Andrew Findlay
Curriculum Vitae
| Full title | Dr Andrew Findlay BSc PhD MIET CEng |
| Address |
2 Cedar Chase Taplow Maidenhead SL6 0EU UK |
| Office telephone | 01628 782565 |
| andrew.findlay@skills-1st.co.uk | |
| Web |
www.andrew.findlay.org www.skills-1st.co.uk |
Specialisations
Directory Services: design and implementation of directories, LDAP servers, LDAP and X.500 schemas.
Directory synchronisation systems and meta-directories.
E-mail systems: design and installation of mail systems using LDAP and SQL databases.
Systems management and network management: design, installation, documentation of procedures and processes.
Open Source deployments.
Interface devices for the Internet of Things.
LDAP training.
Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Unix, OpenLDAP, OpenSSL, Exim, Cyrus SASL, Cyrus IMAP, DNS, Apache, PAM/NSS, IBM Tivoli Directory Integrator, IBM Tivoli Directory Server, C, Perl, Shell, SQL.
IBM Certified Instructor
Projects
As an independent consultant, I have worked on projects for many customers, including:
Design and implementation of LDAP schema for a directory consolidation project in an Agency of the European Union.
LDAP schema and service design for a multi-national information business.
Open Source Migration Guidelines for the European Commission.
The development and delivery of LDAP training courses.
Delivering TDI and TDS training courses for IBM.
Development of workshop-based training courses for OpenLDAP and for IBM Tivoli Directory Integrator
Directory Synchronisation and account-provisioning system for a UK university.
The design and implementation of real and emulated networks for training Network Management System administrators, both in Europe and the Far East.
Report on Open Source components for Public Key Infrastructures, for the UK Office of the E-Envoy.
Report on the structure and operation of an IT support department, with recommendations for change and immediate service stabilisation.
Report on the security exposure of an IT department, with recommendations for change.
Design and installation of LDAP-driven mail systems for various Internet Service Providers.
Installation of mail archive and group collaboration systems for globally-distributed technical communities.
Before becoming a consultant in 2000, I was responsible for the design and development of the integrated computing environment at Brunel University. This serviced the core IT needs of 18,000 staff and students, allowing them to work at any of the 4,000 workstations spread across four sites. Service availability was typically 99.95% using commodity servers, and the management procedures ensured that most hardware and software upgrades were performed with no user impact at all.
Alongside my work for the Computing Service, I managed a Directory Services Research & Development group, which attracted £0.5M funding from industry, UK Government, and the European Commission. Technology developed by this group was licensed to software houses and appeared in several commercial products.
Professional activities and development
I joined both the IEE (now IET) and the IERE as a student, and was soon elected to a number of committees and working groups. I have served as chairman of IEE Professional Group C14 (Information Technology) and also of the IET Thames Valley Specialised Section for Electronics Communication Computing and Control (EC3).
I have organised many conferences and colloquia for the IET, IERE, UKUUG, UCISA and EurOpen. Highlights include the EurOpen 1991 conference in Budapest, the 1998 UK LISA (Large Installations Systems Administration) conference in London and the 2015 International LDAP Conference (LDAPCon) in Edinburgh. I am on the Programme Committee for the 2017 LDAP conference in Brussels.
I have presented papers on Systems Management and Directory Services topics at many conferences and colloquia.
Other skills and interests
Very good written English and presentation skills.
Carpentry, domestic wiring, electronics design and build, pipefitting, bricklaying, boat-handling.
Standard UK driving licence.
Keen hillwalker and photographer: sample images are on my website.
Co-organiser of the London Barndance Company dance series.
Academic qualifications
| Degree | BSc First Class Honours Cybernetics and Control Engineering with Subsidiary Mathematics, Reading University, June 1980 |
| Higher Degree | PhD Thesis title: A Cybernetic Approach to the Robot Design Process, Reading University, June 1987 |
Professional qualifications
MIET, CEng
Employment record
SERC research studentship, Sept 1980 - Sept 1983
Lecturer in Special Engineering, Brunel University, Sept 1983 to October 1990
Head of Networking and Systems, Brunel University Computing Services, October 1990 to November 2000
Consultant, Skills 1st Ltd, December 2000 to date.
Sample publications
“Fundamentals of computer systems”, Findlay, A.J., pp 42-45, Proceedings of the Watt Committee on Energy, Report No. 10, September 1981.
“An angular position indicator”, Findlay, A.J., British Patent Application No. 8300834, January 1983.
“A rotary absolute angle transducer”, Findlay, A.J., J.Phys.E, Vol 17, 1984
“The Home-Directory Mail System”, Findlay, A.J., Newsletter of the European Unix Users Group, 1988
“Designing an X.500 User Interface: The Early Stages”, Findlay, A.J. and Mahl, D.S., Proceedings of UKUUG winter technical conference, Cardiff, 1989.
“Setting Up an X.500 Directory Service”, Findlay, A.J., Proceedings of the EurOpen conference, Nice, 1990
“Command-name pollution (and how to avoid it)” Findlay, A.J., Proceedings of the UKUUG Winter Technical Conference, Cardiff, 1990
“Multi-Level Storage: a User's Tale”, Findlay, A.J., Proceedings of UKUUG Large Installations Systems Administration workshop, London, 1994.
“The Multi-Media Telephone: Directory service and session control for multi-media communications”, Proceedings of IEEE SDNE96 Conference, Macau, 1996.
“EuroView Service Design”, Bonacker, K. H., Findlay, A. J., and Mahl, D. S., EuroView Project, Dortmund, May 1997.
“Implementing an Organisational Directory Service”, Findlay, A. J., Ktenidis, K., and Mahl, D. S., EuroView Project, Uxbridge, 1998.
“Towards Open Source Secure Single Sign-On”, Netproject Open Source Conference, London, 1999.
“Security with LDAP”, UKUUG Winter Conference, London, Feb 2002.
“The IDA Open Source Migration Guidelines”, by Netproject for the European Commission, Sept 2003.
“LDAP Schema Design”, UKUUG Winter Technical Conference, Birmingham, Feb 2005.
“LDAP Workshop”, tutorial session at UKUUG Spring Conference, Durham, March 2006.
“Writing Access Control Policies for LDAP”, UKUUG Conference, London, Mar 2009.
“OpenLDAP for Linux in 2 Hours”, LOADays Conference, Antwerp, April 2011.
“Best Practices in LDAP Security”, LDAPCon2011, Heidelberg, October 2011.
“LDAP for Linux Admins” - half day workshop, FLOSSUK Conference, Brighton, March 2014.