Resume for Benjamin LaHaise

Address: 
	 1167 Sixth Concession A Dalhousie
	 Lanark, Ontario
	 K0G 1K0
Email:   bcrl@kvack.org


Current Goals:
	- very interested in storage, networking, and telecommunications
	- prefer low level / Linux kernel related programming work

Programming Environment:
	- expert in network protocols (IEEE, IETF, ITU, GPON, EPON, XGSPON)
	- expert in Linux related development
	- expert in C (K&R, ANSI/ISO C89/C99, GNU C extensions)
	- effective in C++
	- familiar in VHDL/Verilog design/coding for FPGA
	- experienced with Xilinx ISE and Lattice Diamond environments
	  (Spartan 6, Kintex 7, ECP3)
	- built from scratch hybrid Verilog / VHDL / C / C++ simulation
	  environment to test PCIe, 1G / 10G Ethernet protocol implementations
	- familiar with Assembly (i960, 80x86, 680x0, 6502, x86-64)
	- make/GNU make
	- yacc/lex (bison/flex)
	- shell scripting (bash, ksh, csh)
	- generally happiest working on low level projects that straddle the
	  boundary between hardware and software
	- able to pick up any programming environment
	- source management tools (patch, diff, CVS, git, bk, hg, SVN)
	- some use of Python and Selenium for scripting (website scraping
	  for finance automation)

Programming Skills:
	- Looks at the entire system to determine where and how to implement
	  features, improve performance and meet project goals
	- Improving storage performance through application optimization
	  to improve parallelism and I/O request tuning
	- Scaling and performance improvement on SMP through profiling, 
	  instrumentation, code inspection and algorithmic enhancement.
	- Device Drivers (experienced in networking, tunneling, telephony)
	- Kernel Subsystem Development
	- Protocol implementation: PPP, L2TP, PPPoE, PCI Express (transaction 
	  layer - MMIO and DMA), Ethernet (MII, GMII, GEPON MAC)
	- Learned VHDL/Verilog to implement GEPON ONU/OLT in a Xilinx FPGA. 
	  Implemented 1G NIC on Xilinx Spartan 6 PCI Express platform
	  including DMA, checksum offloading functionality, and access to 
	  NetFPGA register interface.  Implemented GEPON CDR using
	  5x oversampling on Xilinx KC705 platform.
	- implement 10Gbps NIC on KC705, 10G PCS/PMA and XGMII to/from PCS,
	  packet FIFOs, scrambler, MAC address steering
	- attended NetFPGA camp and was awarded best in class for L2TPv2 
	  over UDP packet parsing for IP routing
	- participant in the Linux kernel open source community (since 1995), 
	  including presenting the results of development work at conferences 
	  (OLS, kernel summit)
	- Firmware Development (ISDN/T1, TeleNetworks & TeleSoft stacks,
	  embedded i960. m68k, ARM)

Experience:

2017-ongoing	President, Community Fibre Company
	- built a 90+km rural FTTH network delivering Internet, Voice and TV
	- more than 200 customers are growing
	- permitting with Hydro Ottawa, Bell and Hydro One
	- FTTH network design, including distributed splitter architecture
	- fibre splicing, cable lashing, strand installation
	- support, finance and customer relations
	- CRTC regulatory interaction
	- BGP, PPPoE networking, GPON on Ubiquiti and ZTE platforms
	- used Python and Selenium to scrape EFT and online bill payment
	  websites
	- automatic transaction parsing out of PDF account statements (Visa,
	  bank statements) for accounting automation

Spring to Fall 2019	private contract project
	- implemented 10G EPON-like data path for an optical networking
	  demonstration in Verilog

December 2017-January 2018	private contract project
	- implemented a protocol simulation using Dijkstra's algorithm and
	  Linux network namespaces in 4 weeks.

January 2013-August 2018	Senior Software Designer / contractor, Solace Systems
	- forward port Solace drivers from 2.6.18 kernel to 3.x, 4.x kernels
	- forward ported changes and fixed IPMI related issues in 3.4 kernel
	- implemented thread based AIO code paths in Linux kernel
	- converted existing sequential code to asynchronous state machine
	  code to improve request parallelism and better pipeline I/O
	- improved system scalability (number of messages, disk I/O
	  throughput)
	- implemented message spool defragmentation feature
	- prototyped message spooling performance improvements to meet
	  customer requirements
	- designed and implemented disk transaction journal to port existing
	  hardware ADB functionality to software platform

November 2012-2015	contract developer, TuCows
	- forward ports Linux next3 snapshotting filesystem patches from
	  2.6.35 to 3.4 and 3.16 kernels
	- various bug fixes for issues found with next3 filesystem in
	  production
	- reduced journal contention to lower synchronous filesystem write
	  latency during concurrent snapshot removal

March 2012-June 2012
	- participated in MITx 6002x Circuits and Electronics course with a
	  passing grade of A.

June 2011-January 2013	senior developer, Northforge Inc.
	- member of the L3 networking team
	- improved performance of Linux kernel module implementing EtherIP 
	  while moving from RHEL 5.x to RHEL 6.x.  Performance improved from
	  20Kpps to 600Kpps through improved use of hashing, implementing
	  RCU for lockless table lookups, and making EtherIP code run in
	  parallel across multiple CPUs.
	- implemented BMF tunneling and flooding module for the Linux 
	  kernel to support multicast over MANET (Mobile Ad-hoc NETwork) 
	- sole developer who designed and implemented PPP tunneling 
	  implementation of L2TP, PPPoE protocols on top of Linux pppd (L2TP,
	  PPPoE control protocols implemented from scratch quickly to meet 
	  customer requirements for licensing and schedule requirements)
	- development of virtual environment for network protocol testing 
	  using UML (User Mode Linux), LXC (Linux Containers) and modified 
	  bridging code to simulate MANET node connectivity.
	- design and implementation of MANET (Mobile Ad Hoc NETworking) kernel
	  module for ARP optimization
	- performed VxWorks L3 testing and verification of MPLS, LDP
	- active participant in interview and hiring process for team
	  expansion
	- provided pre-sales engineering customer support

August 2006-May 2011	founder, LHnet.ca Inc
	- started a fibre optic internet provider in Lanark County, Ontario 
	  to meet the needs of underserviced consumers in a rural setting.
	- followed through on all necessary regulatory requirements to 
	  register as a non-dominant Canadian Carrier in order to run 
	  new cables on telephone poles in Ontario.
	- sourced and integrated equipment for the initial build out the 
	  fibre optic network.
	- obtained fibre optic technician certificate.
	- performed customer installations and diagnostics starting in 2008.
	- managed finances.
	- negotiated contracts with business customers and suppliers.
	- fixed bugs and improved L2TP / PPPoE Babylon Linux PPP stack to 
	  adapt to customer premises equipment
	- fixed scalability issues in the Linux kernel and Babylon code to 
	  scale to 10,000 network interfaces for edge router scenarios
	- network device driver performance tuning
	- implemented GEPON OLT/ONU in VHDL using Xilinx SP605 as a 
	  prototyping platform
	- made contact with electronics parts vendors to source devices for 
	  use in GEPON OLT and ONU designs

Feb 2007-May 2008 kernel developer, Juniper Networks
	- learned and contributed to development of the JunOS kernel (FreeBSD 
	  based), primarily through bug fixes, but also assisted in following 
	  through in the development of Release Line Items.
	- exposed to core router configuration (JunOS BGP, MPLS)
	- debugged elements of non-stop routing and other JunOS kernel 
	  assisted HA features
	- found workaround for hardware timing issue on IDE interface
	- general kernel debugging
	- actively involved in growing the Kanata kernel team by being part of 
	  the interviewing, selecting and mentoring of new members

Mar 2005-Nov 2006	Staff Software Engineer, Intel Corporation
	- Linux performance tuning
		- improved Unix domain socket performance on P4 significantly
	- Linux ACPI feature development

2003-2004	consulting, Achilles Internet
	- owner and operator of a small ISP
	- various sysadmin and kernel consultation tasks
	- developed C/C++ L2TP stack to terminate thousands of ADSL 
	  connections

Oct 99-Apr 03	Red Hat, Linux Kernel Developer
	- general kernel r&d, debugging
	- contributed to kernel development from Red Hat 6.2 to AS3
	- implemented the first aio subsytem for Linux (worked with 
	  Oracle to get 10-15% improvement in TPC benchmarks)
	- merged Large Filesystem Summit support
	- resolved customer filed bugs in vm, smp, filesystems, drivers
	- worked with customers and partners on projects to improve:
		- smp scalability
		- large memory system support
		- block io performance
		- vm performance
	- team lead on x86-64 port
	- strong community member for the Red Hat kernel development group 
	  and the larger Linux Kernel community
	- presented talks at the Ottawa Linux Symposium, Kernel Summit

Oct 97-Oct 99	Spellcaster Telecommunications, Software Development Consultant
	- Development of ISDN/T1 firmware
	- Development of Linux ISDN device drivers
	- Development of Multilink PPP stack
	- Development of integrated PRI+DSP Modem bank drivers
	- all around chasing of bugs from hardware to software issues in 
	  order to provide timely fixes to customers: this included changing
	  the firmware (C + i960 and m68k asm), drivers (Linux) and
	  programmable logic (ABEL)

Personal Characteristics:

	- Absorbs abstract concepts rapidly
	- Highly adaptive and innovative
	- Able to work effectively alone or in an open source environment
	- Excells in challenging environments