Peter Bennett

P E T E R B E N N E T T

SUMMARY Peter is an experienced middleware consultant operating in the Internet arena. Peter has over 20 years of Middleware and UNIX support experience and more than 12 years of independent middleware consultancy. This independent consulting followed on from 6 years as an IBM consultant within their Global Services division.

Peter’s technical strengths include WebSphere implementation planning, performance testing and tuning, technical support, workload management and capacity planning. Web server setup, including complex secure sockets layer (SSL) configuration on IBM HTTP Server (Apache based). Peter is also an experienced MQ administrator and an MQ instructor for IBM.

Peter has implemented horizontal and vertical scaling of WebSphere Application Server (WAS) Network Deployment and Enterprise Editions in workload managed clusters. Peter has also been heavily involved in the automated load-testing of J2EE solutions using a wide variety of tools, such as Compuware QALoad, Compuware Network and Application Vantage, Symantec I3. Peter has also helped to profile the main applications using Rational Application Developer and JProfiler from EJ-Technologies.

Peter has wide experience of performance testing, load testing and soak testing on a wide variety of platforms, and has expertise in UNIX, in particular IBM’s AIX. Peter often writes and supports shell scripts.

Peter graduated with a Masters degree from the University of Liverpool in July 2005. The dissertation involved creating and porting a J2EE application between many different application servers, the results of this porting exercise were then written up in Peter’s 10,000 word dissertation.

Peter has also been involved with IBM’s BetaWorks recently. He participated in the WebSphere Message Broker 7 program, building upon his experience being Atos Origin’s principle consultant to Network Rail’s corporate messaging hub project based on WebSphere Message Broker.

Peter’s technical experience and fondness for communication have also led to him writing and successfully delivering WebSphere and TX Series training courses. The WebSphere version 6 administration course has been successfully delivered directly in the UK, Ireland and the USA and indirectly, through a partner company in South Africa.

Telephone: +44(0)7710 920 441 e-mail: [email protected] Fax: +44 (0)1457 870112 Date of Birth: 25th May 1964

EXPERIENCE

January 2010 – Present

Standard Life Middleware Consultant Peter is currently working for the Enterprise Middleware team within Standard Life, and has been seconded to provide middleware expertise to a crucial project as it transfers from development into production. This is mainly a WebSphere Application Server v7 implementation. Peter has extended his knowledge of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Oracle Identity management software, Checkpoint firewalls and load testing software such as JMeter and Rational Robot along with profiling running applications using EJ Technologies JProfiler. Peter has also had some involvement with the companies other infrastructure, such as MQ v7, Broker v7 and Portal v6.1

Ongoing Occasional Middleware Instruction

IBM and Others Middleware Instructor Peter teaches his own middleware courses, both directly and in partnership with dedicated training companies. He also teaches IBM’s MQ overview, IBM’s MQ Administration and IBM’s MQ Advanced Administration classes in the IBM Education schedule. He has more recently also taught IBM’s WebSphere Portal Server v6.1 administration. This has built a rounded and deep understanding of these components which was further enhanced by his participation in the WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker v7 beta program in Hursely in July 2009.

May 2006 – Christmas 2009

Prescription Pricing Division Middleware Performance and Support Specialist Peter has resumed his performance tuning and testing role within this part of the UK National Health Service’s Business Services Authority. Peter is interleaving this engagement with education and training

2 engagements for past clients. This engagement exercises Peter’s experience with WebSphere Application Server version 6 and 6.1, J2EE 1.4, IBM HTTP Server 6, MQ 5.3 and MQ 6, Edge Services, WebSEAL and Tivoli Access Manager and Symantec i3. The role includes performance testing and profiling the application from within Rational Application Developer and JProfiler. Tests are setup, scripted and run from Compuware QALoad. Performance impacts are assessed and system capacity trends modelled.

Peter has written many tools to assist in the execution of this role.

 A Java implementation of the JEE intercepting servlet filter pattern to log application server response times

 JACL and Jython scripts to manage WebSphere environments

 Shell scripts that generate status and performance HTML pages

 Java utilities that stress file system performance.

 Java utilities that manipulate MQ queues and their contents.

 Backup and recovery scripts in UNIX shell using Tivoli Storage Manager

 SQL scripts for monitoring application state and data health

April 2005 – May 2006

HSBC WebSphere and MQ Consulting

Peter became a valued member of the WebSphere support team within the bank, being given an extension to the engagement after the initial six month term was completed. Peter’s work with HSBC included administration and support, performance tuning, giving training courses and exercising his skills in AIX and MQ administration. The engagement included a great deal of working with development teams and ensuring smooth transition of their projects from development, through testing and in to production. It also included application performance monitoring with Wily and some hand-crafting of new application modules to extend the coverage of Wily monitoring to cover new applications within the bank.

July 2004 – April 2005

Prescription Pricing Authority (PPA - Part of the NHS) WebSphere and MQ Consulting

3 Peter has had a very successful engagement at the PPA, mainly engaged in performance tuning, installation, patching and fault diagnosis. The technologies involved included WebSphere Application Server versions 5.0 and 5.1, WebSphere MQ version 5.3, Tivoli Access Manager and IBM WebSeal. Peter was instrumental in improving the performance of their crucial Capacity Improvement Program and saving the authority just over £140,000 in hardware costs alone. Peter has also assisted in integration of existing components and in architectural design for the PPA middleware infrastructure.

June 2002 – July 2004

SchlumbergerSema / Atos Origin WebSphere Consulting Peter was engaged at SchlumbergerSema (what used to be Sema) working within one of their UNIX support teams helping review, secure and tune their existing customer WebSphere implementations. Peter was also key to the setup of new WebSphere environments. Most of these have been with HP-UX 11 and 11i, with IBM HTTP Server. One of their existing customer systems has involved a great deal of work with WebSphere and IBM SecureWay LDAP directory server for security. Peter also assisted in the formation of a dedicated middleware team and technically led the team through the implementation of WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker for a major infrastructure client and their corporate messaging hub. This added to their existing MQSI infrastructure for signalling and train movement information.

May 2002 – June 2002

On-Line Share Trading System – T.D. Waterhouse WebSphere Performance Tuning Peter was asked to help bring an on-line share trading system in to production, and to enhance the performance of the application. The application was based upon a four way WebSphere workload managed cluster. The four systems were fully populated Sun E450s running Solaris 8 and WebSphere Application Server Advanced Edition version 4. The engagement involved advanced performance monitoring and tuning of both WebSphere and the Solaris operating system.

January 2002 to April 2002– Equifax WebSphere Technical Consultant Peter has reinstated a Java based web project to production support and is helping provide training for the company technical support teams to

4 ensure they are equipped to deal with any future difficulties with the project. This project uses a variety of middleware and Java related technologies running on Sun Solaris 8. This project also involved configuration and support for Apache, Iplanet, Jserve and TomCat.

June 2001 to end December 2001 –Government Gateway Implement and Support WebSphere Certificate Authority Peter worked closely with a development team on an AIX based WebSphere Application Server deployment. The solution is clustered and workload managed between a pair of IBM RS/6000 (p-series) S7As. The solution includes MQ Series messaging to HP-UX 11 service- guarded machines.

Peter also had responsibility for the Apache based IBM HTTP Secure Server (SSL), DB2 UDB along with the setup of the WebSphere and AIX portions of this solution. After implementation, Peter designed and delivered a training course to the support staff for this project.

January 1999 - June 2001

UK Post Office Peter was engaged for two and a half years with the United Kingdom Post Office. He was a much relied upon member of their Middleware Development Group and later a crucial member of their Middleware Infrastructure Services team. Peter was working mostly with the company Encina (TX Series), WebSphere, MQ and DCE projects. One such project providing over 120 NT depot servers with transactional and messaging connections to three HP-UX application servers, fronting a 3.4TB Oracle database running on further HP-UX machines.

The solution provides multiple MQ Series Queues and multiple Encina cells based within one DCE cell, all running upon NT, AIX and HP-UX platforms. Peter has assisted with several web-based projects during this engagement, each using Microsoft Internet Information Server.

During this engagement, Peter addressed an international audience at the conference Decorum in 1999 in New Orleans.

November 1997 – January 1999 Telecommunications Company Middleware and UNIX Support Peter was engaged with a large telecommunications and cable television company providing technical support, implementation guidance and training for a new DCE and Encina based project. He became a key part of the UNIX support team, providing support for the company AIX

5 servers (including HACMP on SP) HP/9000s with HP/UX and Sun machines running a wide variety of SunOS and Solaris machines. The HP Distributed Computing Environment Servers are running DCE 1.5 and HP/UX 10.20 and Encina servers are AIX 4.1.5 with DCE 2.1 and Encina 2.5. Peter led the UNIX support team for a nine month period during this engagement.

July 1997 – November 1997 - International Merchant Bank UNIX, Middleware and Security Consultant Peter spent four months in the technical support group for an international merchant bank. While there he set up a DCE and DFS cell and an Intranet site to assist with training for the bank staff. Peter was also involved with the security special interest group within the bank and assisted with the mail backbone project.

Peter also assisted in the provision of 24 x 7 support for the bank main UNIX based trading systems.

January 1997 – July 1997 - Government Infrastructure Peter spent three months in a 300 Million Pound UK Government Infrastructure program in the role of DCE Designer. This role was a complex one, involving:-

DCE and DFS cell design and inter-cell relationships

Prototype and proof of concept work of those designs

The continuing training delivery built on Peter’s long established Middleware skills, and upon his well proven training ability - being an instructor in AIX Administration and TCP/IP part - time for four years.

June 1996 – October 1996 - Major UK Retail and Wholesale Bank Middleware Strategy Consultant Peter spent three months in the systems strategy department of a major UK retail and wholesale banking group. He proposed and highlighted the benefits of infrastructure strategies based on Intranet technologies backed by DCE and DFS infrastructure with DCE based secure single signon.

Since this consultancy work, Peter has been invited back to the bank to present a DCE Administration training course.

October 1996 - European Software House Middleware Skills Transfer Peter made a flying visit to a major European software house

6 headquarters in Paris to configure their DCE and DFS cell. This he achieved on the first morning and spent the following two and a half days giving consultancy support to the programming and design teams. Shortly after Peter’s visit, the software house made a public support statement for DCE and DFS as infrastructure over which their graphics package may be used. This allowed the software house to gain competitive advantage due to improved performance and security.

October 1996 - December 1996 - UK Defence Contractor UNIX, Catia and Middleware Support These three months were spent at a North West based UK Defence contractor providing technical support for their live operation and scoping a possible future move to a DCE/DFS based infrastructure. The user estate was a rapidly growing Catia workstation population measured in hundreds of users based on a current NIS/NFS design. Although the work was mostly AIX administration and support, the outline requirements for a DCE/DFS solution were greeted warmly by the company, who now wish to exploit the enhanced security, resilience and performance of a DCE/DFS based infrastructure.

EDUCATION

2001–2005 MSc - Liverpool University Peter successfully completed a Masters degree in Information Technology at the University of Liverpool. This is a part time. course. Modules covered included:- Object Oriented Programming in C++ Java Programming Computer Communications and Networking with Internet Protocols E-Commerce and Internet Law Computer Science Internet Programming Database Systems Software Engineering Peter’s dissertation compared the portability of current J2EE applications with that achieved with previous middleware. He did this by writing a J2EE application and porting it to BEA WebLogic, IBM WebSphere, JoNAS, JBoss and Sun application servers. The findings and lessons were written up in a 10,000 word dissertation.

Other Training Attended

7 Compuware QALoad 01/05/2007

IBM MQ Series Administration MQ15U 10/10/2001

IBM WebSphere Application Server Administration 17/08/2000

IBM WebSphere Application Server Troubleshooting 12/03/2001

IBM WebSphere Performance Tuning March 2001

IBM SP Implementation

HACMP Implementation and Support

Candle MQ Administration

INTERESTS Peter has many wide ranging interests. A sample of these include:- Contributing to local Church and village life Being a Dad Building a sports car – completed in 2004 Gardening Skiing Many sports, including squash, football and cricket Cycling Jogging – Peter took part in the 2002 Great North Run Hill walking Travel Music, including playing classical and electric guitar Many aspects of computing

Pleasant Quotations “Pete’s enthusiasm and highly regarded skills add up to being one of the best assets the account team has” - IBM Project Manager

“Pulled us back from the brink of disaster on more than one occasion” - Govt Dept. Project Manager.

“ Instructor’s knowledge was extensive” - Barclays Technical Support member after technical training given by Peter in Dorset.

“ Peter knows WebSphere inside out. Very enjoyable course, highly recommended” – IBM Business partner after training given by Peter in Dublin.

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