Resume for Jason Blakey

Telephone: (613) 258-6596
Email: jblakey@gmail.com

Profile

I've worked in nearly every technical role in an ISP environment including: internetworking analyst, *NIX system administrator, software developer, network administrator and network designer. I've also spent considerable time researching network protocols at the byte level and developing software to decode and process those protocols. This background gives me a broad understanding of IT-related problems and their solutions and enables me to take on any new role successfully. I'm always looking to learn something new.
 

Skills Overview

  • Top Secret clearance with the Government of Canada
  • Experienced (10+ years) Perl Programmer. Have researched and developed many large, medium and small projects involving Windows/Unix task automation, network and database access, PCAP data file processing, web/CGI, and system/network monitoring. Very familiar with object-oriented programming methodolgies. At ease working with Perl in a Windows or UNIX environment.
  • Experienced (5+ years) with reverse engineering network protocols. Very familiar with using protocol analysers such as Etherpeek, Ethereal and TCPDump. Familiar with many UDP/TCP/IP protocols such as: FTP, SMTP, POP3, RTP, RTSP, HTTP, HTTPS, ICMP, DHCP, DNS, IGMP, NTTP, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Paltalk, AIM , IRC, TELNET and HTTPMail. Experienced in using RFC standards for research.
  • Familair with many audio/video encoding/formats such as: PCM, MU-LAW, GSM, TrueSpeech, Siren, H.323, JPEG2000, H.263, G.722.1, WAV, VOC, DIVX, and AVI.
  • Experienced (4+ years) Senior IP Network Designer. Familiar with many types/brands of network elements, routing protocols, and architectures.
  • Experienced (7+ years) Unix/Linux System Administrator. Familiar with numerous flavours of Linux/UNIX, as well as many ISP services.
  • Very Experienced (5+ years) in working with ISPs and ISP services.
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    Experience

    2002-Present Government of Canada Ottawa, ON
    Network/Automation Developer
  • Designed and implmented a RTP (Real-Time Protocol) processing system, utilizing IP/TCP/UDP processing, many different codec identification techniques, a number of external tools, and a front-end display consisting of xml/xsl/javascript plus embedded audio/video players.
  • Designed and implemented a system to store, modify and recover meta-data related to processing network data. This system allowed easy importation of this data into a database, as well as a processing trail for every packet of data.
  • Developed an application in Visual Basic to convert Truespeech audio samples to PCM WAV format using the Windows ACM architecture (Audio Compression Manager).
  • Developed Win32 services in Perl for a number of purposes such as file conversion and distribution.
  • Developed a number of applications to read/write PCAP files such as a TCP sequencer, file validator, data wrapper and traffic search utility.
  • Developed a Win32 Perl module that can be used to convert PCM-encoded WAV audio files to Mulaw-encoded VOC files.
  • Developed Win32 Perl modules that automates mixing two network audio streams together and outputting a stero PCM-encoded WAV file.
  • Developed Win32 Perl modules to automate the conversion of GSM-encoded network audio streams to PCM-encoded WAV files.
  • Maintained, modified, and extended ETI Trailblazer. Wrote many additional plugins. Patched many bugs in existing plugins. Increased performance and reliability. Developed an architecture of add-on Perl modules for ETI Trailblazer that allow new protocol plugins to be written quickly, efficiently and easily. Familiar with Trailblazer versions 1.0, 1.4, 1.7.x, 1.8.x, and 2.x.
  • Developed applications to recover video streams from PCAP files and output them as AVI files.
  • Created many HTML-based reports using such technologies as Javascript, XML and CSS.
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    1999-Present Nortel Networks Ottawa, ON
    Senior Network Designer / ISP Design and Support
  • Built GUI-based configuration interface for NetSaint using Java Swing. This application used Sockets to retrieve configuration information from custom-written Perl server on the NetSaint host. It display the configuration in a hierarchical manner, and greatly eases the configuration of NetSaint.
  • Installed/configured a Minerva video-over-IP system, including Linux-based head-end, set-top boxes, PC clients, and MPEG-1/MPEG-2 video encoders.
  • Researched and project-managed an initiative to increase security on all network elements used in the Playground network. This involved working with over 10 different network element types, and leading a team of 4 people.
  • Researched, designed and developed a RFC 3164-compliant syslogd replacement written in Perl. This replacement has enhanced functionality, including: regex support, external application spawning and plugin-like design.
  • Integrated a number of VHB-2000 gigabit ethernet traffic monitoring/ filtering elements into the Playground network. Became familiar with packet-sniffing tools such as Snort (which uses PCAP lib), snoop, and tcpdump.
  • Researched, designed and implemented a web/CGI based information sharing system using Perl, CGI.pm, mod_perl, MySQL, Radius and LDAP.
  • Researched, implemented, and project-managed the installation of a video-over-ip system using a combination of Pixstream, Minerva, Pace, Cisco and Nortel equipment. System provided both low-bandwidth streams for xDSL users, as well as high-bandwidth streams for Set Top boxes.
  • Researched, designed, and project-managed the transition of our legacy ISP network to a gigabit-ethernet architecture. This transition involved resolving many hardware/software issues, project rewrites, and adherence to a $500,000 budget.
  • Designed and implemented the new dialup network infrastructure and related policies utilizing the CVX1800 RAS , CVX Policy Manager, L2F/L2TP tunneling, a Cisco 4700 router and a Contivity 2600 Extranet Switch.
  • Researched, designed and implemented a custom network out-of-band solution which was based on Linux and multi-port serial cards.
  • Compiled/deployed MySQL installations for ticket tracking and change control management. Wrote Perl-based CGI scripts to interface with these databases. Installed/configured Oracle 8i servers for SIP call handling and Preside NetID.
  • Integral Part of the team who built an Internet POP in the UK in under 3 weeks. This involved the configuration and deployment of over 20 network elements of various brands/models, as well as compilation/configuration of standard ISP services under Linux.
  • Automated many tasks such as: network element configuration backup, ssh key distribution, PRI utilization monitoring, escalation of outage issues, dial-up connectivity monitoring, XML parsing, web-based scheduling , and dial-up port utilization.
  • Wrote, maintained and distributed the NetSaint Easy Administration Tool (NEAT), a Perl CGI web interface used to configure NetSaint, an excellent web-based network monitoring tool. See NetSaint and NEAT.
  • Deployed a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) system, which allows voice-over-IP calls with higher quality than H.323. Also deployed a Voice Button server and associated services, allowing web to PSTN telephone calls.
  • Providing senior-level support (networking/server/service issues) for a network environment including but not limited to: Solaris, Linux, Cisco, Bay, Passport, Nortel.
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    1999 PSINet Canada Limited Ottawa, ON
    System Administrator
  • Designed and implemented a complete monitoring solution for the PSInet/iSTAR UNIX servers (30+) which monitors port response, disk usage and CPU load. The system provided graphics that showed trends of disk usage and CPU load, and also provided email and pager based notification of failures.
  • Designed and implemented a POP3 server using Perl. Server was fully RFC 1939 compliant. Also implemented a web/CGI/Perl interface for maintaining multi-domain email accounts on this system.
  • Provided day-to-day troubleshooting of many types of problems ranging from BGP issues to platform-specific UNIX problems.
  • Researched and documented all iSTAR servers in current use, as the first step in Y2K compliance.
  • Provided support on a number of platforms and applications, including: Solaris 2.5.1, Solaris 2.6, Linux, Legato, iSTAR VIP, Qpopper, Apache, Perl, SNMP, SSH.
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    1998-1999 PSINet Canada Limited Ottawa, ON
    Internetworking Specialist
  • Researched, designed and implemented an IP address space assignment system on a Solaris 2.5.1 platform using UNIX, Perl, CGI, and HTML.
  • Designed and implemented numerous network changes to further the transition of the iSTAR backbone from serial-based to frame-relay- based.
  • Provided third-level operational support for all routing protocols, including BGP and OSPF.
  • Installed, configured, and maintained a number of Solaris and Linux based servers used for monitoring and maintenance of the iSTAR / PSI Canada network.
  • Compiled, installed, configured and maintained a number of UNIX-based services, such as SNMP, HTTP, FTP, SSH, and TFTP.
  • Configured and maintained many families of Cisco products, including the 7000 family, the 7500 family, the Catalyst 5000 family, the 2500 family, the 4000 family, and the 1000 family.
  • Designed and implemented a Perl-based SNMP statistical collection system to provide CGI/web-based graphical usage reports of bandwidth utilization.
  • Authored change-control procedure for the iSTAR/PSI Canada network.
  • Designed and implemented the NxT1 system at PSINet Canada Limited, using new hardware and software from both 3Com and Xedia.
  • Authored scripts to automate many routine tasks such as: Locating down interfaces, locating BGP problems, determining usage levels of Internic-assigned netblocks.
  • Troubleshot many EBGP/IBGP-related issues affecting all clients on the iSTAR nation-wide network.
  • Implemented cross-border connection across 3 media types (Ethernet, frame-relay, and HSSI) and two routers, to allow the monitoring of PSINet's US-UK fiber.
  • Provided internetworking training for Customer Administration group.
  • Dealt with customers, resolved or escalated their issues. Provided "buck stops here" support.
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    1997-1998 iStar Internet Inc. Ottawa, ON
    Senior Internetworking Analyst
  • Administered all passwords for both servers and edge/backbone routers.
  • Designed, authored, and implemented a web-based problem-management system to simplify monitoring/maintenance of the network.
  • Installed, configured, and maintained the central network monitoring UNIX-server. Designed standard install for such systems.
  • Authored many scripts for varied purposes, such as: router configuration gathering and storage, graphically displaying router CPU utilization, web-based text-paging, testing of mail, news, and web services, syslog-based router-flap monitoring.
  • Provided second-level support for serial, ISDN, Ethernet, fast Ethernet, FDDI, BGP, OSPF, RIP and EIGRP.
  • Authored policy on a number of procedures (dealing with routing, routing changes, notification) within the Network Management Center. Created technical documentation on a number of issues including: trouble-shooting server-related issues, setting up TACACS authentication on routers, and resolving standard routing issues.
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    Education

    1995 Dalhousie University Halifax, NS
  • B.Sc., Computer Science.
  • 2000 University of Ottawa Ottawa, ON
  • Began working on Masters, Software Engineering
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    Other Training

  • University of Ottawa
  • Cryptography and Network Security.
  • Learnix
  • C Programming WorkShop
  • University of Ottawa
  • ECommerce Technologies.
  • Nortel Networks
  • CVX 1800 Operations, Maintenance and Provisioning.
  • Nortel Networks
  • Passport 7000 Operations and Maintenance.
  • Tom Christiansen Perl Consultancy
  • Advanced Perl Programming.
  • Nortel Networks
  • Bay Router Configuration and Maintenance.
  • Nortel Networks
  • SONET, OC48, OC12 introductory course.
  • Learning Tree
  • Routing with OSPF and BGP.
  • Learnix
  • Solaris System Administration 2.x
  • Geotrain
  • Introduction to Cisco Router Configuration.
  • Intersol
  • Customer Service Workshop.
     

    Professional Awards

    September 2000
  • Nortel Networks Gold Level Pride Award - In Recognition of PacketXpress UK POP Commisioning
  • October 2000
  • Nortel Networks Silver Pride Award - In Recognition of Going Above and Beyond
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    Open Source Contributions

  • NEAT - NetSaint Easy Administration Tool.
  • Crypt::Enigma - An object-oriented Perl module which allows the recreation of a WWII Enigma encryption machine. Available on CPAN, the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network.
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