BitLess Resume

CV Glenn Plas

Bitless BVBA : Managing Director: June 2013; BitLess is a software design, development, data crunching and system administration company.
Integrating best practices and technologies. I provide high and low level third line support for technology companies.

I'm a vendor independent solution architect with a focus on the cloud in general, Linode, AWS , rackspace etc. I am an expert in Xen private cloud platforms and to a lesser degree OpenStack. A non-limited list of specializations and services can be found on the website.

Our development expertise is primarily PHP based using state of the art frameworks like Laravel. I'm a genuine hacker when it comes to troubleshooting any kind of problem your own people cannot find, we can help them back on track.
coolDEVOPS : Devops consultant and Partner: March 2014; At coolDEVOPS we advise companies how to implement DevOps strategies. We coach agile development.

You can also benefit from our system admin experience and use us as 3rd line support for your organisation.

We are a collective of consultants with different specialties. This way we can always provide additional individual or team expertise to your organisation.
Syncomict : Application Architect: September 2007 - July 2011; At Syncomict I was the primary lead architect and third line support. I've built the products and environment from scratch and still support it as a consultant to this day. I'm responsible for leading the design of advanced automation solutions for complicated workflows.

The product Synctrace is a complex track and trace ecosystem in the mobile market. Assets ranging from large cranes to drills are constantly being geographically tracked. Adding value by providing suitable reports, customizing the base product to customer needs. My GIS experience has shown to be elementary in it's success in this niche market.

Architectural decision making
Application Development (frontend/backends/db's, tools)
System Administration
Mysql/MariaDB Database Administration
R & D (telecom/software/technologies)
Product shaping (sales and technical orientation)
Technical product development (frameworks)
Programmer - Hacker -
Redundancy/Backup design

Notable customers are Arentis , Arcelormittal, Mols and Boortmalt

Day to day operations consisted of analyzing and solving complicated problems, systems and software maintenance. I wrote the larger part of the software used.
PearlDoc : System Engineer - Lead architect - Coder: November 2006 - August 2007; Pearldoc was a slick and mean company with an impressive portfolio in software and customer listing. The product consisted of a document management system suitable for banks and large corporations, my work consisted of maintaining the code base of various components of this DMS. Among the long list of customers were HSBC, Landbouwkrediet

The versatile document system was also used to process bank statements at Landbouwkrediet. Due to an increase in statements the processing is not able to finish in time each night. It was essential to finish in time because otherwise the customers wouldn’t be able to check their statements online or print them via an ATM machine. We have improved this processing with a factor 6.

Working on the 4.0 release of our Enterprise Content management Suite; scoping the architectural design, defining features and also created a strategy for developing an API component, permitting us to generate additional revenue. This API was sold as OEM and is currently used by major software vendors (e.g. http://www.side-international.com/) in their product.

I co-managed several smaller projects. Average budgets for these projects ranged from 50.000 euro’s to 100.000 euro’s.

Also co-developed a custom workflow-scripting module on top of our ECM to automate document management tasks. This permitted large end-user accounts important cost-savings because of the automated workflow and thus resulting in minimal manual labor.

I lead the support department in a structured and profitable fashion. End 2006 the owner and CEO was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. Then the mission was to find a take-over candidate. The owner died in February and we kept operating the company until July when the CTO found a take-over candidate (http://www.investik.eu/).
Ferranti NV : Implementation Consultant: March 2006 - November 2006; At Ferranti I was hired for my linux skills as they had attempted to enter this market segment. I was the support lead engineer and team lead within this niche of the company's business spectrum. At Ferranti the main project I worked on were installing, designing and rolling out the FEDICT EID infrastructure housed at FEDICT datacenters in Brussels. I also coded internal monitoring and reporting tools.

I decided to leave due to the fact that there was less Linux work and more Microsoft effectively keeping me from advancing within my field of expertise forcing me to refocus.
Tiscali NV : Senior Linux/Unix / B2B support administrator: 2003 - 2005; At Tiscali (who took over Worldonline), after leaving for Openwave, I came back and picked up my old position again within the core IT systems team. Subsequently, my role here looked a lot like what I did at Worldonline within a fast emerging and consolidating ISP market.

Installing and maintaining the Unix/Linux infrastructure within a core team. Making sure 24/7 operational status was maintained of an even larger server farm (-/+ 150+ bare metal machines) in a hybrid environment consisting of SUN / Solaris Unix and Linux machines. Third line support. Among the main responsibilities were installing and maintaining core ISP services like:

- Providing 2nd and 3rd line internal support
- Responsible for the B2B customer co-location
- Coding internal tools
- SUN/Solaris Unix and Linux
- NetApp filers and Caches
- Database maintenance ( Mysql ) and OS support for DBA on enterprise class SUN machines
- Supporting proprietary enterprise software
- Radius platform
- Webserver farm
- Cache servers
- DNS master
- News servers
- Network security

Notable achievements:

- Designing and setting up the Idool 2003(TV) infrastructure , architecture and sizing.
- Create multiple toolsets to help doing all the things I mentioned above but faster. Making sure our helpdesk was up to the task with better informative tools than present at the time.
- Merging ISP (Wanadoo, Yucom) after takeovers
- Representative at Belgian Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) trying to bridge gaps between us and other Belgian ISP's.
Openwave : Customer Support Engineer EMEA: 2001 - 2003; Previously known as software.com / phone.com. Openwave was an industry leader in enterprise email software for large userbase platforms like Internet Service Providers and Mobile Phone operators, and a pioneer in the Mobile Internet race at the time. At Openwave my main focus was providing engineer-to-engineer third line support on the Openwave Email Kx product and to a smaller degree also the Mx platform. I was the support lead on Kx for EMEA.

- Specialized in MTA/SMTP email systems
- Member of the support rotation scheme for MX/KX platforms

Openwave's email platforms ranged from half a million mailboxes(KX) to multiple million (MX). Among the main customers I've dealt with are Deutsche Telekom, BT and J-Phone Japan. I've received several recognition's for my support efforts in bringing down the support queues to a maintainable size on the KX platform and closing down long standing support issues.
Worldonline.be : Senior Unix Administrator: 1999 - 2001; My work primarily consisted of architecting, installation and maintaining the Unix/Linux infrastructure within a core team. Making sure 24/7 operational status was maintained of a large server farm in a hybrid environment consisting of SUN / Solaris Unix and Linux machines. Third line support. Among the main responsibilities were installing and maintaining core ISP services like:

- Radius platform
- Webservers
- Cache servers
- DNS master
- News servers
- Network security
- SUN/Solaris Unix and Linux
- Database maintenance (Oracle, Mysql)
- Supporting proprietary enterprise software (BOSS/Siebel)
- Coding internal tools

Notable achievements:

- Designing and setting up the first Big Brother (TV) infrastructure (website / media streaming servers), for a long time the most busy website and streaming platform that existed in Belgium
- Total overhaul of the internet provider's core infrastructure, including routers, switches and servers together with upgrading transit backbones and peerings.
McHugh Software International : Team Leader Systems: 1998 - 1999; (Now: RedPrairie supply chain software )

Responsible for the day to day operations in the local office and customer installation on site. Automating warehouses. Initial installation of HP/UX enterprise class servers for projects
- Setup, design and installation of new local office
- Providing systems support for developers
- HP/UX system administration
- Oracle database administration
- Programmer / analyst
Levi Strauss : IT Consultant: 1997 - 1998; Responsible for implementing an distribution chain logistics software project for warehouse management. Tasks included:
- Configuring enterprise level software system
- installing, maintaining enterprise class HP/UX servers
- Modifying software (customization, localization)
- Oracle database administration