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Marc Munro
Curriculum Vitae for Marc Munro Jun-2009
Resumé
Marc is a software development consultant specialising in database and system architecture. He is an expert in the Oracle and PostgreSQL databases, and has been an Oracle Database Administrator for over 10 years, supporting both development and production systems. He has taken key roles in all aspects of software development from project management and system design through to testing and maintenance, and, while at Praxis, was responsible for the design, implementation and delivery of the UK's National DNA Database system. After emigrating from the UK to Vancouver in 1998 he worked at Inphinity and Alea as Senior Database Administrator, leading the DBA team, and then as Database Architect designing the database for Alea's next generation of systems. He is an enthusiastic team player, an experienced manager at both the team and project level, and enjoys sharing his skills and leading by example. Having worked with ISO-9001 certified quality systems, he is a fan of quality and believes that, like security, it should generally be given greater emphasis.
He is currently working as a freelance consultant for a number of different clients in the Vancouver area, is the author of Veil, an open-source security add-on for PostgreSQL, and is currently working on skit, a new tool for managing database development.
Employment Summary
2005-Present Freelance Database Consultant, Vancouver
2003-2005 Database Architect with Alea Software, Vancouver
2001-2003 Freelance Database Consultant, Vancouver
1999-2001 Senior DBA with Inphinity Interactive, Vancouver
1998-1999 Senior DBA with Future Shop, Vancouver
1995-1998 Freelance Oracle DBA/Software Engineer, UK South-West
1987-1995 Software Engineer with Praxis Plc, Bath
1985-1987 Software Engineer with Godwin Warren Engineering, Bristol
1982-1985 Programmer with ITT-IDEC, Stevenage
Contact Information
Core Technical Skills
Relational Database Architecture
Data Modelling and Database Design
Oracle and PostgreSQL Database Administration
Database Replication
Database and Query Tuning
Database Application Development
PostgreSQL add-on development
SQL, PL/SQL, pl/pgsql, C, Ruby, Python, awk, Unix environment and toolset
General Software Development
System and Toolset Integration
Technical Documentation
Career Highlights
Technical Authority for the development of the UK's National DNA Database
Developed the Veil security system; an add-on for PostgreSQL: http://veil.projects.postgresql.org/curdocs/index.html
Employment History
Freelance Consultant, Vancouver, BC Jan-2005 - Present
Marc is currently working for a number of companies in Vancouver as a database specialist. Recent achievements include:
being a guest speaker at the Much Ado About Agile Conference 2008.Video of his presentation can be found here, here, and here.<
creation of a unifying database design for a client wishing to consolidate many similar distinct databases into a single system.
development and deployment of automated replicated data partitioning systems using PostgreSQL and Slony-I;
migration of a client's MySQL-based system to PostgreSQL, achieving far greater performance and throughput;
providing prototypes to enable database synchronisation between old and new data models as part of a major system redesign.
Freelance Consultant, Vancouver, BC March 2005 - Present
Freelance consultant to various companies in the Vancouver area, including: Evident Point, CF Consulting, Ritchie Borthers and Monkey Media Software. Providing general database, and Postrges-specific, consultancy to improve performance and usability of client database systems.
Skit Project, Vancouver, BC Jan-2006 - Present
Developer for skit, a tool to allow database structure to be stored in any Source Code Management system. Skit will allow an existing database to be compared with versions from a repository or with other databases, and will automatically generate patch scripts to bring one database into line with another. Database definitions are managed as XML documents allowing many automated transforms to be performed, including automatic generation of Entity Relationship diagrams. Skit is written in C and is targeted at the PostgreSQL relational database.
Veil Project, Vancouver, BC Jan-2005 - Present
Developer of the Veil security add-on for PostgreSQL, hosted at pgfoundry.org. Veil provides a tooslet for implementing Virtual Private Databases, allowing user-based row and even column level security within a database with minimal overhead. It is free software released under the BSD license.
Alea, Vancouver, BC March 2003 - Jan 2005
Database Architect for Alea. Responsibilities: new database design incorporating high levels of security; built in auditing; data replication; provision of support and expertise to DBA team; introduction of PostgreSQL into Alea for an in-house system; development of new processes for maintenance and deployment of database changes; toolset development for Oracle Streams. Technologies: Unix; Oracle; PostgreSQL; C; Python.
Freelance Consultant, Vancouver, BC October 2001 - Feb 2003
Freelance consultant to Inphinity Interactive, Custom House Currency Exchange and Telus Enterprise Solutions. Responsibilities: skills transfer; architectural review; database deployments. Technologies: Oracle; Unix; Windows.
Inphinity Interactive, Vancouver, BC October 1999 - August 2001
Lead DBA at Inphinity Interactive, the development house for World Gaming. Responsibilities: all aspects of development and production database support; leading the design and implementation of a replication and partitioning-based architecture; deputising for the head of System Administration; provision of staff training in database and Oracle usage; internal database consultancy; reviews of general architecture and system design; data migration. Technologies: Unix; Python; Oracle.
Future Shop, Vancouver, BC September 1998 - October 1999
Senior DBA in a team of 8 responsible for some 95 databases including 8 production systems. Responsibilities: all Oracle Financials databases; support of in-house developed distributed database application for store management; general database administration; tuning; support; etc. Technologies: Oracle; Unix.
Freelance Consultancy, South-West UK October 1995 - June 1998
Subscription Services Limited, Bristol February 1998 - June 1998
Support for both development and live mission-critical production databases. Responsibilities: database administration and tuning; development support; skills transfer. Technolgies: Oracle; Oracle Context; Oracle Web Application Server.
Innovations Mail Order, Swindon November 1997 - January 1998
Sub-contractor for Oracle UK, providing 24*7 production and development database support. Responsibilities: code reviews; knowledge transfer to developers; database tuning; administration tool development. Technolgies: Oracle; C; Unix.
Unigate, Swindon November 1995 - July 1997
Responsible for various development and production databases as well as supporting a number of Unix development projects. Technologies: Oracle; Unix.
Department of Health, London, UK October-1995 - November 1995
Architectural and database administration consultancy.
Racal Avionics, London, UK October 1995
Performance tuning consultancy.
Praxis, Bath, UK July 1987 - September 1995
Praxis was a small but very significant software house. It emphasised quality, software engineering and the use of formal methods where appropriate. It was the first independent software house to be awarded BS5750, the British Standard for Quality Systems which preceded ISO-9001. It was eventually acquired by Deloitte Touche for its consultancy division.
Consultancies March 1995 - September 1995
Various consultancies including: general IT consultancy to Avon Ambulance; Oracle Forms upgrade for English Heritage; Oracle performance consultancy to Unisys; and a technical audit of design and performance of Oracle-based systems at British Gas.
National DNA Database October 1994 - March 1995
Technical Authority on the UK National DNA Database System for the UK's Forensic Science Service. Responsible for all technical aspects of this project from performance prototyping to design and installation. Technologies: Oracle; Windows,;Unix.
PIMS December 1993 - October 1994
Technical Authority for the development of a Paper Information Management System for Reed Publishing Europe. Responsibilities: system architecture, database server architecture, development environment, hardware selection citeria. Technologies: C; Oracle; Unix.
Housing Register July 1993 - September 1993
Analyst for a requirements study commissioned by Cardiff City Council for a Joint Register of housing need, for both the council and its local housing authorities. Responsibilities: interviewing responsible users; Data and Data Flow Modelling; hardware and software procurement costing; user-interface prototypes.
English Heritage November 1992 - July 1993
Project Manager and Technical Authority for a development project for English Heritage to manage sites of historical archaeological interest. Responsibilities: all phases of the project from requirements analysis, through implementation and testing, to training, acceptance testing and warranty. Technologies: Unix; Oracle.
Tigers January 1992 - November 1992
Developer on a system to monitor Adverse Events to drugs for Glaxo Group Research. Responsibilities: software development. Technologies: Unix; Oracle; C.
Abacus August 1990 - January 1992
Development team lead for a property valuation system. Responsibilities: team lead for a major project subsystem. Technologies: Ingres; C; Unix
Stax January 1989 - August 1990
Team leader for system to manage drug stability testing for Glaxo Group Research. Responsibilities: high level specifications; development; prototyping; project standards. Technologies: VMS; C; Oracle
NEA September 1987 - October 1988
Test Team Lead on a distributed schools examination administration system. This system is regarded as being one of the first truly distributed Oracle database systems in the UK. Technologies: VMS; Oracle; COBOL.
Cable Jukebox July 1987 - September 1987
Programmer for a computer-controlled, interactive, cable television system. Technologies: Pascal; Real-time OS; custom video hardware.
Godwin Warren Engineering, Bristol, UK July 1985 - July 1987
Sole software developer on the development of a LAN-based automated parking system. Technologies: Z80 and Intel 8048 assembler; Pascal.
ITT-IDEC, Stevenage, UK September 1982 - July 1985
Programmer. First exposure to BS5750, the British precursor to ISO 9001. Technologies: Unix; BCPL. Responsibilities: Incident Report coordinator; developer.
University of Manchester, UK 1979 - 1982
BSc Honours degree in Computer Science with Accounting.
Email Marc Munro here.
The resume as a pdf.
The resume in Open Document Format.