V. Alex Brennen

Current

• Senior UNIX Systems Administrator at MIT

Past

• UNIX Systems Administrator at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• IT Expert: Programmer at UF/Florida Lambda Rail
• Consultant at American Cancer Society

• Consulting Subject Matter Expert at PulseLearning Ltd.
• Staff Consultant at e-TechServices.com, Inc.
• Programmer/Systems Admin. at Pediatric Oncology Group

see less...

3 more...

Recommended

4 people have recommended V. Alex

Connections

94 connections

Industry

Information Technology and Services

V. Alex Brennen’s Summary

Recognized contributor to the Free Software Community through projects, audits, patches, and documentation. Majority of free software work was in the area of low level cryptography code.

Recognized as an expert in the field of Secure Java Network Programming. I've served as a technical reviewer on the books Java Networking Programming and Implementing Elliptic Curve Cryptography for Manning Press.

Advanced IBM certifications and training documenting the ability to design, deploy, and manage enterprise level solutions. My certifications cover system administration, enterprise storage and backup systems, networking technologies, and performance tuning.

Extensively developed cross platform experience, including advanced programming skills, allowing for a fast learning curve with new systems, software, and programming languages.

V. Alex Brennen’s Specialties:

Unix, Linux, AIX, C Programming, Java Programming, and Enterprise Solution Design.

V. Alex Brennen’s Experience

• Senior UNIX Systems Administrator

  MIT

  (Educational Institution; 10,001 or more employees; Higher Education industry)

  April 2008 — Present (1 year 8 months)

  Supervisor of a team performing server and storage consolidation and virtualization. Operating system and software application upgrades. System monitoring and performance tuning. SAN and cluster administration. Data center, server, and storage infrastructure architecture to support multiple research projects. Policy development and specification.

• UNIX Systems Administrator

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  (Educational Institution; 5001-10,000 employees; Higher Education industry)

  April 2006 — April 2008 (2 years 1 month)

  Server and storage consolidation and virtualization. Operating system and software application upgrades. System monitoring and performance tuning. SAN and cluster administration. Data center, server, and storage infrastructure architecture to support multiple research projects. Policy development and specification.

• IT Expert: Programmer

  UF/Florida Lambda Rail

  (Educational Institution; 10,001 or more employees; Higher Education industry)

  March 2004 — March 2006 (2 years 1 month)

  Network monitoring and DNS, DHCP, SNMP, and NTP Administration on RedHat AS 4 and Gentoo Linux Systems. Responsible for administration and development of software support solutions with in the networking group working on the Florida Lambda Rail project. Notable accomplishments were a transition to highly available servers and the deployment of an active network monitoring system with LAN and internet attached offsite servers.

• Consultant

  American Cancer Society

  (Non-Profit; 201-500 employees; Think Tanks industry)

  February 2006 — February 2006 (1 month)

  Fortran and C programming consultant for the Statistics and Evaluation Center. I worked on the creation of a k-stage Two-Sample Design sample size calculator to support clinical trial design.

• Consulting Subject Matter Expert

  PulseLearning Ltd.

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

  October 2005 — January 2006 (4 months)

  I worked with computer based training courses in the subjects of Unix Administration, Programming, and e-commerce. I provided technical accuracy reviews and course design and content advice.

• Staff Consultant

  e-TechServices.com, Inc.

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

  September 2001 — March 2004 (2 years 7 months)

  AIX, Linux and general enterprise Unix consulting services to clients. Key clients included Florida Center for Library Automation, UF/ICHP, UF/ERP, FSU/ERP, FIU/ERP, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, City of Pensacola, University of Pittsburgh, University of Miami, and the University of Miami/RSMAS Hurricane Modeling Super Computing Project. My primary responsibility with e-Tech was the design and deployment of highly available, redundant, and scalable enterprise solutions and super/cluster computing systems based on the pSeries/AIX and x86/Linux platforms.

• Programmer/Systems Admin.

  Pediatric Oncology Group

  (Non-Profit; 51-200 employees; Pharmaceuticals industry)

  December 1997 — September 2001 (3 years 10 months)

  I was the primary developer of a dynamic and secure metadata driven three tier application that was used for the collection of the majority of clinical trial pediatric cancer research data in the US. The software was also used in eight other countries. It had built in work flow models, specialized modules to automate the opening of new research studies, a clinician help system, adverse event reporting, and data and dosage validation routines.

Additional Information

V. Alex Brennen’s Interests:

Cryptography, Linux, and Music.

V. Alex Brennen’s Groups:

•    Semantic Web
•    IACR Cryptographers

V. Alex Brennen’s Honors:

Certifications

IBM Certified Advanced Technical Expert (CATE)
o IBM Certified AIX Support Specialist
o IBM Certified AIX Systems Administrator
o IBM AIX Performance Tuning Certification
o IBM AIX Communications Certification
o IBM p690 Technical Support Certification

IBM Certified Specialist RS/6000 Sales
IBM Certified Specialist pSeries Sales
IBM Certified Specialist Storage Sales
IBM TotalStorage Networking Solutions Certification
National Institute of Health: Human Clinical Trials

V. Alex Brennen’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• consulting offers
• new ventures
• expertise requests
• business deals
• reference requests
• getting back in touch