Michael Nadler

Experience and education overview

• Software architecture, design, development and support, over twenty-five years experience;

• C/C++ programming, fifteen years of experience;

• Device drivers, fifteen years of experience;

• Embedded systems, five years of experience;

• B.A. in Computer Science (University of California, Berkeley) with post-graduate work in Operating Systems research (University of Texas, Dallas, and California State University, Sacramento).

Technical expertise [See below for chronological employment history.]

• Designed and developed a Fibre-Channel adapter driver that was tested with a variety of peripherals, including the Fibre-Channel switch. Adapter was installed on HP9000 servers with DMA interfaces across GSC and PCI busses. Debugging tools included a Fibre-Channel trace analyzer. [HP]

• Designed and developed an SMDS wide-area network interface device driver. [Pacific Access]

• Supported an AT&T Datakit network interface driver. [Pacific Access]

• Serial communications interface driver. [Realogic]

• Analog subsystem controller driver, for a not-yet-finished device. [Wismer & Becker]

• HDLC interface driver that implemented the ISO level 1 and 2 communications network protocols, implemented soon after publication of the standard in 1976. [Johnson Controls]

• Designed and developed a network-security Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) product that automatically mitigates denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. Written in C, C++ and Perl, running on Linux and FreeBSD. [Captus Networks]

• SMDS wide-area network interface device driver. [Pacific Access]

• AT&T Datakit network interface driver. [Pacific Access]

• HDLC interface driver. [Johnson Controls]

• Designed and developed a SCSI-to-proprietary embedded interface on a VME bus architecture that emulated old-style minicomputer disk drives on newer SCSI peripherals. [Protostar]

• Remote process-control systems for waste treatment plant. [Johnson Controls]

• Network-security Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) product that automatically mitigates denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. [Captus Networks]

• Secure web server (hooked to OpenSSL), used for device management. [Captus Networks]

• High availability / failover application. [Captus Networks]

• Fibre-Channel adapter. [HP]

• Designed and developed a distributed and multi-threaded application that does authentication, activity-monitoring, and accounting for a dial-up Internet service. [MCI]

• Led a seven-person team developing customer-support tools for a three-tiered Oracle database application. [MCI]

• SMDS wide-area network interface device driver. [Pacific Access]

• Radiation-protection records-management system, using 4GL and C on a UNIX platform. [MNSD]

• Nuclear-power plant real-time process-monitoring and alarm system. [self-employed]

• Distributed computer communications system, based on the HDLC interface, that replaced the hardware vendor's product. This improved network throughput ten-fold. [Johnson Controls]

• Process-control language using a modular, "building-block" approach to create control strategies. [Johnson Controls]

• Implemented IEEE software standards, including the Software Requirement Specification (SRS) and the Software Design Document (SDD) at a nuclear power plant. The resulting high-quality software development led to multi-year contract renewal. [Realogic]

• Implemented Yourdan's Structured Design & Programming methodologies in the development of a process control system. Project was completed in 85% of the original estimated time, with half the projected staff. After installation, this control system ran continuously for fifteen years. [Johnson Controls]

Troubleshooting

Worked successfully in high-stress situations, solving system breakdowns while communicating with the agitated people involved. Often worked on unfamiliar systems, applying knowledge from previous experience. At Hewlett-Packard, received a company-wide "HP Top 100" performance award for my work troubleshooting the HP/UX 11.00 release for the N-class servers.

Communications skills

• Developed training materials and taught classes on: FORTRAN, ModComp MAX IV operating system, ModComp assembly language, ModComp JCL, WordPerfect Macros.

• Developed materials and taught customer training classes for a variety projects.

• Conducted sales presentations for a variety of software products.

• Wrote users manuals for each of the major systems listed above.

Intellectual property

Co-authored a patent, Method and Device for Monitoring Data Traffic and Preventing Unauthorized Access to a Network.

Software

Hardware

Employment history

For HP Procurve Networking Business: design and develop embedded software for high-end switch/routers.

07/02/03 to 04/02/04	Sacramento, CA
	CONSULTANT

Work with UC Davis research lab, developing mobile agent application in Java.

06/20/00 to 07/01/03	Captus Networks; Woodland, CA
	SOFTWARE ARCHITECT

• Co-developed the patented TLIDS application, which forms the core intellectual property of the Captus IPS4000 and CaptIO devices. These devices are Intrusion Prevention Systems that automatically mitigate denial-of-service, and other networking attacks. TLIDS was developed in C, running in Linux and FreeBSD on x86 servers.

• Led development of the IPS4000 product: oversaw development and test teams; designed system architecture. Wrote product requirement specifications for the IPS4000 product's command-line interface and other product enhancements. IPS4000 software was written in C and C++.

• Made extensive kernel modifications to FreeBSD network stack, supporting the IPS4000 bridging and firewall functions.

• Designed and developed three mission-critical applications: 1) a secure web server (hooked to OpenSSL); 2) an intrusion detection system that can shut down denial-of-service attacks; and 3) a high-availability application that controls failover between two CaptIOs. These were all written in C, on a Linux 2.2 platform.

• Developed SNMP modules (for the UC Davis NetSNMP agent) that manage the IPS4000 and CaptIO products.

• Part of team that developed command-line and web-based configuration tools for the CaptIO, written in Perl/CGI, sed and awk, running on Linux.

• Developed proof-of-concept prototypes for new network security software technologies, written in C and Perl.

• Acted as liaison with university researchers regarding the IPS4000 layer-2 attack mitigation technology.

• Partnered with Marketing to define product roadmap in the emerging "intrusion prevention" and "security switch" markets.

• Investigated new hardware technologies for improving IPS4000 throughput, including SMP and embedded systems.

05/12/97 to 06/16/00	Hewlett-Packard / Agilent; Roseville, CA
	SOFTWARE DESIGN ENGINEER

With Agilent: Consulted with hardware engineers during design of latest Fibre-Channel chip architecture.

With HP: Received a company-wide "HP Top 100" performance award for my work troubleshooting the HP/UX 11.00 release for the N-class servers. Expert knowledge of HP/UX storage stack including: SCSI, LVM, and ServiceGuard. Developed, maintained and enhanced HP/UX Fibre-Channel Mass Storage SAN drivers, written in C, running on HP/UX 10 & 11. The drivers ran on HP9000 servers over the GSC bus. Developed tools for HP's internal UNIX debugger, q4, written in Perl.

04/10/95 to 05/09/97	MCI Communications; Sacramento, CA
	LEAD PROGRAMMER

Lead programmer for the vansisMCI product line, which links MCI's long-distance network with its Internet backbone to provide dial-up access to large database systems such as the State of California's Smog Check program. Managed a team of three programmers and four DBAs, defining goals for the team and assigning tasks. Consulted with the development team to improve the design of their software, easing the transition of new software into the existing production system. Trouble-shot the system's problems. Directed development of web-based monitoring and management tools that increased productivity among my team and others in the larger office environment. Product was written in Oracle PL/SQL, C, Perl, sed and awk, running in Solaris on Sun/Sparc servers.

Lead programmer for the campusMCI Internet product, a national dial-up Internet service with 75,000 customers. Designed and developed a multi-threaded application that monitors customer's connection activity, and a distributed authentication and accounting system using the RADIUS protocol. Applications were written in C, and Expect, TCL, Korn and Bourne shellscripts, running in Solaris on Sun/Sparc servers.

06/28/93 to 04/7/95	Pacific Access Computers; Rancho Cordova, CA
	SOFTWARE SYSTEMS ENGINEER

Designed and developed SMDS WAN interface device driver for Sun Sparc systems. Driver was written in C, running in both Solaris 1 and Solaris 2 UNIX. Installation scripts were written using Korn shell, sed and awk. Developed SNMP modules that manage the SMDS interface, hooked into the CMU SNMP agent.

12/15/91 to 06/28/93	Protostar Computer Technology, Inc.; Benecia, CA
	SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER

Designed and developed a Unix-based embedded system that permitted replacement of legacy storage devices with standard SCSI disks. Software was written in C, running on LynxOS (a real-time UNIX OS, now BlueCat Linux) on Motorola 68000 with a VME bus. Also developed ModComp interface driver, written in assembly language.

09/15/87 to 12/12/91	Michael Nadler Software Design; Sacramento, CA
	CONSULTANT

Expert witness in large in copyright infringement lawsuit. Reviewed and analyzed program code for two large process control systems. Testified in deposition on results of analysis. My client successfully defended against the claim.

Troubleshot and repaired software in various process control systems, written in FORTRAN and assembly language.

Maintained and enhanced nuclear plant safety monitoring system, written in FORTRAN and assembly language.

01/01/84 to 09/14/87	Realogic, Incorporated; Sacramento, CA
	VICE-PRESIDENT

Founder of software development consulting business that grew from 4 to 9 employees, with nearly $1M annual revenue.

Developed training materials and taught classes in FORTRAN and assembly language programming.

Designed and developed enhancements to a nuclear plant safety monitoring system, written in FORTRAN and assembly language. Designed and developed serial communications drivers, written in assembly language running in ModComp MAXIV on ModComp minicomputers.

09/15/80 to 12/31/83	Self-employed; Sacramento, CA
	CONSULTANT

Designed and developed portions of a nuclear plant safety monitoring system: color-graphics GUI, real-time alarm monitoring, and distributed communications system. Software was written in FORTRAN and ModComp assembly language.

11/02/79 to 09/14/80	Rockwell International; Richardson, TX
	SENIOR PROGRAMMER / ANALYST

Designed and developed a secure communications subsystem, implementing the SWIFT secure network protocol for an international banking application. Software was written in PLEXUS (similar to PL/1), running in RSX-11M on DEC PDP-11.

11/15/77 to 11/01/79	Johnson Controls; Carrollton, TX
	SENIOR SYSTEMS ANALYST

Part of team that built the real-time process-control system for Sacramento County (California) Wastewater District treatment plant: designed and developed inter-computer network communication subsystem, and the remote system control software. Taught customer training classes. Software was written in FORTRAN and ModComp assembly language running on ModComp minicomputers.

02/15/74 to 11/14/77	Wismer & Becker; Sacramento, CA
	SYSTEMS ANALYST

Part of team that built the real-time process-control systems for Contra Costa County (California) Wastewater District and Denver Metro (Colorado) treatment plants: designed and developed process control language building blocks. Wrote several special-purpose analog-controller device drivers. Software was written in FORTRAN and ModComp assembly language. Taught customer training classes.

References