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Full title |
Dr Andrew Findlay BSc PhD MIERE MIEE CEng |
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Address |
2 Cedar Chase Taplow Maidenhead SL6 0EU UK |
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Office telephone |
01628 782565 |
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Home telephone |
01628 633962 |
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andrew.findlay@skills-1st.co.uk |
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Web |
www.andrew.findlay.org www.skills-1st.co.uk |
Design and management of large-scale computer systems, networks, and directories.
Unix, IP networking, open-source deployments, LDAP and X.500 directories, DNS, NFS, authentication and authorisation, web, security, firewalls, automounters, data-driven services. Design and documentation of procedures and processes.
Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenLDAP, OpenSSL, OpenSSH, Exim, Cyrus SASL, Cyrus IMAPD, BIND, Amd, Apache, mod_perl, PAM/NSS, Samba, IBM Tivoli Directory Integrator, IBM Tivoli Directory Server, CiscoWorks 2000, Cisco IOS, C, Perl, Shell, SQL.
IBM Certified Instructor
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.
The production of a substantial set of Open Source Migration Guidelines for the European Commission.
The development and delivery of LDAP training courses.
Delivering ITDI and ITDS training courses for IBM.
Firewall and bastion server design and implementation.
The design and implementation of real and emulated networks for training Network Management System administrators, both in Europe and the Far East.
Production of a detailed 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 web-based CRM system.
Design and installation of an LDAP-driven mail system for a small hosting organisation.
Installation of mail archive and group collaboration systems for a globally-distributed technical community.
The development and setup of a training environment for CCIE candidates at two European-level education centres.
Installation and setup of CiscoWorks 2000 in a large retail bank, to manage network equipment across all branches and central facilities.
I was responsible for the design and development of the integrated computing environment at Brunel University from 1990 to early 2000. This serviced the core IT needs of 18,000 staff and students, allowing them to work at any of the 4,000 NT, DOS, and Solaris workstations spread across four sites. Each person's files were available wherever they chose to work, while security and performance issues such as choice of server were taken care of automatically. The environment was designed to provide a stable base service on which departments and individuals could build. Significant achievements from this period include:
I designed and built Brunel's E-Mail system which had over 20,000 registered users, and handled in excess of 150,000 messages per week in mid-2000. It provided full-name mail addresses for staff, and routinely supported 1,500 simultaneous client connections.
As Head of Networking and Systems at Brunel I constantly searched for ways to increase server availability. Quarterly figures show that we achieved 99.95% even though we used only commodity workstation hardware with no special resilience features.
Working with members of my team, I developed service management processes to ensure minimal disruption to users: most hardware and software upgrades at Brunel were performed with no user impact at all. Work on servers holding personal files was reduced to just two outages per year - both outside core hours and only one lasting more than three hours.
Alongside my work for the Computing Service, I managed a small Research & Development group, which attracted 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.
I joined both the IEE 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 IEE Thames Valley Specialised Section for Electronics Communication Computing and Control.
I have organised many conferences and colloquia for the IEE, IERE, UKUUG, UCISA and EurOpen. Highlights include the EurOpen 1991 conference in Budapest and the 1998 UK LISA (Large Installations Systems Administration) conference in London.
I run a lecture series for the London Unix User Group, which has included talks from people such as Tim O'Reilly, Bill Cheswick (Bell Labs), and the Metropolitan Police Fraud Squad.
I have presented papers on Systems Management and Directory Services topics at many conferences and colloquia, and have often been called in by other organisations to advise on these topics.
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. My first public exhibition was in September 2000. Co-organiser of the London Barndance Company dance series.
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O level: |
7 at grade A, 1 at grade B, 1 at grade C |
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CSE: |
1 at grade 1 |
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A level: |
Physics(A) Maths(A) Further Maths(B) Chemistry(C) |
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S level: |
Physics(1) Maths(2) |
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Degree |
BSc First Class Honours Cybernetics and Control Engineering with Subsidiary Mathematics Reading University, June 1980 |
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Higher Degree |
PhD Thesis title: A Cybernetic Approach to the Robot Design Process, Reading University, June 1987 |
MIERE, MIEE, CEng
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.
`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 Novel absolute angular position transducer', Findlay, A.J., Sensors and their applications - Conference Booklet, Institute of Physics, 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
`Campus-wide networked services', Findlay, A.J., Proceedings of UCNG PC-Integration Workshop, Uxbridge, 1993
`Netpassword - changing passwords safely across the net', Findlay, A.J. and Macpherson, A., Proceedings of the 1994 JANET Security Workshop, London, 1994.
`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.
`Planning Directory Services', Findlay, A. J., and Mahl, D. S., EuroView Project, Uxbridge, 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.
`E-Commerce in Miniature: the Network Connection Booking System at Brunel University', UKUUG Winter Conference, Newcastle, Feb 2000.
`Planning for an Open-Source Entrant in the PKI Interoperability Trials', report to the Office of the E-Envoy, June 2001.
`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.
Other publications are referenced from my web page.