Eric Sabban

Summary
I've done a bit of everything. I've started my own companies, I've done a lot of consulting, but also have worked full time. I've worked at companies of < 10 people and at companies of > 15,000 people.
I'm looking to remain in operations. It's the field I started in, and it is still my passion.
When pursuing a full time opportunity, I look at various aspects such as:
The people working at the company
The company's position in the marketplace and the size of its opportunities
The size of the company
The potential for growth in my position
The company's culture, and its ability to innovate
The people funding the company

Specialties
Music Industry, Web Hosting, Storage, Networking, Mobile Phone Industry, Security, MySQL,
Performance Tuning, Scalability, iPhone

Employer:	Secret Project
Position:	CEO and Founder
Time period:	November 2008 - Present
Description:	This is my secret project. We're beta testing right now. Times are about to get pretty exciting. BTW, if you're looking for an investment, we're looking for investors.

Employer:	Bricolage, Inc.
Position:	Owner
Time period:	March 2003 - Present
Description:	This is my consulting company. Many of the companies listed have been clients of Bricolage. I consult and work on retainer for various companies solving problems in relation to: Systems and Network Architecture Scalability Capacity Planning High Availability Databases Security Monitoring ...and anything else that the client might need. I often stay on retainer in the case of an outage. Some of the things I've worked on recently: Apache+Tomcat Service Custom Nagios Monitoring SVN Mirroring with SVK and post-commit hooks DB Performance Tuning Custom Deployment Scripts for Tomcat/Apache/Custom Configuration Per Box Datacenter Buildout

Employer:	Tapulous
Position:	Senior Operations Engineer (Consultant)
Time period:	July 2008 - March 2009
Description:	Built a social network for the iPhone Experimented with Amazon EC2 and SQS Joined before iPhone App Store launch with 0 users and 0 hits. Grew to (approximately): > 6,000,000 Users > 20,000,000 Dynamic hits per day Very limited resources (7 servers) Wrote scripts to work around database problems while we optimized our SQL queries Joined only a few days before going live; I pick things up easily and quickly Wrote proposals for architectural changes Set up nagios, munin, and cacti for monitoring and wrote custom checks for each Setup security and maintained on all servers Automated certain procedures to make life easier for myself Worked with developers on frontend code to optimize usage Setup a multi-master MySQL Database, along with several slaves Optimized MySQL by using custom builds and making many configuration tweaks Working on message queueing systems Wrote a number of PHP scripts to monitor specific components,

Employer:	Skyfire
Position:	Senior Operations Engineer (Consultant)
Time period:	March 2008 - July 2008
Description:	I did most of the work scaling the service out. I came in to an undocumented, haphazard mess of an environment. I cleaned it all up, wrote the policies, and locked down (security-wise) the service. Setup a custom CentOS distribution with a custom kernel to make for a much cleaner install. Wrote scripts to generate daily, and real-time reports. Setup monitoring (nagios, cacti) for linux and windows 2003 server machines. Rewrote many of the install procedures, allowing for easy deployment on a relatively painful platform to manage (windows 2003 server). Constantly added input to better the company, technically and otherwise. Created "Skyfire in a Box" (I'll explain if you're interested, basically a pod configuration). Created VMWare images for quick deployment of servers. Developed a multi-tiered multi-master global database structure using MySQL. Many other things

Employer:	Proofpoint, Inc.
Position:	Senior Operations Engineer
Time period:	October 2006 - October 2007
Description:	Proofpoint is one of the leading anti-spam companies in the industry. I provided support for the 24x7 operation of the product. Primary contact for DNS Did security audits Setup RSA server for keyfobs Set up email Transport Layer Security (TLS) with several major clients. Contributed to the buildup of our datacenters. Setup and launched Proofpoint Dynamic Reputation Service (A complex blacklist system) Setup F5 GSLB Worked with engineering to release new products. Wrote documentation and procedures. Participated in the technical and physical aspects of an office move Worked with large clients in an SE function.

Employer:	Yahoo
Position:	Lead Operations Engineer
Time period:	June 2005 - July 2006
Description:	Managed the initial deployment of several worldwide clusters with around 3,000 machines servicing approximately half of a billion active users globally (Using Dell 1850s/1425s, PV220 JBODs, RAID 5, RAID 1, and RAID 0, involving several petabytes of data). Managed hundreds of multi-terabyte databases, each of which took tremendous numbers of hits. Did kernel tuning for the very specific requirements of this platform, thereby eliminating nearly all system and service downtime. Debugged the Dell PERC4/DC Controller (Dell OEM LSI Logic MegaRAID Controller) on FreeBSD 4. Worked in the Norwegian office to collaborate on tuning, get training, and provide documentation for the future employees in the department. Defined some of the features that we needed to optimize and improve the quality, functionality and performance of the entire system. This was overall a very exciting job. Unfortunately, my project was no longer growing, and I couldn't find another position at Yahoo! in time.

Employer:	Globat
Position:	Senior Unix Administrator
Time period:	June 2002 - March 2003
Description:	Globat is a web hosting company. That is all I'll say about that.

Employer:	Intransa
Position:	System QA Engineer (Consultant)
Time period:	December 2001 - May 2003
Description:	Responsible for testing system-wide functions of an iSCSI SAN system. The work involved mostly application interoperability testing using the system as backend storage. Set up and test with applications such as: Oracle, MySQL, MS Exchange, MS SQL Server, Backup, and MS Cluster Server. During this process, I wrote custom scripts using shell (bash) and PHP to automate some of the testing. Helped IT with performance tuning of their NFS servers, as well as doing firewall setup, catastrophic recovery of essential machines, and writing scripts. I was initially hired as an IT person, but proved my skills to be essential to the testing process. Provided NetApp storage for our users' home directories and build spaces. Company laid off all contractors.

Employer:	AirFlash
Position:	Senior Operations Engineer
Time period:	July 2000 - September 2001
Description:	AirFlash was one of the first Location Aware cellphone services. I acted as a manager of all of the IT organization in the transition period between IT directors. Managed cluster of several hundred Linux servers running Tomcat, Apache, and JServ, as well as custom applications. Ran BIND 8 DNS servers as well as acted as point of contact for any DNS issues. Wrote scripts to automate and facilitate common procedures. Interfaced with the developers and had an integral role in the decision-making process. Developed a relatively complicated load balancing infrastructure for limited capacity end-user devices. Created security policies for production machines and scripts to maintain them. Did initial deployments of services at customer sites in Europe, involving Oracle database creation/imports, interfacing with the customer, script development, software installation, and testing. Wrote custom log rotation and processing scripts for billing and reporting. Company went bankrupt.

Employer:	ClickRebates
Position:	Senior Operations Engineer
Time period:	January 2000 - June 2000
Description:	Maintained day-to-day operations of the company. Rotated pager duty with peers. Setup and maintained Sybase DB Server. Did routine security audits. Maintained internal company services (such as sendmail, dns, and connectivity). Purchased Network Appliance boxes for data storage in the colo where our production machines were housed. Provided cost analysis information to the officers of the company. Company went bankrupt.

Employer:	HotRail
Position:	Senior Unix Administrator
Time period:	March 1998 - January 2000
Description:	Setup and debugged ECAD applications for hardware engineers (asic designers, board layout, channel designers). Managed high demand/high availability Network Appliance, and Sparc Storage Array RAIDs. Setup a farm of 100 machines to do chip simulation, managed by a complex job batching/queueing system (Condor) running on linux. Created and followed backup scheme using Legato Networker. Setup sendmail frontend to Microsoft Exchange 5.5 backend mail server. Maintained Solaris NIS+ network. Maintained a Lucent DEFINITY phone system for multiple-company shared office space. Ran DNS servers. Company was bought by Conexant. I left shortly after.

Employer:	Poseidon Technology
Position:	Unix Administrator
Time period:	March 1998 - January 2000
Description:	Same as HotRail, name changed

Employer:	Taos Mountain
Position:	Consultant
Time period:	May 1997 - January 1998
Description:	Worked at several customer sites doing various tasks such as: PIX Firewall Management, Software and Hardware (sparc) QA. User support, and IT. Wrote load testing scripts. Supported users and mentored less experienced engineers. Worked on team projects.

Employer:	Internet In A Mall
Position:	Unix Administrator
Time period:	September 1995 - April 1997
Description:	Designed a network to support 1,000+ employees (at hundreds of locations), and 50,000 dedicated and dialup customers. Setup high availability mail servers with standard services such as Sendmail and Qpopper for single users, as well as business customers with multiple domains. Troubleshooting of T1 Supertrunk and PRI circuits. Maintained a modem pool of over a thousand lines. Worked with Ascend Max 4000 and USRobotics Total Control hardware. Provided support to the technical support and customer service teams. Managed and acted as Point of Contact for DNS (BIND 4) servers for multiple domains. Worked directly with the telcos to develop some of the first Virtual Points of Presence (VPOPs) to assist in simplifying our infrastructure, which saved the company hundreds of thousands of dollars. I began this role as a technical support engineer, and quickly became the chief system administrator.

Hobbies:	Motorcycles, cars, not hurting myself, technology, unix, freebsd, linux, etc...
Awards:	I award myself the most transparent web site on the internet.