Blasted Heath provides Unix systems and networking consulting. Areas of expertise include *BSD kernel programming, systems integration, system/network administration, systems/network programming, code ports, network analysis, performance tuning, TCP/IP training, and critical network problem resolution.

Past projects have included:

• adding disk transaction coalescing to the NetBSD kernel;
• adding per-directory NFS export permissions to NetBSD;
• debugging and enhancing a data-driven e-mailer that keeps customers informed of changes in their travel itineraries, from booking through ticketing and travel; the mailer makes heavy use of Oracle tables and is written using Perl's DBI/DBD interface to Oracle
• implementing a network-, system-, service- and application-level metrics collector using Perl, DBI/DBD and Oracle
• tuning a load-balanced server farm composed of web, application, mail, dns and database servers
• porting parts of a multi-media authoring system written in C from Mac/Windows to Unix;
• adding TCP/IP networking capabilities to that same system on Unix, Mac, and Windows;
• designing and implementing a nationwide Unix-based service monitoring platform;
• creating a Java applet to display statistics gathered by that platform;
• designing and implementing a system to collect per-user CPU utilization statistics for 200+ servers running either AIX or Solaris;
• creating a scalable, enterprise-wide, multi-threaded monitoring system for Unix machines using C, TCP/IP, RPC, and pthreads;
• writing an SNMP sub-agent in C that provides generic, application-level monitoring;
• creating a plug-in for Alias|Wavefront's Composer that imports PhotoShop 4.0 files with the ability to pick layers;
• crafting CGI glue to enable back-end applications to run on the Web;
• implementing a load-balanced, fault tolerant server farm for a distributed web-based application;
• designing and prototyping a scriptable HTTP protocol test harness;
• and, co-authoring and teaching a course in TCP/IP troubleshooting utilizing traditional Unix tools.

Acted as Systems Engineer for the Computer Science Laboratory in the Computer Science Department of the University of Tennesee, Knoxville. The CS Labs are a combination of hardware, software, and personnel providing support to the Department's instructional and research endeavors. Laboratory hardware resources comprised over 250 Unix workstations (DECs, IBMs, Suns, HPs, SGIs), 20 servers, 2 supercomputers (CM-5 & MasPar), and sundry micro computers. Lab personnel comprised 10-25 students who were responsible for day to day system administration of all Department machines.

Responsibilities included:

• technical oversight and training of all Lab personnel;
• providing technical support to departmental faculty and staff;
• hardware and software installation, maintenance, and evaluation;
• distributed systems administration using YP/NIS, NFS, TCP/IP, DNS, SLIP, PPP, HTTP, MBONE, shell utilities, automounters, and network sniffers;
• fire-fighting;
• long-term facilities planning;
• bid preparation & evaluation;
• and direction of systems-related research.

Member of a team porting financial applications from SunOS-4 to SunOS-5. Applications were written in C and interfaced to Sybase databases via embedded SQL. Enhanced skypage, a TCP/IP-based client/server queuing program to interface w/ SkyTel's 1-800 ASCII paging service.

Invited instructor at the Network Analysis Forum (NAF), held in conjunction with Networld+Interop. With a colleague, developed and presented technical sessions covering the theory and practice of the TCP/IP protocol suite. At the 1995 Atlanta NAF, one session covered the fundamentals of TCP/IP; the other, general troubleshooting of a TCP/IP network. At the Las Vegas NAF, a session on the Domain Name Service was presented in addition to the 2 TCP/IP sessions. At the 1996 Atlanta NAF, the DNS session and a session covering TCP/IP network troubleshooting using OS-based tools were presented.

Designed laboratory exercises for Computer Science 594: Unix Network Programming, a graduate level course in the design and operation of internets, focusing on TCP/IP as implemented in Unix. These exercises emphasized the engineering aspects of the TCP/IP protocol, presenting students with concrete problems of measuring, understanding, tuning and developing various network applications.

As a sub-contractor to the Advanced Information Systems Group, Inc in Longwood, FL, produced a time estimate for porting AT&T's Routing Manager software written in K&R-style C under SunOS-4 to ANSI-based C under SunOS-5. This software used an OpenLook-based GUI front-end to remotely change customer phone service options and to track customer records in Sybase databases. The estimate suggested porting strategies, gave timelines, and noted bugs.

Invited instructor at the Network Analysis and Users Group Conference. With a colleague, developed and taught a 3-hour seminar on TCP/IP protocol fundamentals and how to administer TCP/IP networks. At the Monterey conference, performance tuning was emphasized; at the DC conference, emphasis was placed on debugging tools.

Designed, implemented, and evaluated a distributed computation package which utilizes an XDR-encoded, UDP-based reliable datagram protocol. Results of this study include the package itself, RCalc; the reliable datagram protocol, OCARD; and both analytic and empiric predictors of the efficiency of parallel bag-of-work algorithms.

Acted as one of 5 graduate student system administrators for 50+ Sun 3's, 30 Sun 4's, 20 IBM RT's, an Ardent Titan, an HP 9000, and two VAX 8200's, all of which were Internet hosts running some variant of BSD Unix.

Responsibilities included:

• installation and maintenance of hardware and software;
• network administration (NFS, YP, nameserver, POP, NNTP, NTP);
• writing utilities in C, csh and sh;
• training and advising operators, users, and new system administrators;
• day to day trouble-shooting.

Designed and extended accounting packages and forms generation software for the Apple Macintosh.

Participated in design, implementation and documentation of an application to analyze and design oil wells, working on its user interface, high-level file I/O, and pipe catalog.

Member of a team designing a micro to mainframe bulletin board protocol; implemented Columbia's Kermit file transfer protocol for the Mac; debugged and enhanced a Visual 200 terminal emulator for the Mac; wrote programs to run psychology experiments over the AppleTalk network.

Participated in the hardware and software design and implementation of a gateway between AppleTalk and Ethernet using 3-Com's Etherbox, a dedicated Macintosh, and a TTL digital logic controller built for the project.