My Life / Business
"The strength of our future lies in our past."
Pastperfect, VNV Nation
(Victory Not Vengeance)
Sometimes you ask yourself what have you done with your life.
Did you make the world a better place? Will people remember you
and your work? What is life good for? How much do we have to care
for others? What is life all about? Just our personal fun? Or is
there something bigger and greater that we live for?
In reverse chronological order, this is a list of companies
and institutions I worked for so far. No rage, no regret. I loved
working for every single one of them. And maybe, I helped making
the world a somewhat better place ...
Espoo, Finland / Bristol, England, January 02, 2008
Nokia Siemens Networks today announced the intended acquisition of
Apertio Ltd., the leading provider of open real-time subscriber
data platforms and applications built specifically for mobile,
fixed, and converged telecommunications operators.
Nokia Siemens Networks will pay around €140 million for the acquisition,
which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008.
On 8 October 2007, Netzwert was acquired by Apertio Ltd.
Apertio is a UK-based company. They felt that their
directory server One-NDS and Netzwert's AAA software
might fit together just perfectly fine.
Bridging Worlds - a new challenge after a long time.
Netzwert AG offers solutions to connect the world of
mobile communication with the world of the Internet.
Customers include several major European mobile
telecommunication service providers.
Since April 2003, I'm Netzwert's senior systems engineer
which includes many tasks like systems architecture,
systems development and also administrative tasks.
PSINet founded Inter.net as an independent company to focus on
consumer customers, while PSINet itself focused on business customers.
The so-called
Virtual Internet Service Provider
(VISP) platform, originally designed and built for PSINet,
now was the primary business of Inter.net.
For Inter.net Germany, I was the manager of systems administration
and development, including my own staff.
Every real sysadmin should do one thing once in his life:
Movement of server room, including AC + UPS, with hundred thousands
of customers on live systems. This was quite an experience!
Of course, full success.
Actually, this wasn't a new job, but the company simply changed
it's name. My work was still the same, but more focused on
development.
Like they did with INX, PSINet bought more than
a dozen of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) all over the world.
To consolidate all the consumer customers world-wide,
I was one of the head developers for a highly
available, high-performance platform to offer Internet
services to all consumer customers world-wide (more than
a million at that time).
This was the birth of the so-called
Virtual Internet Service Provider
(VISP) platform.
Similar to telecommunication resellers, this platform
was designed for ISP resellers and companies without
its own technical infrastructure. This platform was
based on SUN Enterprise servers (booting via FibreChannel
over FibreChannel switches - which was absolutely unusual
and highly advanced at that point of time), SUN Enterprise
High Availability Cluster, Oracle Database (on SUN Cluster),
Alteon ACEswitch load-balancers and high-end EMC² storage
(Symmetrix, Celerra with good old Data Movers).
INX is Berlin's biggest Internet Service Provider (ISP),
but also has PoPs (Points of Presence) in several other
german cities. To most
people the brand snafu
is known better, but that's only one of many projects.
Since July 1998
INX is a PSINet company.
My job there is development (design of platform for Internet
services), system administration (like
SUN Enterprise servers and NetApp filers) and programming.
Great job! Big fun! But lotsa work to do. ;-)
The EANTC started as an FDDI test center, but when I joined
in February 1994, the main focus already was on ATM technology
(Asynchronous Transfer Mode).
It was my first real job and a really great time. I worked there
for nearly 4 years until December 1997 (during my study of
computer science).
The EANTC is part of the
Forschungszentrum für Netzwerktechnologien und Multimedia-Anwendungen FSP-PV/PRZ
(Interdepartmental Research Center for Networking and
Multimedia Technology), located at the Technische Universität Berlin.
This professional all-round job required excellent
theoretical and practical skills. It started with administrating
the ATM-based network (the ATM interface cards, the ATM switches,
the ATM routers, and general networking issues) and managing the
infrastructural facilities (like Web and FTP server).
The EANTC managed the University's access to
BALI (Berlin ATM LAN Interconnection Initiative),
one of Germany's Regional ATM Testbeds. Some of the other
participants were DeTeBerkom/BERKOM and GMD/Fokus.
The EANTC also managed access to Megabit and Gigabit testbeds
for the Technische Universität Berlin.
Work at the EANTC also included professional
ATM courses and seminars
in Berlin and other german cities (in german and english language).
However, the most stressful, challenging and satisfying (sic!)
part of my work was the large booth at the
CeBIT
every year. In case you don't know, CeBIT is one the largest
computer shows world-wide. Living in Hannover for about one week
during that time is, well, quite an experience. In survival.
On CeBIT, the EANTC was responsible for various aspects of
large show-cases like ATM-World, NewsNet,
and Network Information Center (NIC).
In summer of 1997, for a couple of months, I worked for
Stiftung Warentest, Germany's biggest independent institute
for testing of consumer products and services. I managed
the testing for more than a dozen of multi-functional
telefax, photocopier, scan and computer printing machines.
The test was published in 1997 in their official monthly magazine
called "test" (if you need the issue number, drop me a mail).
DAI-Labor at the Technische Universität Berlin
The DAI-Lab, managed by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Sahin Albayrak,
is part of TUB's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
department and is dealing with
agent technologies in business applications and telecommunication.
At the DAI-Lab, I wrote my Master's thesis (Studien- und Diplomarbeit)
on "Analysis, Design and Implementation of an Agent-based
Car Navigation System". It took about 2 years, and the
resulting Java implementation has been successfully
tested in a BMW test vehicle.
The HMI is a scientific research institute for structural
and solar energy research. The well-secured institute
runs a small nuclear reactor (pretty harmless, but still
very exciting).
During holidays (February to April 1992),
I did server administration of their pool of SUN servers
and workstations, and I developed software to simplify administrative
tasks. Although I had an account on a legendary Convex
(mini super computer), I never saw that impressive machine myself.
The Technische Universität Berlin
(german for Technical University of Berlin)
is one of the three major universities in Berlin.
The other two are Freie Universität Berlin
(Free University of Berlin)
and Humboldt-Universität (Humboldt University).
I started my study of
Informatik
(german for Computer Science)
in 1989 directly after elementary school.
This is a private high school financed by the protestant church.
The main focus is on old languages like Latin, Old Greek (both are
mandatory, at least one of them must be taken for final exams),
but modern languages like English (mandatory) and Russian (optional)
are also teached. In german, this special type of high school
is called "altsprachliches Gymnasium". Begin 1980, final exams 1989.
Famous for its Rowing Squad
(one of a lot of sport activities) where you can explore Berlin's
lakes and rivers.
Four years (1976-1980) of elementary school.
In Germany, this usually takes six years, but the
"Evangelisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster" starts
at 5th year (not 7th).