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

Linux Administration Developer in Brescia, Province of Brescia, Italy

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.
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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

  • Linux Administration 20 years
  • Python 19 years
  • AWS Cloud Architecture 9 years
  • DevOps 7 years
  • Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) 5 years
  • Ansible 5 years
  • Serverless 3 years
  • Terraform 2 years

Location

Brescia, Province of Brescia, Italy

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

IPython, Visual Studio Code, Git, Linux, MacOS

The most amazing...

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

Employment

  • 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, Carbon, 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

Experience

  • 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

Skills

  • 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

  • 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

Education

  • Diploma Di Scuola Media Superiore in Scientific and humanistic high school
    1994 - 1999
    Liceo Scientifico Moretti - Gardone V.T. (Italy)

Certifications

  • Puppet certification
    JUNE 2016 - PRESENT
    Pearson VUE

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