My name is Tim Verbois, I’m a Linux/Unix system engineer for over 20 years. I got my university degree in Computer science in Diepenbeek (UHasselt now) in 2001 as a co-administrator of the student Linux server Lumumba.
After I graduated, I started working for a consultancy firm as a Unix consultant and worked there for 10 years for government agencies and an international bank. My specialty was Solaris at the time.
After 10 years, I decided to start my own firm and started working for an international IT Firm. Their customers consisted of banks and more government agencies. The bank I worked for was heaving trouble with their HPUX machines and since this was the heart of the bank, the pressure was high. I quickly started studying hard to learn HPUX in depth and since the problems were piling up, I got the chance to learn very quickly. A few months later, I became a Certified HPUX system administrator. Over the course of the following 10 years, I did just about everything on these machines and since the bank was growing exponentially, the old RX machines were replaced by several Superdome machines. As HPUX specialist in the team, I did most of the migrations and established a solid foundation for a stable environment as wel as automating the environment as much as possible.
As a programmer by nature, I always used scripting languages to make my life easier. Obviously this includes Shell scripting but also a lot of Perl and some Python. I even wrote several programs in C and C++ on Unix machines. This was done because perl scripts were too slow for the job. Later on, I started using jenkins so I used Groovy extensively. But, my biggest specialty lies in Perl. I wrote several frameworks in it to support daily operations that are used by multiple teams (like a framework to refresh DB environments). It is in the light of that, that I became very familiar with the Raidmanager commands (pair-commands) and configurations (horcm files). I can also call myself a real specialist in that area as well.
During the past 2 years, I started combining my role as HPUX specialist with working on container platforms (Kubernetes, Openshift) and I’m proud to say, I’m a Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift Application Development.
However, I still love working on HPUX systems and I’m very good at it. I especially excel in crisis situations. I can think fast, rappidly adopt to new circumstances and stay calm at any time. During my 20 years of experience, I’ve been in the middle of a crisis lots of times. I’m not scared, being in a room (or call) with dozens of people all waiting for me to figure out a solution to the problem. Actually, I love that situation, because I know, I will not let them down.
So, if you have a problem, even if you need assistance immediately, don’t look any further, contact me!