James Manning

Projects:

• Visual Studio

Projects:

• WebSys 3.0 Offline Use Tech Lead

  Took over the tech lead of the 3.0 release of the flagship WebSys product, the first with Offline Use capability implemented with Oracle replication. Wrote PL/SQL synchronization and backup packages to hot backup existing running Oracle instance data to user's CD-RW drive reliably. (Oracle, Struts, Java, PL/SQL)

• Automated Test Harness

  Created multi-stage test harness for driving server-side migration away from COM+/ASP/ADO towards J2EE/JSP/JDBC. Two separate database instances created and started at each run from restored cold backups. Installed/configured MaxQ to record and play back http transaction scripts, created a custom webapp to delegate the requests back to the COM and Java sides with necessary parameter and HTTP header rewriting.

  Response contents compared with varying tiers of regular expressions applied. HTML status reports automatically generated for all steps of each run. Wrote fast (SQL MINUS based) database comparison script that optionally ran after each HTTP transaction that modified the database.

  Test harness later modified to compare "gold standard" webapp versions against development versions to verify intended database and HTML changes, which each approved set of differences setting a new gold standard for the next set of changes.

• Open-Source migration

  Wrote perl programs to migrate data from the proprietary Soffront Track32 system into a Bugzilla 2.16.3 install. Script modified for the migration of several Track32 bug-tracking repositories. (Perl, bash, XML)

  Led effort to migrate existing source code from the proprietary Microsoft Visual Source Safe database format into a CVS repository. Found available vss2cvs script, configured and ran it, noticed poor performance for large code bases, and patched for 10x run-time performance improvement (mass-fetch file history data in one run). Patch sent back to author. (Perl, VSS, CVS)

  Joined the MaxQ development team to help implement enhancements and fixes to support web test script recording and playback for WebSys migration and ongoing testing.

Projects:

• Lead Developer - Web Services Integration

  Established a Web Services framework and created a real-time encrypted and authenticated data feed mechanism to allow customers another route for fetching their peerReview data. After establishing this server-side framework and exporting the required SOAP-compatible services, created the first client as an integration package with the Unicenter product's Service Level Management package from Computer Associates. The tcl-based integration package was configured via GUI by the peerReview customer and polled Porivo services at a selected frequency for importing site performance and availability data. Example clients also created using Python with PyGTK and ZSI for SOAP support, and C#/.Net (Apache Axis/SOAP, Unicenter SLM, tclsoap, tcllib, tclxml, SOAP, HTTPS)

• Lead Database Developer - Real-time Alerting

  Created an alerting and ticket tracking system from scratch that detected customer-defined warning and critical events (such as 20% of clients seeing download times over 5 seconds, or 50% of clients having HTTP errors) and sent an email or page from Oracle with the associated relevant data attached. Sent alerts created a ticket associated with them, which customers could then login and check or change the status of the alert, add comments, etc. (Oracle Enterprise Manager, TOAD, PL/SQL stored procedures, Java stored procedures, Oracle packages dbms_job, utl_file, dbms_snapshot, dbms_refresh, utl_snmp)

• Lead Database Developer - Direct Peer Payment

  Converted the entire backend from a sweepstakes-based system of tracking generated entries to a time and money tracking system that generates payments for each peer's online time, work processed, and referrals activated. Time and money totals are tracked on a daily, monthly, and lifetime basis. End-user peers are paid automatically by a monthly PL/SQL job sending to Paypal (OEM, TOAD, PL/SQL, Java stored procedures, dbms_job, dbms_snapshot, dbms_refresh, utl_file, utl_smtp)

• Firefighter - Performance Improvements

  Analysis and fix/redesign of bottleneck areas to improve overall system scalability. Data analysis on all machines (web, application, database) with detailed memory and performance analysis for our Oracle 8i on Solaris production databases. Analyses included both Oracle-internal "level 8" SQL trace files during normal and stress loads combined with operating-system memory and CPU information to track down poor performing areas. Example historical findings include poor table access patterns (with a resultant drop in database load by a factor of 14 with my fix included) and high-contention Oracle-internal latches for critical update-heavy tables resulting in poor scalability as most clients sat spin-locked on the same latch. (tkprof, SQL*Plus, itrprof, hotsos.com, solmemusage, sar, shell scripts)

Projects:

• Lead Developer - peerReview Web Applications

  Led a team of engineers in the creation of the Porivo extranet web applications including the critical peerReview customer graphing and reporting application. Created entire first version of reporting site utilizing a graphing applet from the Ptolemy project of UC-Berkeley. The applet was fed an XML data stream by a data-feed JSP that in turn used JDBC access to the backend Oracle database for fetching the graph's data values. Second-pass "full version" dropped Ptolemy in favor of PopChart Image Server Pro from Corda (after a research and evaluation phase for the best option). Introduced some initial JUnit-based unit tests to help provide testing without needing deployment of the full applications to our testing network. Phase 2 included a rewrite from scratch using J2EE methodologies, where JSP pages were backed by stateful (and some stateless) Session EJB beans and data persistence was handled primarily by CMP entity beans with some BMP beans for complex relationships since the EJB 2.0 spec was not available at the time. (J2EE, EJB, JSP, JDBC, PopChart, JUnit)

• Developer - Porivo Application Server

  Joined the existing team of developers on the custom Porivo application server. Server uses XML messages over HTTP to communicate work/status/results with Porivo Peer testing agents. Fixed compliance with HTTP specification. Wrote a new intelligent database-connection pool built on top of Oracle's oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleConnectionCacheImpl. Pool included built-in performance tracking, dead connection reap/cleanup, and the ability to toggle on and off SQL and PL/SQL tracing at requested levels. Pool was generalized and abstracted to work for both the application server and as the DB interface for the Tomcat J2EE/JSP cluster. (JDBC, XML, SAX, DOM, HTTP)

• Lead Developer - Peer Swing GUI

  Wrote a Swing GUI to replace an existing Macromedia Flash-based interface for the Porivo Peer web performance testing agent. The new interface increased integration, portability, and efficiency while synchronizing data access to Peer user statistics. Layout management and design created for maximal flexibility. GUI design also supported multiple simultaneously running project threads with each controlling their own visual display area. During migration of the codebase to another developer, did some work in eXtreme Programming including pair programming and the introduction of unit testing. (Java, J2SE, Swing, AWT, Action Events)

• Systems Administrator

  Performed systems admin tasks both on intra-office machines (workstations, testing, staging) and production machines. Tasks included security audits with upgrades and patches, firewall creation and configuration, network configuration (DHCP, router configuration), mail server configuration. Registered and tracked all 9 Red Hat Linux production machines using Red Hat Network. Created and configured a multi-site infrastructure-monitoring script that intelligently handled service problem/failure notifications by both email and pager, combined with configurable service restart scripts. Installed and configured application and operating system software. (Red Hat Linux, Debian GNU/Linux, Java (JVMs), Tomcat, JBoss, Orion, Corda PopChart Server Pro)

Projects:

• PHP-based Portfolio/Fund tracking

  Hired by Janus' Intech division as a consultant to code a PHP-based/PostgreSQL-backed web application to replace the existing Microsoft Excel-based method of tracking and analyzing portfolio/fund/account performance data. Created scripts to allow data import from existing legacy systems. The system is targeted for use by investment analysts that use the performance data to drive investment choices. Extensive use of phppgadmin as an administrative interface for the database. Normal LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) setup except the database was PostgreSQL to integrate with existing databases.

• Linux Consulting

  Work has included kernel fixes, driver porting, and some Beowulf-based clustering. Perl consulting has included record and DBI and database management and web-based CGI programs. Designed and architected web-based Oracle/J2EE solutions for local businesses. Designed and created Swing applet and application front-ends to existing custom processor tracing equipment.

Projects:

• Implemented code review and performance analysis of all department modeling software, resulting in speed improvements from 4x to 20x through memory-mapped I/O streaming (available at www.sublogic.com/james/libstream/) and algorithm rewrites.

• Designed and implemented mod_perl web front-ends to previous RAID firmware trace analysis project (details at www.sublogic.com/james/autotrace/). Designed and implemented perl application for generation, tagging, and storage of processor bus trace metadata.

• Ported an existing 2.2 device driver written by Donald Becker for the Packet Engines GNIC-II "Hamachi" gigabit ethernet card to the 2.3 development kernel. Major changes included porting to the new PCI resource interface and the new softnet interface. Patches submitted upstream to Jeff Garzik at MandrakeSoft who took over the driver.

Projects:

• Installed and configured Linux machines for benchmarking teams, including SpecWeb, TPC-W. System tuning for increased performance during benchmarks included SMP affinity, filesystem caching, Apache tuning, process limits, SCSI driver tuning.

• Created and configured the main storage machines for the trace tool back-end long-term storage. Each machine had 4 64-bit 66 MHz hardware RAID controllers each exporting multiple RAID5 arrays. The hardware RAID5 arrays were then striped using the Linux kernel's software RAID0 support. Other configurations were tested for maximum data throughput while maintaining reliable storage.

• Wrote perl-based CGI programs for database management and security administration. Installed, configured, and maintained multiple Apache web servers for web-based authentication of IBM Confidential data. Designed and implemented networks using Cisco Catalyst 5000 and Packet Engines Power Rail 1000 routers with SNMP monitoring and configuration. Central DHCP server configured for easier network management. Full Systems Administration of all RS/6000's (4-way PowerPC 604e's running AIX 4.3).

• Administered department Windows NT 4.0 Server and Workstation machines. In charge of all department printing and file services. Designed and implemented Samba/SMB distributed filesystem network with nightly network backups. Head of the department Remote Access Program for encrypted extranet-based communications capability for telecommuters.

Projects:

• Designed, simulated, tested and put into production use FPGA and PCB designs. Designs included both Verilog HDL (Hardware Description Language) and VHDL. Synthesis done using Synplify from Synplicity. Simulation done using Xilinx Design Manager. Hierarchical board (PCB) design done using Viewlogic's ViewDraw tool. Board routing done using p-cad and working with external design and fabrication supplier. Testing and production use included use for Agilent logic analyzers and Infinium digital oscilloscopes. Target ramdrive storage arrays supplied from Texas Memory Systems

• Implemented a software system to extract the data out of the ramdrives. Provided TMS device driver fixes (DMA alignment issues) for both Windows and Linux. Wrote a custom data-streaming library and companion utilities (available at www.sublogic.com/james/libstream/) for the creation and management of the processor-bus traces generated by the trace tool hardware. Control of the process done with Expect and minicom scripts running over ethernet and RS-232C serial lines.

Projects:

• 2 AFS cells, 16 fileservers, 151 Gigabytes, 300+ clients. Designed all performance-intensive server-area networks. Used SNMP for server and network monitoring. Taught and supervised other administrators. Wrote perl for log and information processing/pruning. Wrote graphical window-driven perl/Tk-based tape backup programs. Webmaster of AFS-aware web server. Wrote perl and shell scripts for AFS administration jobs. Installed and configured new AFS clients (RS/6000, Sun). Installed, configured, tested new design tools and their license managers. Tech support for all problems including networking, AIX, and printers. Wrote AFS active project mirroring/restore programs. Created and managed a 100+ system LoadLeveler pool for chip design simulations. Used HP OpenView tool for network monitoring and administration.