Patrick Pierson

Patrick Pierson | DevOps Engineer

Frederick, Maryland

me@patrickpierson.us

Dedicated to providing timely support to team members and customers in collaborative, high-performing agile environments working towards a common goal. Demonstrated expertise with SysOps/DevOps of Windows and Linux platforms on bare-metal and virtual environments, both on-premise and in the Cloud. Experience operating and maintaining full-stack applications and distributed computing frameworks in development and production. Military Service in intelligence operations and information technology provides a unique insight into systems, networks, and security in support of mission elements/environments. Strives to find new ways to use existing/emerging computer systems and software to achieve greater efficiency, performance, and operational capability for lower total cost of ownership.

Certifications

SysOps Certified, Amazon Web Services

Formal Education

  • U.S. Army; Mosul, Iraq; Information Assurance Security Officer Certification - Fall 2007
  • U.S. Army; Ft. Bragg, NC; Warrior Leaders Course - Summer 2007
  • U.S. Army; Seoul, South Korea; Counterintelligence Liaison Course - Summer 2006
  • U.S. Army; Ft. Huachuca, AZ; Intelligence School - Fall 2005
  • Associates of Applied Science, Intelligence Operations, Cochise College (Honors) - Fall 2005

Professional Experience

06/2018 - Present, Director of Cloud Infrastructure, IronNet Cybersecurity, Frederick, MD

At IronNet, our mission is to develop cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions to defend companies, industries and nations from advanced threats. Our products and services provide the high-fidelity detection and visibility to close dangerous gaps in an enterprise’s security infrastructure. Using a combination of massive scale analytics, tradecraft expertise, integrated cyber hunt, and a game-changing collective defense capability, we help enterprises demonstrably reduce cyber risk in their environments and across their industry sector.

  • Champion for all Cloud Infrastructure projects within the Product Engineering and Corperate Infrastrucutre departments.
  • Leads all Product Engineering product releases.
  • Lead effort to automate AWS account creation to enable IronNet to onboard managed customer accounts easier.
  • Lead end-to-end testing framework team for IronNet Analytics.

01/2016 - 06/2018, Lead DevOps Engineer, Ion Channel, Frederick, MD

Ion Channel is a data platform and service that allows organizations to risk-manage their software supply chain and increase the robustness and resilience of their software infrastructure.

  • Designed new Amazon Web Services environments for development, test, and production.
  • Wrote and deploys new SaltStack states to configure each environment.
  • Implemented Amazon's Elastic Container Service as a replacement for existing infrastructure.

02/2013 - 01/2016, Principal Systems Engineer, Berico Technologies, Reston, VA

  • Lead all Amazon Web Services utilization, regularly leveraging managed services in support of SysOps/DevOps activities, to include Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2), Simple Storage Service (S3), Glacier, Elastic Block Store (EBS), Elastic Load Balancer (ELB), CloudFormation, Route53, Auto-Scale Groups, Security Groups, Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Virtual Private Network (VPN), CloudWatch, Identity Access Management (IAM), and Elastic Transcoder. SysOps Certified on AWS.
  • Instantiated several shared Hadoop/ElasticSearch/Redis clusters on Linux with SELinux enabled for data processing on virtualized private and bare-metal restricted networks. As directed, leveraged Saltstack to build a Hadoop Client configuration for distributed developer cluster utilization. Also Salted Icinga, Gitlab, Nagios, and osTicket system builds.
  • Implemented Kerberos on a Cloudera Distributed Hadoop (CDH) 4 cluster using Kerberos 5 Server/Workstation. Created the Kerberos domain in a dedicated domain controller for this Hadoop cluster. Updated Java with the unlimited strength jurisdiction policy file for AES 256 bit encryption.
  • Wrote Salt configuration scripts that would configure the Icinga reporting client using the Nagios Remote Plugin Executor (NRPE) to register itself and report on various aspects of dynamically provisioned machines (virtual/bare-metal), based on their purpose, according to Salt parameters.
  • Instantiated Icinga Server for data center active/passive monitoring of network, virtual, and bare-metal assets. Implemented and created more than a dozen custom agents using Python to perform active/passive monitoring of components, to include ElasticSearch, and Hadoop against Icinga thresholds.
  • Employed OpenAudit to automate the discovery of machines and network devices in a Data Center for a Customer to retrieve endpoint configuration details and to detect and notify on changes.
  • Implemented centralized logging using ElasticSearch, LogStash and Kibana (ELK). Added Redis in between client and server logstash nodes for caching/persistence to enable real-time online updates to the logstash configuration.
  • Using the open source project Aqueduct and Puppet to automate machine builds (virtual/bare-metal) with the appropriate Defense Information System Agency (DISA) Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGs).
  • Replaced VMWare vSphere deployment with oVirt implementation within a Customer’s Data Center, reducing their overall cost of operations.
  • Implemented a 15 TB 10 node Gluster cluster at Berico, a distributed object store, for the purpose of storing program/infrastructure virtual machines for internal systems and projects.
  • Instantiated and continue to maintain Berico DevOps environment, comprised of Jenkins, Maven, Mimosa, MSBuild, Cucumber and SeleniumGrid, interfacing with Bitbucket and Github, running across Windows and Linux machines on OpenStack, oVirt and AWS virtual environments.
  • Implemented replacement of existing Dell SonicWall firewall with PFsense VK-T40E firewall.

06/2011 - 02/2013, Field Service Engineer, Sierra Nevada Corporation, Hagerstown, MD

  • Provided timely computer systems support to field operations in the form of Windows and Linux platform software installs, virtualized using VMWare.
  • Maintained and secured enterprise environments running on Dell servers and VMware virtual machines.
  • Implemented Nagios monitoring system hosted on a virtual Fedora server to show network utilization and to send notifications in the event of system failure.
  • Setup and maintained Postfix mail server hosted on a virtual Fedora server handling thousands of emails per month.
  • Built and implemented open source trouble ticket system, Open Technology Real Services (OTRS) 3.2, to track issues with systems reported from enterprise users.

06/2009 - 06/2011, System Administrator/Telephone Technician, AT&T, Chantilly, VA

  • Managed a small team that provided upgrades to thousands of Dell computers over a four month span.
  • Upgraded multiple sites infrastructure to give the customers/equipment more bandwidth.
  • Maintained and operated SCCM and AD servers as well as Cisco and Foundry networks.
  • Assisted in the management and deployment of VoIP networks.
  • Assisted customers with trouble ticket issues within the contract’s service level agreement time frame.
  • Provided weekly briefings to superiors on program's progress and future productivity.
  • Daily operation of Cisco 1800/2800/3800 series Routers, Cisco Catalyst switches, Foundry Fast Iron, Big Iron switches , and Juniper EX series Switches.

02/2006 - 12/2008, Counterintelligence Agent/System Administrator, U.S. Army Uijongbu, South Korea; Ft. Bragg, NC; Mosul, Iraq

  • Designed and implemented multiple computer networks to utilize unit’s space more efficiently.
  • Provided helpdesk support while conducting primary mission as an intelligence collector.
  • Worked with Information Assurance authorities to investigate network vulnerabilities.
  • Met with local foreign nationals to gather specific intelligence information on areas of U.S. interest.
  • Handled over one hundred human intelligence sources in multiple countries.
  • Provided weekly briefs on the threats that foreign intelligence pose to the U.S. Military.

06/2003 - 06/2005, Radio DJ/Chief Engineer, WMBC at University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD

  • Hosted talk radio shows on University of Maryland Baltimore County's (UMBC) radio station.
  • Maintained station’s equipment and created a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) system using Linux to play CDs sent from record labels on air seamlessly.
  • Master of ceremonies for live concerts and promotional events.

Non-Profit Experience

06/2018 - Present, Senior Vice Commander, VFW Post 3285, Frederick, MD.

  • Lead membership and recruiting efforts

09/2017 - 06/2018, Post Adjutant, VFW Post 3285, Frederick, MD.

  • Official corresponding officer for the Post.
  • Maintains records of all meetings.
  • Reports directly to post Commander on all matters.

08/2012 - Present, Information Technology Consultant, Koolhof Earth, Columbia, MD.

  • Migrated website to new server (CentOS, Apache, PHP5 and MySQL updates and modifications).
  • Seamless migration to new mail service using Google Apps for Non-profits.
  • Sole administrator of Google Apps for Non-profits domain services.