Alexander Fortin, Developer in Brescia, Province of Brescia, Italy
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Alexander Fortin

Verified Expert  in Engineering

Linux Administration Developer

Location
Brescia, Province of Brescia, Italy
Toptal Member Since
September 17, 2018

Alexander has been following the evolution of sysadmin best practices for the last 20+ years, reducing repetitive tasks and leveraging automation in order to focus on the most interesting engineering challenges. He has been automating cloud infrastructures since the inception of AWS EC2, and he's passionate about all things Python.

Portfolio

Bonial International GmbH
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Duplicity, Box Backup, Linux, OpenLDAP, Datadog...
Spreaker
Sphinx Search Engine, MongoDB, Kibana, Elasticsearch, Logstash, StatsD...
Devsum
BackupPC, Iptables, Samba, OpenVPN, OpenSSH, Munin, Monit, Apache HTTP Server...

Experience

Availability

Full-time

Preferred Environment

IPython, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Git, Linux, MacOS, Go

The most amazing...

...project I've worked on is Home Assistant (https://www.home-assistant.io/) which included developing plugins and Vagrant integration.

Work Experience

Senior System Engineer

2013 - 2016
Bonial International GmbH
  • Introduced CI pipeline and style guide for Puppet development (tests, code reviews).
  • Performed multiple upgrades of Puppet, from version 2 to 3 to 4.
  • Grew the operations team, assisted HR in the hiring process, and onboarded new colleagues.
  • Developed an internal tool to automate Terraform usage with multiple accounts.
  • Consolidated manual procedures into automated ones using automation tools like Fabric (Python).
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Duplicity, Box Backup, Linux, OpenLDAP, Datadog, Gerrit, Jenkins, Boto, Fabric, Python, PostgreSQL, Apache Tomcat, JVM, Apache, NGINX, Icinga, Puppet, Terraform, Docker, Ganeti, Debian, Rackspace Cloud

Senior System Engineer

2011 - 2013
Spreaker
  • Managed cloud infrastructure stability and scalability.
  • Replaced Bash scripts with Puppet to manage the infrastructure.
  • Deployed monitoring/visibility solutions like Graphite, Zenoss Core, statsd, and ELK.
  • Supervised major upgrade of mid-sized PostgreSQL instances to leverage newly introduced streaming replication.
  • Codified common tasks into automation tools like Fabric (Python).
Technologies: Sphinx Search Engine, MongoDB, Kibana, Elasticsearch, Logstash, StatsD, Graphite, Redis, PostgreSQL, Libraries, Boto, Fabric, Automation, Python, Core, Zenoss, Sensu, RabbitMQ, NGINX, PHP-FPM, Vagrant, Puppet, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

System Engineer, Co-Founder

2010 - 2013
Devsum
  • Architected, designed, expanded, deployed, and monitored systems and networks infrastructures.
  • Supported cloud solution architectural and management decisions.
  • Selected and decided on technical strategies and new technologies to adopt and support sales/marketing decision making.
  • Searched for new leads and developed new business relationships.
  • Assisted clients in technological planning.
Technologies: BackupPC, Iptables, Samba, OpenVPN, OpenSSH, Munin, Monit, Apache HTTP Server, Vtiger CRM, Puppet, FreeBSD, Linux

System Engineer

2008 - 2010
Studio Synthesis Srl
  • Architected, designed, deployed, and monitored cloud infrastructures (both public and private) to run business intelligence services.
  • Monitored and troubleshot local physical systems and networks.
  • Monitored and managed on-site physical systems and networks for customers.
  • Contributed to development of PHP modules for vTiger CRM open source software.
  • Implemented and monitored backups.
Technologies: PBX, Asterisk, Pentaho, BIND, Apache HTTP Server, Vtiger CRM, Iptables, Firewalls, TrueCrypt, Linux Servers, Windows Server

Linux System Administrator

2007 - 2008
Informed Technology Pty Ltd
  • Managed and monitored the overall behavior of the internal network.
  • Managed different kinds of backups solutions.
  • Performed services migrations between different OSes.
  • Provided phone and email support for corporate customers.
  • Troubleshot Linux servers issues on site (e.g. networking, firewalls misconfigurations).
Technologies: BIND, Cyrus, Sendmail, Iptables, Bacula, Stunnel, RSync, OpenSSH, Apache, LDAP, Solaris, Linux

SSL Notify Me

https://github.com/shaftoe/sslnotifyme
A web service solution developed using serverless technologies. The service itself lives on top of sslexpired.info (also serverless), which is developed with OpenWhisk and hosted by IBM Bluemix platform.

Besides a couple of services not fully manageable via APIs without human interaction, e.g. ACM and SES verifications, every other component of the application is deployed (and updated) using Terraform.

Home Assistant

https://www.home-assistant.io/
Develop RSS extension (https://www.home-assistant.io/components/feedreader/), fix bugs, enhance Vagrant setup

Languages

Python, Go, JavaScript, Bash, TypeScript, Ruby

Libraries/APIs

Fabric, Node.js, Vuex, Vue, OpenLDAP

Tools

Boto 3, Puppet, Terraform, Git, ELK (Elastic Stack), Jenkins, Ansible, NGINX, Boto, IPython, Vagrant, PHP-FPM, RabbitMQ, Zenoss, Logstash, Kibana, Apache, OpenSSH, Stunnel, Sendmail, TrueCrypt, Vtiger CRM, Apache HTTP Server, Asterisk, Monit, Munin, OpenVPN, BackupPC, Ganeti, Apache Tomcat, Gerrit, Duplicity, SaltStack

Paradigms

DevOps, Jamstack, Agile, Automation, Samba

Platforms

Linux, JVM, MacOS, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Sensu, Solaris, Windows Server, Pentaho, FreeBSD, Rackspace Cloud, Debian, Docker, Icinga, Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

Other

Serverless, AWS Cloud Architecture, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Linux Administration, Core, Libraries, Graphite, StatsD, LDAP, RSync, Bacula, Iptables, Cyrus, BIND, Linux Servers, Firewalls, PBX, Box Backup, Networks, Design

Storage

Elasticsearch, MongoDB, Sphinx Search Engine, Datadog, LAMP Server, PostgreSQL, Redis, MySQL

1994 - 1999

Diploma Di Scuola Media Superiore in Scientific and humanistic high school

Liceo Scientifico Moretti - Gardone V.T. (Italy)

JUNE 2016 - PRESENT

Puppet certification

Pearson VUE

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