Kurt Brust

Kurt A. Brust

Hudson, FL

iuzlinux@gmail.com

704-280-2308

CERTIFICATIONS

Certified Novell Engineer (CNE) - Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE)

Cisco Certified Network Assoc. (CCNA) - Unix System Administration (USA)

Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) - Novell Cert Linux Engineer (NCLE)

Linux Professional (LPI-1) - Linux Professional (LPI-2) - Linux+ (Comp-Tia)

Florida Notary Public

Commission HH 438581

Exp 8/28/27

EXPERIENCE

Belk – Charlotte, NC – Sr Systems Engineer (March 2021 – Present)

The Senior System Engineer designs, installs, configures, implements and supports all aspects of the server infrastructure environments, providing technical guidance and oversight and acting as a point of escalation and technical support.
Architecture Vision and Direction: Develops, documents, communicates, and enforces systems standards, policies, and procedures for standardizing systems assets
Analyzes system performance and provides preventative maintenance while providing maximum availability of physical and virtual servers (e.g. new software releases, upgrades, evaluation and installation of patches)
Works towards providing a fully redundant high availability infrastructure at all times
Ensures that backup/recovery plans are tested regularly and backup/recovery procedures are implemented
Develops automation scripts and programs to streamline manual operations and reduce manpower requirement in maintenance and monitoring activities
Ability to: Translate logical designs into physical designs taking account of target environment, performance, security requirements and existing systems
Produce detailed designs and document all work using required standards, methods and tools, including prototyping tools where appropriate
Validate that services and components meet and continue to meet all of their agreed performance targets and service levels
Make a significant contribution to the investigation, diagnosis and resolution of infrastructure problems
Working experience in advanced scripting languages
Working experience in cloud computing concepts particularly related to IaaS and PaaS approaches.
Performs Linux Operating System lifecycle management
Working experience designing, integrating, monitoring and managing end-to-end Linux infrastructure
Working experience with Red Hat Satellite, Red Hat Directory Server, DNS, Fiber Attached Storage, Kerberos, Red Hat Ansible

Architected and Installed, Soley, Centrify single Sign-on company wide for Linux.

Migrated 185 Redhat servers, Soley, over to Oracle Linux. .

Kurt Brust Consulting LLC – Tampa, FL-  FDOT Linux Engineer – Sept 2019 –  March 2021

(Closed the Tampa office – Relocated positions to South Florida)

Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, able to work without depending on others, ability to meet deadlines and handle conflicting priorities. Good team building and team management skills & motivational personality.
Design, deploy and maintenance of heterogeneous environment with multiple flavors of OS, high availability solutions and disaster recovery.
Expertise in Virtualization and automation. - Migrated 1200+ servers from AIX/Solaris to Linux.
Knowledge on storage, backup tools.

OS : Red Hat EL 5.x, 6.x, 7.x SUSE LE 11.x,12.x, CentOS 5x,6x,7x, Solaris 9, 10,11, VMware ESX, Ansible
Hardware/Tools: Oracle RAC/ASM,EMC Power path, Tegile/IntelliFlash 3.7.0.8 and Isilon 8.x (Storage), TrueNas ,DELL PowerEdge 6650, HP ProLiant DL 385, 585, 580, NetBackup, Cohesity
Ticketing tools: HEAT, ServiceNow, Redmine HP service manager, CA service desk etc.

DTCC , Tampa , FL – Linux Subject Matter Expert – Jan 2015 –  Sept 2019

Maintains understanding of existing DTCC applications and technology solutions for leveraging the reuse of services and for the consolidation of services.

Identifies and researches opportunities to leverage emerging UNIX tools to the betterment of the DTCC environment.

Develops and documents architecture solutions, including designs, guidelines and UNIX-specific standards for enterprise-wide implementation.

Leads and enables collaboration across technology specialties – ensures that ADM, Infrastructure, Information Security and Architecture are all working together.

Supports adherence to relevant ADM/CMMI, ITIL, internal audit, and risk-management standards.

Maintains understanding of emerging architecture concepts and methods and associated technology trends.

Participates in the design, specification, and implementation of business and technology projects, assuring and resolving adherence to enterprise-wide solutions.

Provides guidance and leadership for DTCC’s UNIX technology standardization process Implements and customizes UNIX projects per specifications.

Conceptualize and design next generation Linux Operating Platform, inclusive Application Integration and Porting from Unix, Lifecycle Management and Operations.

Develop Linux Operating Platform roadmap. Analyze and recommend emerging Linux technologies that can provide benefit while reducing risk.

Provide Linux Platform architecture guidance, research technical issues; publish standards, best practices, white papers and solutions. Conduct proof-of-concept exercises to validate concepts and assumptions.

Act as the Linux Platform “subject matter expert” by providing technical leadership across all IT disciplines.

OS : Red Hat EL 5.x, 6.x, 7.x, 8.x SUSE LE 11.x,12.x, CentOS 5x,6x,7x, Solaris 8, 9, 10,11, VMware ESX, Ansible, Windows 2010-2016
Oracle RAC/ASM,EMC , Splunk , IBM Shark

SUSE , Nuremberg, Germany, (Charlotte, NC) Sr Linux Technical Spec. , Oct 2011 – Dec 2014

80% Travel

In-depth product knowledge of SUSE Linux, assisting in sales opportunities across the globe. My time is used between proof-of-concept implementation, design and configure, presentation to customers and at conferences, and research into deeper solution understanding. Exceeded yearly target by 20% in 2012/13 fiscal year! I work with SUSE Cloud (Open stack, Puppet, Nova, Swift, Cinder, Neutron. Etc.) Starting with Cactus, Diablo, Folsom, Grizzly, Havana and Icehouse., SAP-HANA (have completed many installs and have been thru training in Germany), SUSEMAMANGER, STUDIO, SLE-HA

Wachovia/Wells Fargo, Charlotte, NC, Sr. Linux Architect (Platform Engineering), Jan 2007 – Oct 2011  (contract)

Platform Engineering group. Design and Test Linux based solutions for CIB (Commercial Investment Banking).

 Linux (RHEL4, SLES9, SLES10, SOLAIRS) and Deployment tools such as BladeLogic, Opsware & Altiris. Create corporate best practices and Standards based around Linux/Unix.

 Working with Xen & VMware on a daily basis. EMC, NetApp, Fuji, Verari, HP platforms.

85 applications such as Fortify, Subversion, cvsnt, Anthill, Confluence, Crucible/Fisheye, Sonatype nexus pro, etc.

Levanta, San Mateo, CA, Sr Solutions Engineer-Dec 2005 - Jan 2007 (Company was sold)

Services Group, Which Includes Sales, Support & Consulting.

 Travel to companies around the world doing presentation, demos and POC's on Levante’s Linux Management appliance.

Handle the support and Implementation of all customers on EAST COAST and EUROPE. Worked with EMC, Netapp, IBM, HP, Dell, And many others.

Novell/SuSe, Provo, UT, Global Solutions Manager, Dec 2003 - Dec 2005

Handle the transition of moving all Novell to Linux on the desktop. As well as all Linux technical questions and issues from Sales, Marketing, IT, software development.

Oversee and advise sales team, sales engineers, marketing, IT on how to convert current windows/Solaris/hp-ux/NetWare users to Linux, from desktop thru the data center.

Guide software development on what Linux software needs created for the market.

 Create White Papers and Tech Documents for Sales and Customers.

 Work with Customers on Migrations from UNIX/WINDOWS and other LINUX distros over to SUSE LINUX. Customer locations to assist with migrations to Linux.

Helped to create three (3) migration guides (http://www.novell.com/linux/migrate).system architecture definition, hardware/software specification and/or design, implementation, testing, client training, and deployment.

Perform planning and deployment of Open Source Software infrastructure including: Requirements analysis, Linux/OSS Migration planning, Linux Migration Cost/Benefit analysis, Implementation Planning, Application integration, Security assessments.

 CTS, Raleigh, NC, Sr Linux Consultant, July 2003 - Dec 2003 (Contract)

Worked with one of EMC's clients, migrated (4) VMWARE ESX (2.0) servers into a EMC CLAIRON environment. Setup over 100 Virtual Machines, in a clustered environment which communicated with 2 EMC sx-600 Clarion storage units. Worked on Team that provided a Linux Cluster solution for Morgan Stanley in NYC. Handled all Linux issues including the design and implementation of the Linux cluster, connectivity to the EMC Symmetrix san environment. Rolled out a 256 node Linux cluster, handled all the training issues with their employees.

Sicuro Solutions, Charlotte, NC, Technical Dir./ Sr Sys Eng., Mar 2002 - July 2003(Company sold)

Assisted friend in business start-up, providing technical assistance.

Set up Routers, Firewalls, Network Security & Intrusion Detection and 2000 and Linux (Rhel 7x, 8x & 9x, Adv Server 2.1, SUSE, mandrake, Turbolinux, etc..)

Installing & designing networks.

Installed and configured RHAS 2.1 (ranging from simple server installs to complex HPC clusters)

Installed and configured wireless access cards on Linux and Windows. Setup Wireless office connection from building to building for customers.

Setup/configured & installed VMWARE (both client 3.x & 4, and also with VMWARE SERVER GSM 1.x & 2.x).

Setup and installed ZENworks for a few clients.

IBM, Dallas, Tx, Sr Linux Engineer- East Coast, Feb 2001 - Mar. 2002 (9/11 layoff’s)

Travel 80% - Work with a team of 4 other Senior Linux engineers in the world for IBM (America's Linux Team), providing mainly pre-sales support (Setting up test labs, diagram networks, Capacity Plan, Network Strategy, Proof of concepts, etc..)

Install Red Hat, Turbolinux, SUSE OS on IBM hardware (both Ethernet and Token Ring), in both a LAN/WAN environment and Clustering (HPC & HA).

Have implemented from 5 to 2000 servers for all IBM customers and handled all Calls on the East Coast for the ATS Group. Working with Win2000 and Linux and Sun Solaris integration.

Did Microsoft Exchange Migration over to Linux Platform (Sendmail). Both on the design and the implementation side of the house.

Worked with many fortune 500 companies (JCREW, JP MORGAN, NEUBERGER & BERMAN, CHAMPION COMPUTERS, UAB-BIRMINGHAM, MORGAN STANLEY, ETC..).

 Worked with WebSphere, installed and configured it for WEATHER.COM with their HPC 64 node cluster.

Used Tools such as VMWARE and VNC.

TurboLinux Inc., Brisbane, Ca, Sr. Sales Engineer- East Coast, May 2000 - Feb 2001(Company had 3 layoffs. Choose to leave for IBM)

Travel 75% - Handle all technical sales calls (Pre & Post) East of Texas. Handle all support calls (Pre & Post) for entire US and Canada

Client interface to design solution and implement

Managed 2 SE's on west coast.

Did technical presentations for Linux Workstation, Server, TurboCluster and Enfuzion (HPC-Supercomputing) and SUN clusters.

Handled all Installations of entire product line for new clients, including Network Planning and Capacity Planning. Setup up companies VPN solution across 4 continents.

Worked with 3 RSM's (Reg. Sales Managers, Florida, NYC & Chicago). Installed Linux clusters (HA - IP FAILOVER - LOAD BALANCING) (FROM 8 node thru (1024 node clusters (@ JP MORGAN, NYC), Installed and Configured Samba at multiple clients, made seamless integration into current network. . Used VMWARE and VNC for remote administration and run applications for Linux & windows environments

ComputerNet, Inc., Sr System Engineer, Jan. 1999 - May 2000(Company closed it's Charlotte Office)

Handled all major network issues for company. Install networks for companies, ranging in size from 10 users to 5000 users.

Worked with many clients implementing VoIP. Handle all the router configuration and Linux/Unix Issues. Managed majority of technical interviewing and screening for company.

Worked with Linux, NT, Novell, SCO , SUN, CISCO, HP on a daily basis.

Installed this companies and 10 other companies Internet connectivity (ranging from dialup to Frame & Fiber).

Installed and Manage 3 Linux Apache web servers, SSL server, Cold Fusion Server, CISCO routers, Send mail & Exchange issuers.

Brought in new CRM-type business to the company.

Designed and implemented Applix's IENTERPRISE product. Also brought in ASP (Application Services Providing) business to the company, designed and implemented it to our Network.

Worked with Tivoli and Microsoft SMS at customers locations.

Company liaison, for all engineering technical support

EDUCATION

State University of New York at Albany - Albany, NY September 1990 - May 1992

A.A.S. Computer Info Systems, May 1992

REFERENCES

John H. Terpstra VP - TurboLinux (Founding Member of Samba Team) - jht@samba.org

Arthur Tyde Founder/CEO- Linux care pubaddr@swissinfo.org

Jerry Taylor – Director – Bfilmfan@gmail.com