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Resume of Ian Blavins, software performance engineer
Early experience |
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South Australian Housing Trust, Adelaide, Australia: 6 months, 1992
Database consultant
I spent six-months at the Trust, the South Australian public housing provider, facilitating the implementation of a new release of the DBMS. My role was to: provide database administration services to the Trust, releasing the database administrator to perform the implementation; provide implementation planning assistance; provide hands-on implementation assistance as time permitted; and to support the new release as it was implemented in each processing environment. The latter required re-establishment of database administration services and procedures in the new environment. In addition I conducted a formal review of the database administration function. This identified a considerable number of areas for improvement in team management, work practices, DBA services, and technical procedures. Such improvements as could be made during the contract were made but a major assault was outside the scope of the contract.
Justice Information System, Adelaide, Australia: 21 months, 1989 - 91
Database consultant
My role at JIS started as a consultancy in database administration and developed into the provision of solutions to particular problems.I assisted the database group in defining its services and objectives and in aligning these with the corporate objectives. Task control was revised and software developed for task and time management. Group planning was improved and I assisted the planning process by identifying areas of deficiency. I also gave the group a more national outlook by encouraging liaison with other sites and increased participation in user group affairs.
A new approach to training was introduced which accelerated learning, allowing delegation of significant tasks and responsibilities sooner.
In addition to general consulting I took responsibility for performance and tuning. This included successful preparation of the production environment for a doubling of workload and tuning a temporarily downsized development mainframe. I created a comprehensive document on the tuning options available in the DBMS and the recommended settings in the JIS environment. I also introduced tuning techniques new to JIS.
In order to improve the availability of critical applications I developed a read-only facility for use during backups and data maintenance.
To improve the quality of database tuning, and to allow comprehensive monitoring of internal DBMS resource use, statistics trending was implemented using the capacity planning database. This monitors the DBMS on a short, medium, and long term basis allowing the effect of tuning, and other changes, to be observed. Performance assessment of new applications at the quality assurance stage was initiated while the relationship between service level agreements and tuning was formalized.
I undertook, or provided guidance for, a number of complex technical projects, such as the implementation of XA within CA-IDMS, and defined standards for data usage including security and storage management. JIS consider that, in addition to my formal role, I acted as a catalyst for other improvements at JIS generally.
Quango Computing, Adelaide, Australia: various times
Self study
At various times I have developed tools to assist me and simultaneously to explore technologies new to me. I have developed a hypertext authoring tool and business administration tools in visual and object oriented languages. I am currently implementing a Java development kit and seeking a CORBA object request broker for self study.
Motor Registration Division, Adelaide, Australia: 6 months, 1989
Database consultant
As contract database administrator my role was to prepare a neglected database environment for major systems development. This required the definition and implementation of objectives and strategies for the database administration service. These covered: software availability and stability; recovery; problem handling; procedures and techniques; standards; documentation; quality assurance and audit; security; user support and training.Part of my assignment was to prepare and conduct a personally tailored training program for the assistant DBA. Other tasks involved: the installation of a major new release of the DBMS software; an initial assessment of productivity tools; and sizing of the proposed database.
The degree of professionalism of the database section increased considerably in the time that I was responsible for it and, as a result, a number of outstanding long-term problems were resolved.
Various organizations, Adelaide, Australia: various times
Database consultant
Overlapping with the above at different times I: spent six weeks as relieving database administrator at S.A. Gas Holdings; assisted JIS with recruitment of their data administrator; assisted Computer Associates with their response to a South Australian government RFI for establishment of strategic I.T. partnerships; and assisted DBMS Inc. in overcoming problems in their new ADS/Alive CA-IDMS animator product, assisting its sale to JIS and other sites.
Southern Systems, Adelaide, Australia: 4 years, 1984-1987
Database specialist
Southern Systems is a large bureau operation providing services to the public sector on a commercially competitive basis. As contract database specialist in charge of the DBA team I was responsible for the database environment and for provision of the database service, including the definition of services to be offered and their method of operation.Services ranged from provision of database software through to consultative support. I assessed new ideas and techniques, using business cases where appropriate, and planned their implementation. Environmental planning was my responsibility and included assessment and implementation of new software.
All systems proposals containing database components came to me for assessment of feasibility, suitability, and cost effectiveness. I provided a consultative service to client database administrators, data modelers, application designers, and developers and advice to management. All databases implemented in IMS or CA-IDMS were either designed or reviewed by myself, the data modeling and database design for the State Electoral system being amongst work that I performed. I oversaw the daily technical support of CA-IDMS and IMS, and I coordinated the activities of all database users. Production of database standards and procedures was my responsibility, as was recovery.
From time to time I led Southern System’s 8 person combined Database/Data Communications team. During this time I was asked to represent contractors before the full bench of the Arbitration Commission to establish an award for computing staff employed by the S.A. Government. (As a result of delays in bringing the case on I had departed overseas before this was heard.)
Defence Dept. Canberra, Australia: 1984
Database acquisition
Project Desine aims to provide an integrated and standard environment for all administrative computing within the Department of Defence. This involves appropriate policies for systems development, integration, and interconnection, as well as preferred hardware and software platforms. I was offered the lead database role in the Desine project team. My responsibility would have been the development of policy for database aspects of the environment and selection of preferred software and hardware environments for database applications and their development. (For a number of reasons I declined the offer.)
Government Computing Centre, Adelaide, Australia: 3 years, 1981-84
Database administrator, tender evaluation
During this period I was database administrator at Southern Systems with responsibilities similar to those described for Database Specialist above.
In 1981 Southern Systems went out to tender for hardware and software to re-equip itself for it’s new role as a commercially competitive bureau. This tender resulted in the acquisition of an IBM 3083 and a wide range of IBM and third party software, all of it new to the site. I was responsible for the data management software aspects of the tender including DBMS‘s, transaction processors, application development facilities, fourth generation languages, dictionaries, and related software. I also assisted with evaluation methodology, machine sizing, and evaluation of application packages. This tender established IBM’s MVS as the dominant mainframe architecture in the S.A. public sector for the succeeding generation.Since then I have been responsible for other tenders including one for period supply of terminal equipment to the S.A. Government and another for supply of productivity software to Southern Systems.
Government Computing Centre, Adelaide, Australia: 4 years, 1977-80
Transaction processor specialist
During these early years one of my roles was to support the transaction processor -- Control Data’s SIRF. Southern Systems was one of the first sites in the world to install SIRF and I did much development work which was later adopted by Control Data and incorporated into the product. My role, apart from technical support of the software at the assembly code level, involved consultative support of the application designers and developers. I was also responsible for standards and procedures. A number of major applications were developed on SIRF during the time I was responsible for it, including Public Service pay, Public Service personnel, and the Land Information System (LOTS). Some of the applications supported statewide networks.Prior to being responsible for the transaction processor I worked on investigations of new ideas, tools, and techniques as part of the research and development team. Projects I undertook included researching file design, debugging techniques, and performance benchmarking.