Curriculum vitae

Craig Parker

e: craig@ab5w.com
w: ab5w.com
g: github.com/ab5w

Overview

Senior systems administrator with a passion for automation and devops culture.
Strong skills in Linux, scripting (PHP and Bash), configuration management (puppet) and webhosting environments.

Experience highlights

  • Deployed and managed a loadbalanced multi-master puppet infrastructure.
  • Provisioned and managed a 40 node hadoop cluster with Cloudera and puppet.
  • Automated the adding of servers to backups, puppet and monitoring.
  • Automated the deployment of virtual cPanel linux servers.
  • Creation of puppet manifests and modules for the post deployment configuration and management of hypervisors, cPanel servers (both customer servers and shared hosting servers) and complex hosting customers.
  • Standardisation and automated installation of backups on all managed cPanel servers.
  • Creation of PHP classes and scripts used for the day to day management and automation of systems and infrastructure including automated migration of virtual servers between hosts.
  • Developed tools to allow the management of virtual servers (suspend,power state,resize,migration) from within the servers racktables page.
  • Deployed and managed a HA syslog cluster with graylog/elasticsearch, logging in excess of 1 billion lines a day.

Key skills

Linux
  • Daily use of CentOS for the installation and management of customer servers, shared hosting servers, and hypervisors.
  • Experience with the setup, configuration and management of Apache/Nginx, MySQL and PHP.
  • Strong monitoring skills using Nagios.
  • Experience with high availability setups using haproxy, keepalived, and MySQL replication.
  • Administration of hadoop (HDFS/HBase/MapReduce) using Cloudera and Ambari/Hortonworks.
  • Experience with HA syslogging, using graylog/elasticsearch.
  • Use of zfs for the management of backup servers.
  • Experience with the setup, configuration and management of load balanced multi master FreeIPA for SSO/LDAP authentication on servers and web services.
Scripting and configuration management
  • Strong skills with puppet to manage and configure physical and virtual servers.
  • Scripting in PHP and Bash for automation and systems administration tasks.
  • Written various nagios checks in PHP and Bash.
  • Basic ruby from writing custom puppet facts.
  • Basic perl from forking nagios checks.
Virtualisation
  • Use of Xen and KVM for the provisioning of customer virtual servers.
  • Daily management of over 3000 virtual servers.
Hardware
  • Installation of servers into racks.
  • Hardware upgrades/replacements.
  • Installation of cabling.
  • Use of racktables for asset management.
Networking
  • Command line configuration of interface changes on Juniper switches.
  • Creation and management of firewall policies in Junos.
Windows
  • Installation and configuration of Windows servers to meet customer requirements.
  • Configuration of roles such as IIS and Terminal Services.

Career history

April 2017 - Present
Senior Systems Administrator/SRE: GoDaddy

  • Automation of server deployment/configuration, bare metal provisioning, and network changes.
  • Escalation contact for 3rd line/internal customers.
  • Development and management of internal server backup solutions.
  • Creation of tools to allow easier management of systems.

October 2013 - April 2017
Senior Systems Administrator: Paragon Internet Group

  • Automation of systems and infrastructure.
  • Proactive monitoring of systems/on call rotation.
  • Escalation contact for managed/complex hosting customers.
  • Troubleshooting/fixing of complex hosting issues.
  • Provisioning and configuration of servers to internal/external customer requirements.
  • Training/mentoring of junior staff.

September 2012 - October 2013
Systems Administrator: Paragon Internet Group

  • Escalated point of contact for customer enquiries.
  • Troubleshooting of website, email, and hosting issues.
  • Provisioning of virtual and dedicated servers.
  • Configuration of servers to a customers requirements.
  • Configuration and optimisation of servers.
  • Proactive monitoring of systems.

August 2011 - September 2012
Technical Support: Paragon Internet Group

  • First point of contact for customer enquiries.
  • Troubleshooting of website/email/hosting issues.
  • Helping with pre-sales/technical enquiries.
  • Dealing with billing issues and refunds.

June 2010 to June 2011
ICT Apprentice Engineer: tech-i IT consultancy

  • Designed, implemented and maintained tech-i LAN services.
  • Designed and assembled rack mounted servers to host Windows Server 2008, Ubuntu and a Smoothwall router/firewall for the office.
  • Full asset management and cable management of tech-i resources.
  • Hardware performance evaluation and troubleshooting.
  • Web service application testing for myguide.

December 2006 to August 2009
Customer Support and Logistics analyst: Thames Water

  • Scanning of samples into Sample Manager.
  • Resolving sample registration enquiries.
  • Sorting and distributing samples to the analytical teams.
  • Provision and distribution of pre-treated sample bottles.
  • Decontamination and disposal of analysed samples.
  • Maintaining the laboratory's intranet site and the customer enquiry database.
  • Sorting and distributing deliveries to the analytical teams.

March 2006 to  December 2006
Inorganic chemistry analyst: Thames Water

  • Operating the sampling equipment and monitoring/reporting results.
  • Testing water samples for: Turbidity, Colour, pH and Conductivity to conform to the Drinking Water Inspectorate regulations.
  • Making up standards and calibration solutions following laboratory procedure.
  • Reporting results onto the sample manager system.
  • Calibrating analytical equipment.
  • Helping out with general laboratory duties.

Qualifications

2005 Maiden Erlegh Comprehensive School
GCSE – English Language C

2004 Chiltern Edge Comprehensive School
9 GCSEs

Interests

Classic car restoration, photography, reading, camping.