Matt Rideout

Faculty member in a graduate-level AI class offered by the College of Computing.

I headed up the systems administration and information security teams for this email software company:

• Set up and maintained the systems required to extend the company's on-premises email software offering into a SaaS offering. This included configuring KVM hosts, establishing backup and restoration procedures, and automating service provisioning.
• Developed the company's high availability cluster offering, which utilizes a combination of DRBD, PostgreSQL streaming replication, and in-house software to provide an active/passive cluster running email, web, and database services.
• Wrote most of the company's customer-facing technical documentation and a number of the company's blog posts.
• Built and tuned Linux email servers that are each capable of sending millions of emails per hour.
• InfoSec Team Lead: responsibilities included advising the CEO on the company security policy, implementing the security policy, training employees, and performing periodic vulnerability assessments.

I ran this technology consulting business that works with Linux systems administration, web development, and related technologies:

• Technical lead on a Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD server migration project for the world’s largest automotive wholesaler.
• Implemented disaster recovery and capacity overflow solutions for customers’ Linux servers using Amazon Web Services (AWS).
• Developed DNS Check - a service that monitors DNS records for changes and provides troubleshooting and change request tools. This is mostly a Rails application.
• Web development is primarily in Ruby on Rails and also includes work with the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Python/Perl) stack.
• Web hosting business.
• Wireless ISP from 2002 to 2003. Designed and constructed a wireless mesh network using off-the-shelf 802.11 and proprietary 900MHz hardware. Phased out to focus on consulting.

Worked on USF's Beowulf Linux cluster (SOFTICE):

• Configured the cluster to generate networking labs made up of virtualized Linux routers, switches, and servers. These were used to teach students about computer networking.
• Wrote a patch for MLN (Manage Large Networks) software that reduced the disk usage of each virtual host by approximately 97%.
• Collaborated with IT Program Director to maintain the cluster.

• Sole IT employee for most of this period. Managed a heterogeneous network of Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, and macOS based systems.
• Worked with IT staff following a merger to integrate the voice and data networks across sites. Became the company-wide Linux systems administrator following the merger.

• Assisted systems administrator in the day-to-day operations of the campus network.
• Assisted electronics teacher with repairing and building PCs and building a classroom LAN.