Robert Bos

rbos@novylen.net, 604-299-0176
(or cell: 778-834-7969)

Key Qualifications
  • 10 years' experience in information technology in a variety of computing environments: researching, designing, supporting, and implementing various systems.
  • A strong personal interest in computing, and a desire to make things that people use and work with on a daily basis.
Education
  • Simon Fraser University (1997 to 2000, 2002-2007) - Completed an Applied Science (General Studies) degree, with minors in Computer Science, English, and Education Technology.
  • Lord Tweedsmuir Senior Secondary (8/1993 to 6/1997) - High school graduation; final CGPA 3.7. Recognized for community service nine times for helping in the computer labs and for other volunteer work.

Professional Experience

Network Operations Support Technician

Simon Fraser University
Operations and Technical Support (OTS)
6/2006-present
Daily Responsibilities
  • Physical and some network security routine.
  • Tier 1 phone support and problem escalation. General contact for university network problems.
  • Installing rackmount servers; setting up racks; moving power circuits.
  • Minor switch and router troubleshooting and escalation.
  • Data collection; producing reports; filing paperwork.
  • Signing up and escorting guests.
  • Starting backups; moving them off site.
  • Server room maintenance tasks, including some light cleaning.
  • Miscellaneous tasks as required by senior OTS system administrators (e.g. setting up wireless nodes).
Technologies Halon systems, Solaris, Linux, Windows, tape backups, BIND, DHCP, shell scripting, LDAP/Active Directory

Computer Lab Technician

Simon Fraser University
Academic Computing Services
8/1998-8/2000, 4/2002-present
Daily Responsibilities
  • Responsible within a team for supporting 500 machines of mixed platform (NT, MacOS, and a few Linux machines)
  • Manning a help desk and answering questions, including telephone support.
  • System maintenance and software installation.
  • Network maintenance and updates, running cabling, hooking up switches.
  • Physical security; debugging and tracking down problems in a somewhat rickety alarm system.
  • Procedural documentation.
  • Producing and distributing signage.
  • Troubleshooting wireless connections.
  • Lab patrols and rule enforcement.
  • Web site updates and tweaks.
  • Cleaning (A never-ending task).
Projects
  • Installing and maintaining the staff Web, DHCP, filesharing, and backup server.
  • Web site overhauls, evaluating various content management systems.
  • A number of small projects of classwork, involving between two and four people for assignments lasting two to three months, based on fairly loose requirements, the most notable being a software project management system, a business management package for a personal trainer (that is actually being used for the intended purpose), and assorted others.
Technologies MySQL, PHP, Linux, Samba, BIND, DHCP, data recovery using common Unix and Windows tools, shell scripting, LDAP/Active Directory, Solaris (non-administrator), our homegrown TR system, Microsoft Office, various statistics packages, Norton Ghost, basic TCP/IP knowledge, and many others as the situation calls for.

Jr. System Administrator

Wizard IT Services/LinuxMagic
10/2000 to 9/2001
About Wizard IT Services is a small ISP and consulting firm, at the time of my employment numbering six people including myself, that provides basic ISP and hosting services for various clients.
Daily Responsibilities
  • I was responsible for the day-to-day technical operations of the ISP,
    • Installing and maintaining Web, DNS, FTP, MySQL, Oracle servers.
    • Customer support - filing and resolving trouble tickets.
    • Enabling and disabling customer services.
    • Ensuring data integrity and recoverability with regular backups and RAID.
    • Ensuring service consistency and implementing many quality control measures.
    • Running cable and maintaining routers and switches.
    • Keeping on top of software security, patching as needed.
    • Evaluating software packages for internal use.
  • for about half of outside consulting,
    • Remote troubleshooting of DNS, mail, web, and Radius servers. (emphasis on mail)
    • Remote installation and configuration of various software packages.
    • Evaluating software packages for external use.
  • and for some software development.
    • Working on our embedded Linux VPN/firewall software.
    • Beginning the development of an email server appliance package with simple admin interface.
Projects
  • Did significant work on the embedded VPN project:
    • reworked the build system to clear space.
    • optimized binaries and cut out fat for efficiency.
    • introduced more thorough and consistent debugging methodology.
    • Validated licensing compliance throughout the project.
    • Added significant functionality and features.
    • introduced an internal central code repository, which was also used on other projects.
  • introduced many organizational and efficiency measures:
    • centralized file storage and backup throughout the company.
    • Created an IT filing system to deal with the massive quantities of documentation and paperwork. Future plans would have included scanning vital documents for indefinite storage.
    • Created a centralized documentation and knowledge repository.
    • Aggressively documented Quality Assurance and SOP.
    • Introduced a centralized user authentication system (using Windows domains).
    • Thoroughly automated tedious tasks, including a series of quality control scripts to validate several aspects of ISP service.
Technologies Unix (various flavours), Windows, TCP/IP networking, MySQL, Oracle, PHP, Radius, Apache, Qmail, Sendmail, Postfix, BIND, ssh, proftpd, wu-ftpd, courier-imap, Squirrelmail, NFS, manymany more; on a particular day I wouldn't know what to expect.

Skills Summary
  • Operating Environments: GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, Windows XP/2000/etc, GNU/Linux (many flavours), BSD, Solaris
  • Production server software: Qmail, Sendmail, Postfix, BIND, ssh (open and commercial versions), proftpd, wu-ftpd, courier-imap, the Squirrelmail webmail package, Apache (and various modules, including SSL), MySQL, Postgres, dhcpd, Samba, Squid (web proxy cache), livingston-radius, icradius (w/database backend), many more.
  • Familiar with DNS, TCP/IP, NFS, HTTP, SMTP, POP, IMAP, SNMP, many more.

Hobbies
  • I maintain a utility server for various personal projects, and for friends.
  • I play World of Warcraft, where I am a founder and member of the 5-man officer team for a mid-level "raiding" guild of approximately sixty members. Our responsibilities include setting guild policy, organizing guild events, recruiting competent players for progression content, identifying and preventing interpersonal conflicts, and helping to maintain a friendly environment while pushing people to perform to the best of their potential. In addition, I am part of the "tanking" team, which is a key role within a WoW guild. I frequently help to co-ordinate and lead guild events.
  • I have a portfolio of various projects I've done in the last few years. This is by no means complete, and does not include commercial work.
  • Karate - I studied Shotokan karate for two years under sensei Andy Holmes, two years with sensei Peter Stoddart (also Shotokan), and am currently training in the Wado-Ryu style under sensei Norma Foster.
  • Spam - I spend a significant amount of time tinkering with and researching antispam techniques. Past projects have included statistical filter development, distributed checksum approaches, and automated distributed blacklists based on Bayesian filtering.

Published Work
  • Red Hat Linux System Administration - Thomas Schenk et al, ISBN 0-672-31755-9 - contributing editor. Contributed a chapter on a comparative discussion of the GPL, BSD, Artistic, and MPL/NPL free software licensing schemas.
  • Install, Configure, and Customize SuSE Linux - Keith Pettit et al, ISBN 0-7615-2308-1 - technical reviewer and contributing editor. Contributed a general overview of system administration techniques, and a discussion of several programs related to system administration.

References: Charles "Al" Murray, ACS/SFU, 604-291-4240; Cilla Cox OTS/SFU, 604-291-3951.