Erik Piip

Name: Erik Piip

Address: Oru 1, Tartu, 51005, Tartumaa, Estonia
E-mail: erik [at] eggo.org
Contact telephone: +372 53495454
Home telephone: +372 7422277
Skype: erikpii
Languages: English & Estonian

Introduction:

Extensive IT Industry skills, Systems Management, IT infrastructure team Management, User Support, Project Management and Design experience.

Employment History:

08/2004 – Present
Owner and principal technical person of Prescott OÜ, providing IT technical and project related services.

Tasks / activities / accomplishments include;

  • Installation of interoffice (U.K.Tartu) VPN, providing access to U.K. hosted manufacturing systems.
  • Installation of interoffice (U.K.Tartu) VOIP connection, delivering significant cost reductions, and improving internal communications.
  • Installation of automated off-site backup processes.
  • Installation of security camera systems, using a mix of traditional analog cameras, and new IP connected cameras.
    Software: Linux and Zoneminder, an open source software package,
  • Installation of e-mail, web, DNS, groupware servers and services.
  • LAN building, (wired and wi-fi), integration and support.
  • On-site and remote support of UK client’s servers and network. Provided phone and e-mail backup to their “low level” on-site person. He also worked as my eyes and hands when something physical needed doing.
  • Installation and support of e-POS systems.
  • On-site (U.S.A.) installation of Telescope and Observatory control systems, and maintenance.

04/2010 – 08/2010
Skype, Tallinn, Estonia. (5 Month Contract)
Project Manager.

Managed migration from MoinMoin Wiki to new Confluence platform.
Task / Activities included

  • Develop and fine tune migration procedures, minimize dependencies on IT etc.
  • Scheduling and interfacing with groups being migrated, organized training etc.
  • Be primary contact person associated with moves.
  • Worked with software contractor to fix / improve migrator script.
  • Manage exceptions, special cases, and answer questions.
  • Provided feedback to upper management.

12/1996 – 07/2004
Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (www.merl.com), Cambridge, MA, USA.
Manager of Computer and Network Services.

Tasks/assignments:
Managed, and contributed to, the renewal and support of computer and network infrastructure.
Designed, planed, and implemented renewal and expansion of infrastructure; Servers: File, Web, Network (Wan and LAN), Telephone, Backup, Network security, and Physical plant.

  • Managed support team, and directly contributed to, providing “Infrastructure Services”. Desktop, Linux, Digital Unix (Tru64), Sun derivatives, Windows, development tools (MS and Linux), accounting software, user mail, printers etc…
  • Managed outside consultants hired to meet specific projects goals.
  • Supported the lab’s ongoing research projects by ensuring that resources were in place when they were needed. Hardware, Software or Infrastructure.
  • Provided technical and management support to two external labs, before they were merged into primary lab.
  • Managed “technical” purchasing for the Lab.

Main accomplishments:

  • Rebuilt IT organization.
  • Rebuilt infrastructure so that it provided the level of functionality and reliably required by the lab.
  • Managed two major lab integrations.
    Consolidated 3 geographically distributed labs into one lab.
  • Maintained IT team’s size, even though the lab (our customer base) grew from 30 people to almost 100. During the summer, the user base would also swell due to the addition of 30-50 interns.
  • Grew File Services, through three generations of servers, using Digital/Compaq (now HP) storageworks SAN technologies.
  • Ensured that server and desktop data was protected (backed-up) and managed.
    Legado Networker, and three generations of tape libraries.
  • Expanded our WAN connection from a single 1.4 Mbit (T1) connection, to redundant high speed connections, to separate ISPs, running BGP to manage the external route.
  • Rebuilt internal LAN from initial 2 hub-based subnets, through two generations of switch based LANS, consisting of more than 10 subnets, with fiber interconnects.
  • Built several generations of network services, including e-mail, internal + external DNS, DHCP, NFS and SMB file services, cvs, ypbind, ntp, backups, web servers, group calendar (groupware), firewalls, vpn, wi-fi, availability monitoring and phone system.
  • Specified and installed a new phone system to accommodate the growing number of people in the merged labs.
  • Built Nagios infrastructure monitoring system. Monitoring services, performance, availability, and network connectivity, with failure notification via SMS.
  • Computer-room rebuild to accommodate increasing numbers of servers. This included expansion of power, air-conditioning and cable management infrastructure.
  • Built hardware for two moderately sized Beowulf clusters used by the lab for running compute intensive experiments. Supervised s/w integration/installation.

09/1990 – 07/1996
Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) USA
Serviceability, Service Delivery and Development Engineer.

Digital Equipment invited me to move from Australia to the U.S.A. to work on their 64 bit Alpha Server products.

Tasks/assignments:
Responsible for developing Fault Management and Serviceability strategies. Worked along side h/w and s/w developers to create systems that were fast and maintainable.

  • Developed processes to log and manage failures.
  • Worked with worldwide field service organizations to plan support readiness.
  • Developed worldwide service plans, service documentation, and training courses for field and support personnel.
  • Participated in several industry groups.
  • Developed remote access features (h/w and s/w) that were supplied as an add-on card, and later integrated into several generations of servers.

Supported the successful introduction of several generations of Alpha Server platforms.

1988 – 1990
Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) Australia
Serviceability Engineer.

  • Interfaced between services organization, and product development (h/w & s/w) group.
  • Managed world-wide product services organization readiness.

Supported successful launch and life-cycle support of the first world-wide products to come from Digital Australia.

1981 – 1988
Digital Equipment Corp, Australia
Computer Services Support Engineer

Provided remote and on-site support to service personnel throughout Australia and New Zealand. Interfaced with product engineering groups about problems requiring product modification to resolve.

1977 – 1981
Digital Equipment Corp, Australia
Computer Service Engineer

On-site repair of computers and peripherals.

1973 – 1977
NCR Australia
Computer service engineer

On-site repair of computers and peripherals. Repair of mechanical accounting and sales machines.


Language Skills

English – “Native” speaker
Estonian – Estonian my first language. Good speaking skills, but weak at reading & writing.

Strengths:

  • Fast learner.
  • Willing to try / explore unusual and new opportunities.
  • Systems person. Can see the “Big picture”.
  • Excellent trouble shooter. Experienced in leveraging other people’s skills to identify and resolve problems in areas that I don’t have specific (or strong) knowledge of.
  • Apply systems level approach to tasks.
  • Hard worker.
  • Communications. Able to explain complex concepts to non-technical people.
  • International perspective.

Personal qualities:

  • Friendly.
  • Honest.
  • Willingness to listen and learn.
  • Able to work with a diverse range of people.
  • World outlook, having lived in numerous countries during my lifetime.
  • Strong personal & work commitment.
  • Proactive.
  • Desire to help, make things happen.

Places of residence:
1954 – 1960 USA
1960 – 1973 Bermuda (School in UK and USA)
1973 – 1990 Australia (Sydney and Canberra)
1990 – 2004 Massachusetts, USA
2004 – Present Tartu Estonia.

Interests, hobbies:

  • Amateur radio.
    • Licensed since 1972. Current calls, ES5RV (Estonia) and KA1RV (USA).
    • President of local radio club for 8 years in America.
    • Organized Amateur Radio support for an annual public service event, to raise money for school sports programs. This required close co-operation with Town officials, Race organizers, Police, etc. Did this for 10 years before moving to Estonia.
    • Participated many other public service events, providing communications.
  • Astronomy:
    • Built 0.5 Meter telescope.
    • Worked with colleague to design and manufacture a computer control system for telescopes.
  • Photography.
  • Computers
    • Keeping current with Linux
    • Install various open-source packages needed to run home infrastructure.
      Phone (VOIP/sip), network, security, web etc…
  • Travel