PROJECTS
I've been involved in many projects and programs over my career. The subject area and variety of roles I've filled across them is wide and varied.
This is discussion and detail of some of the more interesting ones.
On-Prem Elasticsearch Cluster
My role: NoSQL data modeling and schema design, DBA, Elastic engineer, senior data analyst
Overview: Elasticsearch was identified as the choice for NoSQL implementation for persistent data cache and enterprise search functions. I brought up a small 3-node cluster on Windows 2012 servers on-prem, integrated it into the existing data environment, and used it to support custom-developed websites and business applications.
Detail: Maintained and performed major and minor version upgrades to the cluster for six years. Primary engineer and analyst acrosss the Elastic stack - Elastic, Logstash, Kibana, Beats agents, as well as custom tooling. Supported ingestion, enterprise search and custom application support functions with a team of software engineers. Designed and developed data anaylsis projects in support of a variety of business functions.
Server Monitoring Program - Elastic Stack
My role: observability engineer, solution design, data engineering, data analysis
Overview: As part of a custom application development and data services team, I identified a need for Windows server monitoring tools. I stood up a second on-prem Elasticsearch cluster and implemented a fleet of agents across a large server environment to collect server-level performance metrics, built Logstash pipelines to parse and augment the data, and developed Kibana dashboards to monitor servers.
Detail: As part of a custom application development and data services team, I identified a need for Windows server monitoring and better troubleshooting methods and tools. I stood up a second on-prem Elasticsearch cluster and implemented a fleet of 100+ Elasticsearch Beats agents across to collect and forward server-level performance metrics. I built Logstash pipelines to parse and augment the incoming data and developed Kibana dashboards to monitor servers.
Observability Program - Elastic Stack
My role: observability engineer, solution design, data engineering, data analysis, business anlaysis, dashboard development
Overview: Building on the success of the server monitoring program, I implemented an observability program using event forwarding agents and data ingestion pipelines to centralize logs and events from a variety of sources.
Detail: I implemented an observability program using Elasticsearch Beats agents to forward events and log files from custom applications, Windows IIS server, Windows Event log, MSSQL jobs, SQL stored procedures, domain controllers, network firewalls, and enterprise-level vendor applications. This included log collection and parsing using Elastic Beats agents and custom Logstash pipelines for parsing and augmentation, then analysis and development of dashboards in Kibana for monitoring and troubleshooting.
Data Academy Program
My role: creator, mentor, tutor, solution designer
Overview: The Data Academy program is an ongoing activity, with the strategic objective of raising data awareness and increasing data literacy and data analysis skill across the organization. The program consists generally of mentorship and skills training and tutoring focused on the individual needs of the participants.
Detail: The Data Academy was developed in 2017 when the needs of a growing grass-roots data anlayst community within the organization required additional support. Through the Data Academy program, we connected business users across divisions and "met them where they were", and provided tutoring and training as appropriate.
- With some users, that meant basic SQL training and support to write the queries they needed
- With some that meant beginning with basic data literacy
- With some it meant tutoring in intermediate Excel skills
- Often it began with helping the analyst through a business analysis process, to help them understand what their manager was actually asking for
- In most cases it also included solution design... helping the analyst understand the available options and facilitate data access in a supportable way
- In almost every case, the work included data engineering to identify relevant enterprise applications and establish an ETL pipeline and augmentation to an end-user datamart
The program began organically out of trouble-shooting requests from analysts and managers across the organization, which helped identify those individuals with an aptitude and interest in data anlaysis work.
Employee Engagement Application
My role: business analysis, solution design, data schema design, application development
Overview: In 2018, the organizaton undertook a formal Design Sprint that included a cross-functional group to determine the future of performance management. I was invited to participate in that group, and then was part of the development team that built the application to support the program.
CMS Migration
My role: solution design, project lead
Overview: The organization undertook a migration of website content management system across a portfolio of 35 websites. I led a team of 2 developers and 12 temporary employees through the process of rebuilding the websites and migrating content to the new CMS.
Utility Service Administration
My role: business analysis, solution design, process design, application interface design, testing, change mangement, legacy data conversion
Overview: A small utility service administration group presented with a request for support with a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. The problem turned out to be the tracking method that had been implemented "years ago" had reached the maximum number of columns for Excel. (That number is 16,384 columns, if you're curious).