Karl Katzke

Work Experience:

Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
Systems Analyst II, Research and Graduate Studies, October 2007 – Present

  • Administered high-traffic load-balanced websites, including sites with both consistent load and peak demand points, using Solaris, Redhat Linux, and SuSE Linux operating systems on Dell and Sun hardware.
  • Headed up efforts to virtualize/consolidate physical servers and to conserve power. Implemented cluster management software (Pacemaker/OpenAIS) along with Xen migration to ensure uptime even in the event of physical hardware failure.
  • Selected and implemented high-demand storage systems for a diverse environment, and worked with a variety of mass-storage hardware technologies (SAS, SCSI, Fiber Channel, iSCSI) and filesystems(ocfs2, xfs, reiserfs, zfs, EVMS, cLVM, gfs).
  • Supported programmers by developing test configurations and development areas for programmers to work in. Established best practices for PHP programmers to use in coding applications. Responsible for managing PHP / MySQL web application deployments across load-balanced virtual servers.
  • Implemented forward-looking management and reporting technologies (Nagios/Cacti, JIRA, Nessus) to ensure compliance with Texas A&M System Policies and collect performance metrics.
  • Standardized and documented department practices, including selecting one linux distro (SLES / SuSE Linux Enterprise Server), one authentication method (LDAP via Novell eDirectory) and central file storage locations on high-availability hardware. Centralized and standardized package management while still allowing for
  • Administered several large mission-critical MySQL database servers and monitored replication and backups.
  • Achieved continuous uptime by improving power and network infrastructure, implementing Coyote Point Systems load balancing equipment, and proactively using monitoring tools to detect potential failures ahead of time. Implemented off-site cold spares and planned for geographic multi-homing for disaster recovery/business continuity purposes.

Systems Analyst I, Athletics, March 2006 – October 2007

  • Administered servers, upgraded servers and implemented load balancing for Aggieathletics.com, Texas A&M’s athletics portal.
  • Developed PHP applications with MySQL and MS-SQL (T-SQL) for internal Athletics operations.
  • Developed C# applications with MS-SQL (T-SQL) for Ticket Sales and other Athletics operations.
  • Spearheaded the move into streaming media by setting up systems in various Athletics facilities to video games and stream them live via the internet.

Streetlamp Software Solutions Inc., Portland, OR
Programmer / Systems Administrator (Self-Employed), November 2004 – March 2006

  • Provided IT services, including PHP Programming, to small and medium businesses in the Portland area.
  • Implemented VOIP systems using Asterisk.
  • Implemented Linux Thin Client workstations for clients.
  • Met with clients, sold products and services, hired and managed two employees.
  • Developed PHP sales automation applications that helped clients grow from thousands of dollars in sales to millions of dollars in sales without adding administrative staff.

Rentrak Corp., Portland, OR
Programmer Analyst I / Webmaster, May 2001 – Sept 2003

  • Developed workflow management program in PHP that is still in use by the company.
  • Wrote PHP code for forward-facing websites.
  • Maintained the PHP-based intranet and it’s ties to other corporate systems including the DYNIX/PTX mainframe.
  • Administered MySQL Databases.

Education:

Bachelor of Science in Business Administration / Supply Chain and Logistics Management, Portland State University, June 2004

Skills:

Programming: PHP (Including Symfony and Zend Frameworks), C#.net, Python, Perl, C.
Linux Systems: CentOS/Redhat Enterprise Linux, OpenSUSE and SLES, Ubuntu.
Systems Software: Dell OMSA, Nagios, Nessus, JIRA, RT, Trac, Subversion, CVS. Mailscanner/SpamAssassin. NFS and OCFS2 experience.
Database Administration: MySQL, MS-SQL (T-SQL), SqLite.
Networking: TCP/IP Networking and routing, Load Balancing, Proxies and Reverse Proxies, Caching, IPTables Firewalls.
Network Services: DNS, DHCP, Web Servers (Apache, LigHTTPD), Samba / SMB, Postfix Email Servers, SNMP Trapping and Polling.