Mgr. MICHAL ARON, [email protected], LinkedIN, Brno @ Czech Republic

Who am I?

.. awkward motto

A being who was born too late to explore the Earth and too early to discover the Universe.. However somewhat at the right time to challenge his mind.

.. beginings

   How it all started? While slowly reaching the end of "living under my parents roof" era I had started thinking where I had to go to be able to fulfill what I dreamed of once or twice..

   My true passion where computer networks. High school I chose had a Cisco Academy (RCNA) and that was the only place in our region I could make sense. Slowly, what at the beginning seemed to be scarecrow, because of my troubled English, turned into true passion.. This was very first obstacle I learnt is in only my power to overcome.. Firstly focusing on my vocabulary then understanding the payload.. and it worked. Step by step everything started to make sense the first try I read it.

.. later beginings

   Finally I was on the path but hadn't yet knew the next stop. Put myself straight into the production or have me thorough some "build" pipeline.. At the end decision was simple. I was missing all that theory around informatics so the decision was clear. But where? Did some research and it was clear - Brno. Brno is the biggest cradle of IT carriers far and wide. It hosts countless sessions not just about new technologies.. However I chose studies over getting real work experience I wanted to invest minimum time possible. There where 2 options.. More practical but not very "remote" studies on VUT vs. theoretically oriented IT Masaryk University has. I really didn't want to find myself last year my engineering studies with full day schedule so I went for the master degree. With that decision I was able to complete 90% of bachelor program in the first 2 years and then it happen.. Last exam on Friday and my very first job within the field starting on Monday.

   Having this regime I survived 3 years of full time job and present studies. It was mainly because university provided us a remote way to be still part of the studies. During that period I switched the team to do more serious and challenging work.

.. fresh start

   After completing my degree I suddenly realized I have non-occupied mind. Current position was far from personal satisfaction. Didn't take long I resigned and took the position directly in the open field. No one above you, no one below you - just you. That requires completely different mindset and not everybody will go for it. Another benefit was finally to be able to put my hands on the stuff - do the stuff, design it and implement it. All that with minimum supervision. Sometimes it was madness but it was good madness.

.. the breaking point

   Later on I was proposed a chance to change my carrier path. Since the beginning I was doing automation and scripting and the management wanted to establish a local development team within the IT. I knew it would be difficult but I also knew challenges make me alive and I went for it. While still working as a network engineer, starting with just "school" development projects + 4 months of continuous learning and practicing I was able to deliver a standalone end-to-end web application. It was built on Java 8, Hibernate, Spring and AngularJS. Once they saw the final prototype they offered me the position. The main purpose of this project was to create "the automation system" which will unify IT environment, offload routine job and address problems directly and more effectively. Later on we discovered we are able to implement the idea of single information system for everything. Having already the environment and data structure to integrate to I slowly started to migrate external systems into my system.

.. something ends, something begins

   It was a good period, I learnt a lot but suddenly happend what everybody in NetSuite feared of most. Stock stayed solid rock for couple of weeks so it was just matter of time. Oracle "finally" acquired NetSuite and all we who liked progress and innovations have signed for the dooms day.

I don't regret it.. It was a good run. I am just glad NetSuite made me motivated enough I was able to fully transform into Development/DevOps part so I can continue my growth somewhere else.


HOBBIES


Tech world: development, devops, sysadmin, networking, virtualization, automation, monitoring innovation.
Real world: kayaking, paragliding, hiking, volleyball, dancing, cooking, reading, exploring, traveling, traveling back, eating, exercising, sleeping, sleeping, sleeping.

WORK EXPERIENCE

*
AT&T Brno
GSNI | Network Services


  • Dates (from - to): May 2018 - now
  • Position held: Senior Software Developer

Main activities and responsibilities:

Development and partially DevOPS of Software Defined Networking (SDN). Developing a portal, which acts as a proxy, to communicate with multiple systems not only on premise in order to operate the data-center itself from its initial setup through the live operation until service decommission. Those systems are various network orchestrators, microservicies, VMware managers. Opendaylight and others. Handling numerous data-center devices such as Switches, Routers, Firewalls, Loadbalancers.. Then the virtualization part as well. Along with SDN we utilize other non less important services like Asset Management, Change Management, Monitoring, and many others, whose are then exposed to the customer himself for the operation. System has integrated Role Based Access Control (RBAC) to handle multi-tenancy per the customer within the single instance. Here I take care about backend and frontend part as well as some microservices.

Other part is CI/CD of this project. We use the power of Docker containers using the docker-compose and Jenkins pipeline automation. Currently in the process of migrating into Kubernetes cluster to gain from automating application deployment, scaling, and management.

*
NetSuite (Oracle)
IT Global Infrastructure | Tools and Automation team


  • Dates (from - to): April 2016 till April 2018
  • Position held: Software Developer

Main activities and responsibilities:

Designing and developing information system for the IT department in NetSuite.

The idea is to provide a single web based system where the whole infrastructure is modeled into entities and is referenceable from the network using the exposed API. This is essential to allow other scripts/tools to integrate with my system if needed. Goal is to utilize common functionalities over the modeled infrastructure and automate what can be automated. Another main objective is to get rid of other third-party systems and replace their functionality. System is fully integrated with the AD. Internal services allow direct reference of users and groups pooled from the AD for sharing and notifying purposes.

Features: lifecycle of objects, dashboard, monitoring, event history, user scripting and SNMP pooling, scheduling and automating tasks, exporting, configuration manager, user password manager, change management and others.

Web Application:
RESTful web application where backend part is Java and frontend is JavaScript.
Backend – Java 8, Spring, Maven, Hibernate, PostgreSQL and others.
Frontend – Powered by AngularJS (JavaScript, jQuery, less/sass).
It is being hosted on Debian system under my management.

*
NetSuite (Oracle)
IT Global Infrastructure | Network team


  • Dates (from - to): November 2014 - March 2016
  • Position held: Senior Network Engineer

Main activities and responsibilities:

Working in IT department as a network engineer. Building, maintaining and troubleshooting company’s worldwide corporate network. Network consists of wired as well as wireless part. In addition to standard network protocols we work with real-time traffic as VoIP and media streaming. This position often requires to work with system and security departments at close quarters.

Our network is a multivendor environment. We are using mostly Juniper SRXs (in a cluster) for FWs. However, we still have some ASAs around. For a L3 standardized branch infrastructure mostly it is 3750s in a stack. For not-yet standardized (L2) part Catalyst 4500s, 6500s and 2960s. Alcatel Lucent Omni Switches 6900 in a POD for our data centers.

Since NetSuite’s network used to be in a very bad condition our main priority was to redesign it to mitigate network outages and fluctuation.

Main experiences in:

  • Integration of new companies (small to medium size).
  • Redesigning branches (different sizes).
  • Migrating branches to a new network infrastructure.
  • Data Center network setup and its maintenance.
  • Firewalls maintenance.
  • Load balancers configuration and maintenance.
  • Working in a LAB – testing fixes, new ideas and various implementations.
  • Others - ISP links activation, TS with vendor.

My side job is to provide tooling for our corporate network. I created a full-size business web application where I modeled our HW on the network along with multiple apps/tasks/activities which help us organize and perform work in the most efficient way possible. Apart from various automation It provides also monitoring and scripting interface for the network. Toll is being continuously developed.

*
AT&T Brno
Mobility | Packet Core Tier 2


  • Dates (from - to): July 2012 - October 2014
  • Position held: Network Engineer

Main activities and responsibilities:

Member of a team responsible for the core network of AT&T Mobility through which flows GSM, UMTS and LTE traffic. The network is composed of roughly 70 000 devices of which 70% are Cisco, about 20% Alcatel and the rest legacy technologies. The position requires strong understanding and troubleshooting skills with OSPF since the whole routing is based on multiarea OSPF. Other significant protocols on which I gained experience are: BFD, HSRP, STP, VTP, MPLS, QoS, etc.

Troubleshooting on trouble tickets. Providing technical support for the customers. Network life-cycle. Leading outage bridges. Creating technical documentation. Scripting and working on automatization. Creating desktop-based and web-based applications (ticketing system interface, reporting tool, automating tools, device inventory, correlation between systems, etc.).

*
AT&T Brno
Mobility | Software Integration


  • Dates (from - to): Jun 2011 - Jun 2012
  • Position held: Network Control Specialist

Main activities and responsibilities:

Performing software upgrades on AT&T mobility devices, responsible for the upgrade process and providing technical support to customers.

EDUCATION AND TRAININGS

EDUCATION

★
Masaryk University in Brno

Faculty of Informatics
/Master/


☆
Masaryk University in Brno

Faculty of Informatics
/Bachelor/


  • Dates: September 2009 - Jun 2012
  • Branch: Computer networks and Communication
  • Diploma thesis: Implementation of VoIP technologies into IP networks

◆
SPŠE in Prešov, Slovakia

The Secondary Vocational school of Electrical engineering


  • Dates: September 2005 - Jun 2009
  • Branch: Computer systems and Network technologies
  • Leaving exam: CCNA 640-802 certification

TRAININGS

2015
ALU Access switching training in Vienna provided by Alcatel Lucent.
ALU Core switching training in Vienna provided by Alcatel Lucent.

2014
Juniper JNCIE-SEC training in London provided by Juniper.

2013
Juniper JNCIA, JNCIS, JNCIP training courses provided by Juniper Networks.
Experience with SRXs as virtual devices.

2012
Cisco VOICE (CCVP) course at Masaryk University finished by Bachelor thesis.

2010
CCNP Route training at Technical University in Košice.

COURSES

Masaryk university:
C, C++, Java, CVOICE lectures and Bachelor thesis

Self learning & courses:
CCNA, CCNA Security, CCNP Route, CCNP Switch, CVOICE. Java, JavaScript, Visual basic, Linux, AngularJS, NodeJS.
Linux/UNIX, Debian/Ubuntu.

TECHNICAL SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES

NETWORKING WORLD

Experience on mobility devices, mobile networks and components.
Cisco and Juniper Networks – routing and switching, security, VPNs (L3VPNs, L2VPNs, AToM), VRFs, MPLS, MPLS-TE, RSVP, OSPF, BGP (MP-BGP), EIGRP, BFD, RIP, SLA, QoS, HSRP, GLBP, VRRP, SVI, VLANS. Traffic engineering and high availability (MPLS). Firewall and policy configuration on Juniper. High availability on Juniper cluster.

Experience on the following platforms:
Cisco – 2900, 2950, 2960, 3550, 3745, 7200, 7600, 1800, 2800, 3800, 3850, 3750.
Juniper – SRX Firewalls 240, 650, 550.
ALU – Omni Switches 6900, (6250, 6450, 6850, 6860).
OpenGear - IM4200, IM7200.
Theoretical knowledge about Linux and experience as average administrator.

PROGRAMMING WORLD

Mostly web and console application for tooling and automatization. From implementing simple standalone applications up to business applications with frontend, backend and business layer.

BACKEND:

Java EE 8/11, Maven, Hibernate, Python
Frameworks
Spring, Spring Boot, Spring Security, Spring MVC, Spring REST, JAX-RS, JavaFX, Node..

FRONTEND:

JavaScript, , Typescript, jQuery, CSS3, LESS/SASS
Frameworks
AngularJS/Angular, Vue.js, Node, Gulp, Cypress.

DATABASES:

MySQL, MariaDB, Postgres SQL, MongoDB.

DEVOPS/SysAdmin:

Docker, Docker-Compose, CoreOS, Kubernetes, Jenkins, Jira, Confluence, Azure, OpenVPN, Samba, GitLab, Nextcloud,..

VIRTUALIZATION:

• KVM – CPU/GPU Passthrough.
• VMware solutions – vSphere/vCenter. Mainly for emulating network equipment, creating virtual networks and experimenting with the virtualization technology itself.
• Proxmox.

CERTIFICATIONS

Commercial exams or certifications:
CCNP Switch 640-813 (all valid through 02/ 2017)
CCNP Route 640-902
CCNA Security 640-553
CCNA 640-802
JNCIA JN0-102

Other certifications:
Certificate of Professional competence with electric appliances up to 1000 Volts.
First class Certificate City & Guilds Level 1 Certificate in ESOL International – B2.

CONCLUSION

General overview:


Networking:


Programming:


SysAdmin/DevOPS:


Frameworks: