Current and Recent Contracts
Philips, Eindhoven NL
[Diamond 2 Team Photo, Philips]
Migration of 2nd largest pension fund system worldwide from legacy mainframe to a WebSphere SOA infrastructure
[July 2008 to present]
My current contract is through IBM, working at the worlds second largest pension fund administration company based in Netherlands. The project entails moving the entire IT infrastructure off the legacy mainframe environment and onto a WebSphere environment. As always, I find myself performing a multifaceted role including design, implementation and administration plus introducing best practices / governance standards for a SOA environment. Performance tuning of the new environment is a particulary challenging and rewarding task.
100+ WebSphere servers comprising:
- WebSphere Process Server 6.1/6.2
- WebSphere Portal Server 6.0./6.1x
- WebSphere Application Server ND 6.1.x
- WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) 6.2
- WebSphere Service and Repository (WSRR) 6.2
- WebSphere Business Monitor 6.x
- Oracle 10g and DB2 9.x
- Tivoli Directory Server 6.1
- IBM HTTP Servers
- Tivoli ITCAM / ITM
- Rational Performance Tester
- AIX 5.3 on p5 Series
[February 2007 to mid 2008]
I was engaged by the NGO CEEF.Africa to manage the design and implementation of their website (www.ceefafrica.org). This was a part time project that allowed me to go on safari again to Southern/East Africa for 3 months aswell as a short safari to the Kalahari Game Reserve. During this period I also took on a new challenge in the form of renovating/building of our new house in Hout Bay ... and I thought the IT industry was stressful!!!
On-going Web-based Collaboration Projects, Philips
[August 2004 to January 2007]
Following on from the Diamond 2 project I found myself working on various new projects at Philips to enhance the collaboration environment, as well as managing the existing infrastructure. During this period I also found time to enjoy a 4 month safari through East and Southern Africa returning to Philips in May 2005.These projects included:
- Introduction of WebSphere Portal servers as a single sign on point of entry to the collaboration environment
- Centralisation of the Lotus Sametime environment
- Expansion of the Sametime Meeting Server environment
- Expansion of the QuickPlace environment
- Introduction of Domino Web Access (DWA) as a web mail client
- Create Requirements Documents for Domino Web Access, Sametime and QuickPlace
- Create High Level Design for 100 000 user Web Mail environment using Domino Web Access (DWA)
- Create High Level Design for Lotus QuickPlace
- Create detailed design for WebSphere/Portal, DB2, LDAP, Sametime and QuickPlace and document same in PSPG
- Install and configure all the component software (WebSphere Application Servers, Portal Servers, DB2, DWA, QuickPlace, Sametime and Edge Servers)
- Install and configure mirror component software in Test Environments
- Manage and administer the production and test environments for the duration of the project
- WebSphere Application/Portal Server performance tuning
- Problem solving and liaison with IBM developers
- Evaluate Web Server performance enhancement technology using hardware Application Front End devices (Redline)
- Evaluate Internet and Intranet user access and security technology using hardware SSL VPN devices (Juniper)
- Web Mail Server hardware sizing and capacity planning