Alasdair Cunningham-Smith BSc MIET MCSD MCSE MCDBA MCPD
Alasdair started writing commercial software at university in 1986 and has worked as an IT Pro, Developer, DBA and IT Consultant ever since. He's one of the few who can talk the talk and walk the walk in a very broad set of technologies while always keeping discussions and work anchored to business needs and drivers.
IT Pro skills and technologies
Alasdair has a deep understanding of the following subjects:
Business analysis and solution design
Hardware environment selection, design, acquisition and commissioning
Systems Automation - using scheduled jobs, macros, scripts, SQL and custom code to create an automated management environment or to implement automated business processes
Network design, including LAN, SAN, WAN, switches, routers, monitoring
Microsoft Windows administration, including Server 2008, planning, installation, NT4 migration, security, active directory, virtualisation, DHCP, DNS
Microsoft SQL Server Administration, including planning, installation, security, performance tuning, backup, capacity planning, environment design, data migration
Microsoft Internet Information Server, including IIS7, configuration, network load balancing, ASP, ASP.NET, FTP, WebDAV, SSL, hosting, layered caching, origin protection
Microsoft Internet Security & Acceleration (ISA) Server 2006, including planning, installation, screened subnets, routing, WAN interfaces
His other skills include:
Internet Mail, including Microsoft Exchange: planning, installation, remote access (from both Outlook and web browser), Edge Servers, Digital Certificates, protection with ISA Server, spam filtering (RDNS, RBLs, SpamAssassin, hosted services such as MessageLabs & Postini)
Microsoft Office products, including modelling, forecasting and graphing with Excel, VBA macros Access Databases and advanced use of Word
Database Design, Development and Administration
With almost 15 years of experience with Microsoft SQL Server (going back to version 4.21a on Windows NT 3.1!), Alasdair has a deep understanding of SQL Server in transaction processing and website environments. This high level of skill includes design; normalisation; advanced T-SQL programming including triggers, stored procedures and functions; SQL CLR development (C# Stored Procedures, functions, data types, etc.), performance tuning; backup and restore, log shipping, disaster recovery, clustering, data access layer programming, etc.
Software Design and Development
Alasdair has never strayed far from development and uses current Microsoft development tools, processes and technologies including C# 3 and .NET 3.5 (WCF & WF).
Recently he has been building workflow systems to integrate with and extend line-of-business legal case management systems to provide SMS text handling, internet fax, data exchange with an external client-facing website, online quotes, b2b data exchange etc. He uses his extensive knowledge of the Microsoft development technologies to ensure the right tool is used for the job. Recent projects have used Visual Studio 2008, C# 3, Linq, XML, XSD, XSLT, ASP.NET, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, webservices (including WCF), Windows services, various open source and commercial components and, of course, SQL Server including Integration Services (SSIS) and Reporting Services (SSRS).
Qualifications
Alasdair holds a BSc in Electronic Systems Engineering, and is a full member of the IET (Institute of Engineering and Technology). His current tally of Microsoft Exams is 24 passes with no fails. He holds the following Microsoft qualifications:
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer
Microsoft Certified Solution Developer
Microsoft Certified Database Administrator
Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist
Microsoft Certified Professional Developer
Blog
You can read Alasdair's occasional and purely technical blog here.