I am a system engineer with a passion for web technology and Linux. I cofounded two boutique companies specialized in supporting infrastructure using open source software. I focus on designing and implementing robust, elegant solutions.
Next to that, I am:
Leaning towards robust, simple solutions. Designed, implemented and supported environments which require 24x7 availability. I.e.: no single points of failure, extensive monitoring, trending, and lots of automation to minimize human mistakes.
Interested in all things related to the web: from HTTP, to web frameworks, to Javascript toolkits, to Microformats. Experienced in technology for setting up and proactively supporting highly performant and scalable environments.
Specialised in infrastructure based on open source software. Trying to bring best practices from the development world into the sysadmin world: agile infrastructure, extensive testing, version control and continuous integration.
To see more details on my experience with the technologies below, hover or click on the hilighted items.
I've worked on infrastructure for highly critical, specialised sites with millions of pounds of revenue. These premium Tomcat based sites are used 24x7 by large companies and any downtime needs to be prevented. I've setup and supported the infrastructure for these sites, while working closely with the developers of the applications.
I have been using Debian since about 2000. I've created several internal Debian packages, and was the Debian package maintainer for libaugeas-ruby, the Ruby bindings for Augeas, a configuration editing tool. I've created fully automated Debian installs with PXE booting, Debian's preseeding, and Puppet.
There's almost not a day I don't work with Apache. It's still my favourite tool for serving websites, although I'm starting to get almost as fond of Nginx.
I've created a web based tool for managing redirects in Apache, targeted at non-hardcore techies. It is based on Django, Memcached, and Apache's mod_python. It's available as open source at github.
I've done some programming in PHP, and have supported redundant setups for high-profile PHP sites, such as www.telecoms.com.
I have set up and supported Ruby on Rails environments using Mongrel, Nginx and Apache and have some experience with mod_rails, but not a whole lot.
At Kumina we set up and supported the infrastructure for the Ruby on Rails site www.nationalebeeldbank.nl, a leading Dutch stock photography site.
I've dabbled in Ruby on Rails development for personal projects like eten.hiccup.nl — a restaurant listing and Google Maps mashup site, but because of lack of time I haven't been able to spend as much time on them as I'd like.
I have extensive experience in managing Python infrastructure. I have setup and supported infrastructure for hosting (small) Django sites with Apache, mod_python, WSGI and (Fast-)CGI.
I've developed several small sites in Django, one of which is an application used for keeping track of financial information.
I've setup and supported infrastructure for several Plone based websites.
I've have done CMS development with Zope and Plone, e.g. www.euroforum-uitgeverij.nl.
I have setup and used Puppet for configuration management at several customers. In the process, I created dozens of Puppet modules, some of which have been made publicly available at http://puppet.kumina.nl/.
I have been using Puppet since about 2006, and have been happily bothering the Puppet developers and Debian package maintainers with bug reports since.
I was the maintainer of the Debian package for libaugeas-ruby which is used by Puppet for its Augeas resource type.
I have tried converting the Puppet documentation into a more readable format once but gave up on keeping it in sync with the Wiki.
At Google, I'm part of the Enterprise team, which focuses on integrating Google's products and services into small and large businesses, educational institutions and government agencies.
Kumina supports infrastructure for large websites and other internet-related services. We do Linux system administration, and partner with other companies who provide hardware and network support. Kumina currently has three employees, all founders and owners.
While at Kumina I've designed and implemented solutions for several customers which need highly available, redundant infrastructure: companies from the Netherlands, the UK, Sweden and Denmark. We have long-term relationships with all of our customers and I've worked closely with the developers and their managers to provide them with advice and all the support they need.
Some keywords one of our largest customers used to describe us:
I was one of Cidev's two founders and owners. Cidev was a company specialised in supporting open source solutions for small and medium enterprises, mainly for office IT environments: setting up and supporting Samba fileservers, LDAP servers, PostgreSQL & MySQL databases, mail servers, and internal webservers. We also did small scale web hosting and a few programming projects.
To be able to grow in capacity, we decided to merge with a one-person company called Citrus IT, whose activities were similar to our own, in July 2007. The resulting company is Kumina.
Graduation date: July 2, 2004.
I was active in a students organization for open source enthusiasts called Interlink. From 2001 to 2002 I was part of the Interlink system administration team which maintained the Debian, NetBSD and Mandrake servers hosting the shell accounts, websites, and mail accounts for about 100 IT students.
Bart Cortooms — bart@hiccup.nl