Personal Information

NAME:

Steve Flanders

ADDRESS:

Henderson, Nevada

MOBILE:

(617) 517-6182

EMAIL:

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

NATIONALITY:

American

DOB:

January 7

Summary

I am an accomplished, solutions-oriented Cloud Architect. My specializations are in cloud computing, VMware technologies, scripting, and automation. I have an extensive background in designing and implementing cloud and virtualization solutions with proven competencies in project management and technical leadership positions. I am also a strong communicator comfortable and confident in front of clients and peers. In these areas, I have demonstrated exemplary problem-solving skills with the ability to identify problems and implement corrective processes.

Work Experience

2011-Present: VMware, Cloud Services Operations - Architect (Las Vegas, NV)

VMware is the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, delivering customer-proven solutions that accelerate IT by reducing complexity and enabling more flexible, agile service delivery. Cloud Services Operations is responsible for operating all cloud applications within EMC and VMware.

I am a Cloud Architect performing many of the same functions as within MCS. Since being acquired by VMware, I have been responsible for expanding the environment to over 8 storage arrays, 50 vCenter Server instances, and 600 ESXi servers. During this expansion, I have implemented a complete separation of development and QA environments from production.

Some other projects I am currently working on include:

• Designing the next generation of cloud hardware - The goal being to create fully independent modules of hardware with known fault domains. These modules will be built according to established best practices and documented for predictable performance and known limitations.
• Building scalable Application Layer services - The most recent example being a global logging and alerting system running on syslog-ng and swatch.

2010-2011: Mozy, Cloud Services - Architect (Cambridge, MA)

Mozy is a wholly owned subsidiary of EMC with a primary focus on public service offerings including backup and cloud computing. Mozy Cloud Services (MCS) was the operations arm for EMC's public cloud initiative and worked closely with the Cloud Infrastructure Group (CIG), Mozy, and VMware teams. The MCS team was responsible for designing and maintaining the hardware and software required for day-to-day operations of Mozy's cloud service offerings including Atmos Online and Mozy Cloud.

I was a Manager and Architect responsible for MCS's operational approach to maintaining cloud services. In addition, I created formalized cloud reference architectures, infrastructure documentation, operating procedures, and best practices. To do this, I traveled to customer sites and meet with clients and partners on a regular basis. In addition, I discussed reference architectures with ISPs such as ATT, Salesforce, and Verizon.

While working in MCS, I architected, implemented, and maintained the entire VMware infrastructure and environment, which consisted of over 15 vCenter Server instances, 200 ESXi servers, and 10,000 virtual machines. In order to establish standardization and a more "cloudy" environment I also:

• Automated the deployment of UCS hardware via custom scripts
• Automated the installation of ESXi via kickstart
• Automated the deployment of vCenter Server via PowerCLI

2008-2010: EMC, Cloud Infrastructure Group - Lead Principal System Administrator (Cambridge, MA)

EMC is the world's leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions with a primary focus on offering unified storage products. The Cloud Infrastructure Group (CIG) is responsible for the creation of EMC's Cloud Optimized Storage (COS): Atmos.

I worked on the operations side of the house as a Principal System Administrator and Technical Team Lead. I was responsible for designing and maintaining the Atmos Online compute and storage service offerings. From a systems and virtualization perspective, I architected, implemented, and maintained the entire VMware infrastructure and environment, which consisted of over five vCenter Server instances, 500 ESX servers, and 5000 virtual machines. Additionally, I spearheaded the deployment of two ATT Synaptic Storage as a Service data centers, which utilized Atmos.

Some of my other accomplishments and responsibilities included:

• Architecting management racks, including hardware and software, to support private cloud deployments at client sites
• Automating cloud software and VMware ESX deployments
• Creating and maintaining several core services including: 
  • An Active Directory forest
  • A change management system utilizing Trac
  • A Subversion documentation repository
  • A wiki system hosted on PmWiki
• Formalizing and managing the change management process used by the CIG
• Budgeting expenses for fiscal year
• Supporting over 300 cloud engineers
• Deploying a development/integration environment for the cloud engineers

2007-2008: Phase Forward - Systems and Release Engineer (Waltham, MA)

Phase Forward is the leading provider of integrated data management solutions in the pharmaceutical fields of clinical trials and drug safety. The Systems and Release Engineering (SRE) team is part of the engineering department and is responsible for assisting software developers and product testers throughout the product cycle. As a Systems Engineer, I designed, planned, and executed a multi-phase server consolidation project, virtualizing over 70% of the research and development laboratory using VMware ESX and Converter technologies. I was also responsible for configuring and maintaining three EMC CLARiiON SANs, over 50 HP ProLiant (BL20P, DL145, DL360, DL580, DL585) servers, and over 500 (ESX, Workstation) virtual machines while providing technical support to over 100 employees.

I played a central role in the consolidation and improvement of building, installing, and maintaining servers and services within the engineering department. I did this through standardization of hardware, virtual machine templates, and automated, unattended application installations for products from Microsoft, Oracle, and VMware using primarily Microsoft scripting languages. My experience and knowledge of Perl, PowerShell, and Batch enabled me to provide valuable tools to monitor capacity utilization, enabling better planning and budgeting for future infrastructure requirements.

2005-2007: MIT Lincoln Laboratory - System and Network Administrator (Lexington, MA)

The MIT Lincoln Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. I worked in Group 39, Air Defense Techniques, where I received Secret Security clearance from the Department of Defense. I was responsible for over 100 users and over 100 workstations on a variety of operating systems including CentOS, Microsoft, Red Hat, and SUSE. In addition to assisting users, I played a central role in designing and implementing a RHEL 3 Primary Domain Controller (PDC) utilizing NIS for authentication and Samba for file sharing in order to replace an unsupported Windows 2000 PDC. The new PDC was responsible for authenticating all users on all operating systems and automounting Linux operating system home directories. To automate account integration, creation, and maintenance, I wrote custom Perl and Bash scripts.

2004-2005: Ziggs Register - Data and Integration Specialist (Boston, MA)

The Ziggs Register initially branded itself as an online people search engine. I started my involvement in the company before its initial release and was responsible for developing and implementing data collection "robots", which utilized HTML/XML tags to parse websites. These robots collected personal profiles that were then categorized into a database. In addition, I normalized and removed incorrect or falsified data as sites changed and performed database entry for sites with unique profiles.

Personal Development

2009-Present: Blogging

Since I started with technology I have found it necessary to document my findings for myself and others to be able to reference. In order to expand upon this and give back to the community, I decided to start blogging. While my blog focuses primarily on what I am passionate about, anything that I feel like others would be interested about I post entries on. My only hope is that others find the information I post helpful.

2007-Present: Web Hosting

I have worked on several collaborative and individual projects in my spare time. One noteworthy experience, was the creation of the web hosting company imageemus. I purchased and configured two servers running fully redundant DNS, LAMP, Vyatta, and Zimbra services. In addition to running the company, I created and maintain the company's web site: http://imageemus.com, which utilizes PmWiki and features an AJAX driven member's area. To minimize administration, many of the system tasks including account creation and expiration; backups; feature requests and add-ons; and password synchronization were automated via Bash, Perl, PHP, and procmail scripting.

2005-Present: Web Design

As an individual venture, I started a web design business and created several professional sites utilizing blog, CMS, CSS, Perl, PHP, and wiki technologies. In addition to my personal website, I designed and maintain the Northeastern University Judo Team, a PmWiki site which features a database-driven member's area that automates many of the team's tasks via PHP scripts. I am also the designer and webmaster of KidsBooksonCD, a site which sells children's audio books and makes use of a just-in-time book system.

Technical Skills

Experience Key

The following is a brief guide to indicate my level of knowledge and number of years experience I have in each of my skills listed below.

• X - Expert / highly proficient
• P - Professional / competent and confident
• B - Basic to intermediate / confident to develop further
• F - Foundational / no longer actively using

VMware Technology

Application Layer

Programming Languages

Operating Systems

Datacenter / Hardware

Training

Education

2008: Northeastern University - B.S. Computer and Information Science (Boston, MA)

I am a graduate from Northeastern University where I earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Information Science (dual major) with a minor in Business Administration. I have programming knowledge in C, C++, Java, MIPS Assembly, Perl, PLT Scheme, and Smalltalk thanks to courses at Northeastern University. I was an active member of the Judo team and competed at the state and national levels. I was also the Secretary of Teachgroup, a student run club in association with Northeastern University and Compass Computer Camps. The group is responsible for organizing and running a week long summer program to teach high school students basic programming using the TeachScheme program developed at Northeastern by Matthias Fellesein. Additionally, I was involved in Crew a volunteer computer science systems group, where I served as a host on NUrd Radio, a podcast news program put on by the student group.