-hoc, undocumented and could sometimes lie unfinished and unused for months at a time. I was tasked with formalising a system for making these programs available to anyone in the office along with version information and current status; to ensure that, should a demonstration suite be required, only the latest stable versions of each demo were used.

• Scripted automation. Using various shell scripts to assist in the automation of system tasks, such as rotating CVS backups, drive space and memory usage monitoring, regular hardware and software auditing of the windows client PCs, graphing of various service statistics. Development of overnight test run scripts for the QA manager.
• Hardware maintenance and purchasing. Specifying new hardware purchases to strict cost limits required me to keep a close eye on the hardware markets to enable me to make the best choice in performance and upgrade path. Various maintenance tasks on generic x86 hardware; installation of developmental pre-release hardware acquired through developer relations programs with companies such as Intel, AMD and Nvidia plus software development kits for next-generation games consoles such as Playstation 2, Xbox and Gamecube.
• O/S and applications installation. Software developers require a large number of specialist applications and have strong preferences for different utility programs. In such an environment, it is impossible to enforce a standardised platform or to proscribe certain programs abritrarily. As such, I was required to support a wide range of software and to be aware of their comparative benefits. The lack of a standard hardware base made it necessary to install a variety of operating systems from scratch on many occasions. I also managed a number of licesnsing systems that were required to cover the specialist development and modelling software.
• Communications system maintenance. Using a program to configure the telephone system and maintain the least-cost routing table; re-programming parts of the attached voicemail system. negotiating land-line call costs with various suppliers; dealing with BT business support to ensure swift fault resolution on our ISDN-30 line; negotiating our tiered 512k internet service with Worldcom and ensuring the SLA was met.
• Server management. Maintaining a number of essential services. Regular backups with deposits at a local bank; Sendmail + smap email system with Spamassassin integration; Internal news; CVS Source repository; Bugzilla bug management database; Intranet pages, including relevant user-level documentation plus an NT4 Server domain controller, hosting a Goldmine CRM package and McAfee anti-virus management console. External services included hosting our web site (Including a user registration system, and password protected customer download area) and public news server with the requisite DNS and firewalls.

Skill Set

Referees