Principle Systems Administrator

I joined the Sanger Institute (then the Sanger Centre) more or less straight from an Engineering degree at Durham in 1996 as a system administrator. I've been involved in the development of the institute's IT infrastructure ever since. From 2000 I headed up the "Special Projects Team", building large scale compute clustered based on either the Linux or Digital's (laterly Compaq) Tru64 Operating system. This involved deploying high speed networks, initially on ATM and in 2002 transitioning to Gigabit Ethernet on the Extreme Summit & BlackDiamond platforms. Since then I've been more focused on the infrastructure underlying the compute, including being part of the design team for the institute's 1000m2 datacentre that opened in 2005. I'm now primarily focused on the Networking, heading up the Network team. In this role I have input into the ongoing development of the campus & datacentre as well as looking at remote facilities for business continuity & expansion. As well as the traditional office networks that are ubiquitous the team also look after the high-performance networks required for the scientific projects at the institute both in the labs & the datacentre. Since 2014 I am part of the HPC (High Performance Computing) group at the institute, this group is responsible for the large scale compute & storage platforms at the institute. In this group we're looking at technologies that can be deployed to assist the Science community at the institute getting their research done, which increasingly depends on the availability of the IT resources. As these requirements increase the ability to move large amounts of data around the institute & between collaborators, both on the campus & further afield is vital.