Unix/Linux Systems Consultant
Boise, Idaho Area
- Current
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- Disaster Recovery Consultant at Boeing
- Owner at Anonyproxy LLC
- Past
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- Unix/Linux System Administrator at Kemtah Group
- System Administrator at Hewlett-Packard/Synova
- System Administrator at Hewlett-Packard/Manpower Professional
- System Administrator at Manpower
- Technical Account Manager at Compaq Computer Corporation
- Postdoctoral Staff at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
- Predoctoral Research Associate at University of Washington
- Staff Scientist at Spectra Technology, Inc.
- Education
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- University of Washington
- University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Connections
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71
connections
- Industry
- Information Technology and Services
- Websites
Russ Berger’s Summary
While I started out as a physicist (lasers, optics, plasmas, PhD 1993), I have become a computer technologist. More recently, I have been working on web technology, and (slowly but surely) trying to build websites with monetization potential. I am an expert Unix/Linux system administrator, but want something meatier to bite into next.
I have over twenty years of experience programming, maintaining, servicing, or administering numerous computer platforms (PC, workstation, server, cluster, and supercomputer). Skilled in various operating systems, and programming languages. Ten years experience administering Linux servers (using Novell SuSe, Fedora Core, Red Hat, Slackware, and Mandrake distributions). Can manage, plan, and prioritize many tasks simultaneously, including multiple critical issues. Also accomplished at performing detailed mathematical and computational analysis. Strong problem solver and innovative thinker. Good communicator, strong customer relations skills, team player. My personal website: http://www.russberger.net
Russ Berger’s Specialties:
Unix/Linux system administration, computer systems disaster recovery, Perl scripting, Web technology; also physics, computational physics, optics/lasers, plasma physics.
Russ Berger’s Experience
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Disaster Recovery Consultant
Boeing
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; BA; Aviation & Aerospace industry)
January 2008 — Present (1 year 7 months)
Analyzed needs for disaster recovery of critical systems, designed and implemented processes for duplication of systems in different data center. Documented, automated, and tested processes so they will work long after I am gone.
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Owner
Anonyproxy LLC
(Privately Held; Myself Only; Internet industry)
August 2005 — Present (4 years)
I have created a web site that allows anonymous and private access to the Internet using only a normal browser. My business model is to generate revenue via subscriptions at a lower rate than competitors, while offering better quality of service, more features, and better security.
http://anonyproxy.com -
Unix/Linux System Administrator
Kemtah Group
(Privately Held; Information Technology and Services industry)
April 2006 — December 2007 (1 year 9 months)
System administration of over 1700 Linux and HPUX workstation and servers. Managed single-login service through NIS, and shared storage using NFS and AFS. Used advanced system administration skills for problem solving, installing and upgrading operating systems, and performed system design to accommodate performance, reliability, security and scalability requirements. Monitored systems for performance problems and resolved them as they occurred. Troubleshooting of down systems to return them to operational status. Managed overall system security.
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System Administrator
Hewlett-Packard/Synova
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; HPQ; Computer & Network Security industry)
January 2004 — September 2005 (1 year 9 months)
Unix System Administration for Hewlett-Packard's corporate IT servers. Responsible for the management of assigned customer's production computer systems, which included installation and upgrade of software, operating system, and hardware, testing of systems before release to production, security audits, resolution of performance issues, ensuring system uptime and dependability. Typical customer environment was enterprise-level web, database, and/or application servers, utilizing several clusters of servers (24x7 uptime required), with SAN storage, various development and test servers -- always in changing configurations as needs required.
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System Administrator
Hewlett-Packard/Manpower Professional
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; HPQ; Computer & Network Security industry)
February 2001 — September 2003 (2 years 8 months)
Unix System Administrator for Hewlett-Packard's internal systems, providing second level support for over 1000 HPUX servers. Service Level Agreement commitments and customer satisfaction were requirements of all activity.
Resolved customer problems ranging from minor questions to critical business stoppages: diagnosed and made recommendations to field service engineers about hardware failures; troubleshooting performance and configuration issues; networking configuration changes or troubleshooting of problems; disk space clean-up and LVM file system creation or extension; user account creation and modifications; diagnosed causes of software failures or operating system panics; managed to resolution critical system outages requiring coordination of various resources, quickly planning courses of action, and maintaining communications amongst customer and services personnel. Perl scripting for system administration. -
System Administrator
Manpower
(Information Technology and Services industry)
2001 — 2003 (2 years)
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Technical Account Manager
Compaq Computer Corporation
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; HPQ; Computer & Network Security industry)
January 1997 — January 2001 (4 years 1 month)
Managed technical support of Unix-based servers for several business critical customers, totaling over 150 Compaq AlphaServers and associated storage systems. These customers paid in-total about $3,000,000 per year for uplifted support, and I was the focal point to resolve all technical problems to customer satisfaction. Typical customer system was: multiprocessor AlphaServers in a TruCluster, or (in one case) 128 nodes in a supercomputer cluster (AlphaServer SC), large storage capacity, directly attached, or in a SAN via fibrechannel, storage typically in RAID arrays in separate cabinets.
Consulted or resolved issues for customers involving: operating system or other software package installations and upgrades, failure analysis and problem resolution; troubleshooting of performance and configuration issues, diagnosis of hardware or software failures, and operating system panics; coordination of activities amongst experts and other resources, and reporting of status to customers. -
Postdoctoral Staff
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
(Government Agency; 5001-10,000 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
October 1993 — October 1996 (3 years 1 month)
Developed, tested, and implemented application codes in FORTRAN and C to computationally simulate physical phenomena pertaining to plasma devices for industrial partners. Worked on many flavors of UNIX: SunOS, HPUX, IRIX, AIX, and Linux. Developed or applied various numerical methods. Wrote csh, sed, awk, and Tcl/Tk scripts to manage input and output data, and control processes. Maintained code versions using RCS tools.
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Predoctoral Research Associate
University of Washington
(Educational Institution; 1001-5000 employees; Research industry)
March 1988 — March 1993 (5 years 1 month)
Independently learned and applied advanced numerical techniques to computer simulation of plasmas for use in magnetic fusion devices. Managed program to modify a 5000 line FORTRAN code to include both ionized and neutral fluids and their interactions, and compare computer simulations with experimental results. Developed code on Cray supercomputers running Unicos (UNIX) accessed via Internet. Analyzed numerical data from Cray computers and experimental data from local VAX/VMS computer using IDL interpreted language and graphics package. Employed UNIX SCCS tools to update, document changes, and maintain large computer codes.
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Staff Scientist
Spectra Technology, Inc.
(Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Defense & Space industry)
June 1985 — March 1988 (2 years 10 months)
Developed mathematical models of various laser and optical systems. Created computer codes to simulate light beam propagation using fast Fourier transform methods; managed program to investigate a novel electron acceleration concept using lasers; calculated means to reduce or eliminate optical aberrations; magnet design; developed or applied various numerical methods.
Russ Berger’s Education
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University of Washington
PhD , Physics , 1978 — 1993
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University of Wisconsin-Madison
Applied Math, Engineering, Physics 1974 — 1977
Additional Information
Russ Berger’s Websites:
Russ Berger’s Interests:
computers, computer security, Linux/Unix, Web technologies, physics, inventing, skiing, golfing
Russ Berger’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- career opportunities
- consulting offers
- new ventures
- expertise requests
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
