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As part of a larger digital transformation I was responsible for the architecture of their Discovery, modelling application architecture and data integration pipelines to the CMDB.

The initial deployment was minimal and did not cover the whole estate, which was airgapped. I was challenged to come up with an architecture which would be suitable enough capture data across the airgapped environments. The proposed solution involved manual DB snapshots which would be transferred by ftp, however this was later dropped in favour of deployment of a mutual shared platform, which was desperately needed.

This was a part-time multi-year engagement, during this time I developed and delivered various customatisations to their data collection and pipeline, such as:

• SSL Certificate Discovery
• Netcool edge device intergration
• Service modelling
• Reporting and analytics
• Written maintenance manual

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I worked 3 short projects with a US-based energy company over a period of three years to develop customisations to the data pipeline to their CMDB. This was to enable a front-end form for application ownership selection. For this they needed specifically to be able to extract metadata from their IBM DB2, MSSQL, Oracle, MongoDB and MariaDB databases for promotion to the front-end display.

The solution involved custom TPL code applied to BMC Discovery, which used a combination of SQL connections of JDBC and API connectivity with MongoDB. Both Discovery and the CMDB sync connections needed to be modified to make it work.

MongoDB presented the most challenging connection as Discovery was not built for a direct integration, so the solution called for running the API retrieval queries directly on the server as it scanned, with a local encrypted text file which contained the API credentials. The output was then retrieved the normal way.

The solution allowed for the client to be able to correctly identify and assign ownership for their database dependent applications.

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A UK non-profit organisation planned datacenter move within the next 12 months. The required an understanding of their environment, the servers, applications and storage. Their main focus was on Production, DMZ and Disaster Recovery.

A successful proof of concept had been carried out prior and they were ready for deployment of the ITAM scanning solution.

A workshop was conducted to assess their capabilities and readiness as well as determine how the solution would be deployed. This results in a Solution Design and commencement of the deployment of scanning.

The client also required modelling of their application architecture in preparation, so they could understand the dependencies for the move. As well as delivering on these requirements within a six week timeframe, I was able to provide additional value by identifying approximately 100 Windows servers that were out of compliance.

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I was brought in to architect and deliver an data pipeline for updating their CMDBs from multiple data sources. The CMDB itself was hosted on Salesforce and the data sources were Discovery, Active Directory, Spreadsheets and SCCM.

A particular challenge was being restricted to operating remotely using TeamViewer – which does not perform well over data instensive remote connections – and requires an active user on the end to keep the connection going. This did cause development work to go much slower than planned, but thankfully did not cause overall delay to project.

The integrations were developed, tested and deployed successfully to the satisfaction of the client.

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Over the years I built a relationship with this global fashion brand in facilitating their ongoing digital transformation. The first engagement was in architecting and implementing a number of critical integrations with their CMDB from various data sources, allowing them to gain full central visiblity of their enterprise infrastructure. Later, I was again called upon to re-architect and extend the earlier integrations in preparation for a move of CMDB cloud platforms.

As a Principle Solutions Architect I also oversaw the technical delivery of their managed services – consulting on roadmaps and strategy with the client. I built a trusting working relationship and also proposed and worked on implementing a new feature of exception reporting, which helped them to identify, understand and narrow down the discrepencies between source data and CMDB data. The result was clear visibility and improved data quality of their CMDB.

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I maintained a long-term relationship with a European Investment Bank based in Canary Wharf. As part of a team of consultants we had repeat work to maintain and upgrade their ITAM solution. I personally delivered on a 3-week critical project to facilitate a database migration. This involved liaising with lead DBAs to extract metadata from MS SQL, PostgreSQL and Sybase databases for the solution architecture.

This was a sensitive project given the job threat to the existing DBA SMEs. I faced open hostility from one SME in particular who’s tactic was to delay providing information and not respond to emails.

I resolved this with face to face contact, without letting any request go unanswered. I also used low-level escalation to my project sponsor. This did result in a tactical complaint from the SME to the project board, however my sponsor was satisfied with my approach, hitting their 3-week deadline and no fault could be found. I resolved not to make matters personal, which is how I managed to stay focused on delivery.

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I was assigned as a consultant to a large Middle Eastern Oil Company for six weeks onsite. BMC Discovery was their chosen IT Asset Management solution and their objectives were to deploy, scan their networks and model various services comprised of Oracle RAC Clusters, IBM LPARs and HMCs, Databases and add 2-way CMDB synchronisataion with custom asset locations.

The deployment and solution was delivered within the six week timeframe to satisfaction of the client. In addition they were supplied with various reports as value add. In one case they were able to identify a number of database servers which had been marked as decommissioned but not physically turned off. This improved their visibility and avoided ongoing costs and risk of exploited vulnerabilities in unmonitored infrastructure.

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However I found a couple of annoyances when running it from CLI, one was in having to keep a terminal window open, the other was having to run it from it’s install directory – particularly when it comes to relative path names for kettle jobs.

So I created an alias that runs PDI in an interactive shell allowing you to run it from one a word command, and it occurred to me that this might be useful to share. Here you go:

alias spoon='sh -c '\''cd /opt/pentaho/data-integration; ./spoon.sh&'\'''

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