Terrence Miao

auschina4info@gmail.com

I am writing to apply for the position of Directory Systems Technical Lead at Information Infrastructure Services as advertised in Inside InfoDiv: staff intranet on 1^st December 2005.

I have enclosed my Curriculum Vitae to provide you with an overview of my experience and knowledge. I believe I meet the selection criteria in the following ways:

·         Demonstrated experience in the planning, development and management of complex inter-application software solutions.

I have years of experiences working with the large scale projects for the University like WebRAFT, SIS, Student / Staff / Inbound proxies, Directory Server, Certificate Server, Student Portal. My responsibilities are architecture design, quality implementations, installation, configuration, development, maintenance, performance diagnostics, tuning, migration, upgrading, backup and end user support.

These large and complicated applications deliver services such as teaching and learning, information access, authentication, authorisation, identity management, share collaboration to all the general and academic staffs, local and international students. Accountably, there are more than 60,000 highly educated people are using these applications. The successes of all these service-oriented applications have set the benchmark for the planning, development and management of complex inter-application software solutions.

·         A strong background in the design, delivery and management of directory services in a large, complex organisational environment. Specific technologies in this area will include Active Directory, LDAP, DNS and others.

My responsibilities for the projects, particularly University LDAP Directory Server, IPReg, Student Portal are architecture design, quality implementations, installation, configuration, development, maintenance, performance diagnostics, tuning, migration, upgrading, managing ARS / LMS (Learning  Management System) data feeds, multiple heterogeneous directory repositories synchronisation, managing DNS / DHCP / BOOTP exports and end user support.

All these applications delivered directory services to The University of Melbourne, a large complex organisation.

All these work I have been doing have demonstrated my proven experience and knowledge in LDAP, DNS and others.

·         An understanding of the identity management and authentication challenges faced by a large educational institution such as The University of Melbourne.

In a large organisation like The University of Melbourne, where vast different hardware platforms asset we have, considerable legacy systems we inherited, so many non industry standard applications we implemented, a lack of unified and centralised identity management system in the current situation, the increasing day by day demands from students and staffs for more information access and efficiently find the information they want, relatively trailing behind in system and network infrastructure and a tight budget. Combined all these facts together, bring forward the huge challenge right in front of The University of Melbourne.

So how to implement and deliver a highly efficient, effective, secure and available on demand identity management system on an insignificant cost, limited resources that can satisfy services-driven requirement, how to extend identity beyond campus to include business partners and other users, how to integrate more applications with increasing appetite for new features, how to enhance traditional directory services to handle load balance, fault tolerance, and how to integrate multiple directory services in different formats, in different geographies are becoming more and more imperative on our transform agenda.

·         Ability to lead multidisciplinary technical teams, particularly in the areas of software and database development.

I have demonstrated proven ability to work as part of a team, or lead a small team as well as independently in years of working in the areas of software and database development.

A successful charismatic leader is not born to lead as I reckon. Working in a large organisation like University, the leadership, a complex art is progressing through three stages I reckon. Firstly you need build colleagueship with respect; secondly you need develop friendship with trust. If you can understand people’s needs, and you can have good relationship with people, and you can influence people, and you can build team and commit to it, the leadership is coming by nature.

My friendly, easy-going personality and background let me easily go well in the workplace, like The University of Melbourne. Except my colleagues and supervisors, I worked with students, tutors, librarians, helpdesk support team, and network and system people. These experiences help me a lot to better understand people’s needs, and know how to play in the different teams.

I have self-motivation and great passion doing the development work, although there is minimum supervision in my working environment. Hardworking, energetic and starve to learn new things and more knowledge are strong in my character. I reckon my positive attitude to the work is influencing my other colleagues imperceptibly.

·         Demonstrated ability to design and deliver technical solutions to support complex business process issues.

I have demonstrated proven ability in designing, implementing and delivering solutions in projects like Directory and Certificate Server, IPReg and Student Portal. All of these projects are large scale, complicated, multiple levels applications. They are cross related to operating systems, network and a lot of legacy applications. They deliver services supporting students, staffs University-widely.

Apart from that, I also participated in the work such as analysis of business-driven requirement, analysis of market products, accounting the balance between technology and budget, negotiation and coordination on the available resources, building the communication channels inside development and test teams, system and network groups in order to get these projects through those complex business processes successfully.

In addition, I have shown my fundamental and broad knowledge in IT. I have shown my intelligence in business and financial strategy and planning. I have demonstrated unusual “common sense” in my work – always bring the right tools to do the right job; use Less-dependence, KISS (keep it simple and small) principles as my best practice especially in the development of the service-oriented complex business applications.

·         Demonstrated ability to work closely with technical staff from third party solutions providers to ensure the organizations needs are suitably met.

Working on projects like SIS, Webmenu, Student Portal, Student / Staff Proxy are involved in dealing with third party vendors and solutions providers.

One of my responsibilities requires me to ongoing access emerging technologies, evaluate the potential of introducing new services and improving existing services enabled by new technologies, ensuring they can suitably meet University needs. So I had the opportunities to be exposed to industry businesses, solutions providers.

I worked with external consultants from Forté, SUN, Oracle on different projects. I kept abreast of industry trends. I analysed market products and vendors’ systems to find and bring the best solutions that can meet the business requirements for the University.

·         Relevant graduate qualifications, experience and/or industry certification.

Bachelor degree of Computer Science and over 13 years of work experience in system analysis, software development and implementation in small and big international IT companies, international research and teaching University.

There is a list of my professional experience and knowledge in my CV, also a list of the industry certifications I obtained which cover system and network administration, object oriented software development, database fundamentals and administration, Application Server fundamentals and development.

·         Demonstrated ability for lateral thinking and initiative in problem resolution.

I am always amazed and inspired by the new technologies, inventions. I love the innovations that can make people’s daily life easier and simpler, or pump up into the industry with more productivity bonus, or make huge cost savings on space or time. That’s my spring of motivation I reckon.

So it’s not surprising that I like to do something new, something a little bit challenge. My professional accomplishments, can be found in my CV, have demonstrated my creativeness, my difference, and my logical, lateral, forward thinking.

I have demonstrated proven ability to work to deadlines and extreme pressure. Sometimes I worked till mid night, or up to the early morning, to solve the production problems and make sure the projects could be delivered on time. I don’t like problem stuck in my place. And I always see the problems as challengers. The best practice to put the problem under your control is taking it in the first place, and as early as possible I reckon.

·         Strong service delivery focus.

Information Technology industry have changed drastically during last few years. More and more companies are becoming solutions providers rather then selling software and hardware only. Numerous traditional software companies embark on their first endeavour in services-oriented architecture, provided customers access to software alleviating that customer from the maintenance and daily technical operation and support of today’s highly changing business environment.

Such transformations have already happened in Information Division. As an international research and teaching University, need the business agility to quickly update our services in response to the changing business needs.

I have a track record of delivering significant business benefit and demonstrated adequate support for what services the business require. I involved managing and accessing the impact of features change upon the service quality; I evaluated and accessed market products, helped Project Managers match our existing IT sources to business demands, brought the best solution to the University. I planed and implemented backup and restore strategy ensure the availability and rapid restoration of IT services in the event of a disaster; I balanced the technology and the budget, participated in estimating the total cost of the service, in order to support the business at a justifiable cost.

Moreover, I have demonstrated the professional and courteous manner to all my clients – students, staffs, colleagues, supervisors, at all times. I have demonstrated quick and accurate replying of information to clients honestly. I have demonstrated proven ability to analyse and solve problems methodically and systematically. I work hard, with dedication and integrity.

·         Certification in ITIL and/or experience in working in a formal best practice process environment.

Such trainings will be the highest priority in my next year working agenda I’ll pursue.

·         Project management certification and experience in PRINCE-2 and/or Thomsett methodologies.

Same as above one