Brian Walker
1410 Rocky Lane
Eagan, MN 55122
651-233-3839
Data Architect | Database Administrator
Software Designer | Application Developer
ü 20+ years experience in IT with diverse responsibilities
ü 10+ years experience in Microsoft development environments
ü very quick to learn new technology and pragmatic about applying it
ü designed and developed several mission-critical databases and applications
ü performed key technology roles in causing four different small, local companies to
grow and achieve national prominence within their industries
Technical Skills:
Skill Years Skill Years
SQL Server Architecture 14 Microsoft Windows 17
SQL Server Development 14 Microsoft Windows Server 7
SQL Server Administration 14 Microsoft Access 15
SQL Server T-SQL Coding 14 Microsoft Excel 15
SQL Server 2000 & Tools 6 Microsoft Word (Win/Mac) 19
SQL Server 2005 & Tools 6 Microsoft Outlook 14
SQL Server 2008 & Tools 7 Microsoft Visio 2
SQL Server 2012 & Tools 3 Visual SourceSafe 4
Oracle Database 10g 1 Visual Studio 6 (VB 6) 5
Visual Studio .NET 9 VBA 9
Windows Forms (WinForms) 5 VBScript 9
VB.NET 7 HTML 8
ADO.NET 7 XML / XQuery 1
ASP.NET 3 ER/Studio (data modeling) 7
Education:
Moorhead State University - Moorhead, MN
Bachelor of Science - Computer Science (major) and Mathematics (minor)
Graduated Magna Cum Laude with 3.8 GPA
Career Objective:
I would like to use my considerable IT experience to help an organization build, enhance, and maintain their database systems and database-driven applications using the Microsoft technology stack. My broad experience includes data modeling, database design, database development, database administration, SQL programming, data import, data export, data manipulation, data analysis, data profiling, performance tuning, and data warehousing.
I'm passionate about database architecture, data integrity, and performance.
Work Experience:
05/15 to present UnitedHealth Group – Database Consultant
I joined UnitedHealth Group as a Database Consultant. The team generates and manages reimbursement schedules for about 800,000 health care providers across the country. The team develops and maintains one primary application and several secondary applications, all for internal business users. The team develops and supports one main database that serves several purposes. The database is populated by the applications and by a very involved ETL process that runs five (or more) times per year.
My role involves database development work for the main database, mostly writing new stored procedures (SPs) and rewriting existing SPs.
The primary application uses dozens of SPs. I write new SPs, rewrite existing SPs, and modify existing SPs. I provide architectural advice and I perform any database structure changes necessary for supporting the applications.
The ETL process uses dozens of SPs. I rewrite existing SPs, including the very long-running core SPs. I used one data structure change, one index change, and several rewrites of SPs to reduce total execution time over 80% (down to less than a fifth of the original execution time). The biggest performance issue is/was one particular table with 2.5 billion rows.
The team uses SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008 R2, and SQL Server 2012.
The team works remotely on a full-time basis.
02/15 to 04/15 TEKsystems at US Bank – Database Developer
I joined TEKsystems to work a short contract at US Bank. The role has been mainly about creating a new database for the Wealth Management group. The database is populated by parsing XML with XQuery in stored procedures. I also perform a few enhancements in their data warehouse. I use SQL Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2012.
04/13 to 02/15 Restaurant Technologies – SQL Server DBA
I joined Restaurant Technologies as a DBA. The company provides new cooking oil delivery, used cooking oil collection, cooking oil storage/handling/monitoring equipment, and related automated reporting for quick service restaurants across the USA. I use SQL Server 2008 R2 most heavily, along with five other versions (including 2012) less often. My daily work includes addressing long-standing issues with infrastructure (especially with regard to our database backups), planning for infrastructure improvements, automating routine tasks, doing performance tuning, providing database support, and offering database advice.
● dramatically increased performance (T-SQL) of numerous ad hoc queries
● dramatically increased performance (T-SQL) of several data warehouse queries
● dramatically increased performance (indexes) of reporting queries in data warehouse
● dramatically increased performance (indexes) of application queries in custom database
● dramatically increased performance (indexes) of application queries in commercial database
● dramatically increased performance of interface between service call database and ERP database
● identified several data integrity issues in data warehouse and prepared T-SQL code to correct issues
● resolved long-standing stability issue with LAN, which was causing database backups to fail
● created and implemented a comprehensive plan for database backup operations and backup file retention
● created and implemented routines to automatically refresh test databases with production data
● created and implemented routines to archive stale data and purge from custom database
● created and implemented numerous routines to monitor SQL Server performance
● created and implemented numerous routines to monitor SQL Server Agent jobs
● created a plan for SQL Server consolidation to reduce license costs and save administration time
● created a plan for operational data store to eliminate redundant data flows and provide better data quality
11/12 to 04/13 EagleView Technologies – Database Developer
I joined EagleView as a Database Developer and DBA. The company provides construction estimating tools for building contractors and insurance companies. I use SQL Server 2012, Visual Studio 2012 (with SQL Server Data Tools), TFS, and Windows 8 on a VM every day. My initial work assignments have been mostly database schema changes and associated stored procedure changes. I also performed a detailed assessment of the transactional database and documented the issues I found.
06/12 to 11/12 ICP – Senior Database Architect
I joined ICP as a Senior Database Architect. The company is building a new database and application system for processing financial transactions. The system must be available 24x7 and high performance is critical. I initiated numerous database changes for consistency in table structures. I designed a custom replication strategy for offloading operational report activity to another database. I designed a table partitioning strategy for sliding windows in the main OLTP database and in the reporting database.
03/11 to 06/12 The Toro Corporation – Data Architect
I joined Toro as a Data Architect. The company manufactures and distributes a broad line of turf maintenance equipment for commercial and residential purposes. They use SAP as their main business system, along with a variety of ancillary systems. Key data from each system, as well as from numerous other sources, flows into a star schema data warehouse.
My role with Toro was to provide database architecture guidance as they moved their data warehouse from Oracle Database 10g to SQL Server 2008 R2. I reviewed data models, ensured structural consistency, created appropriate partitions, created beneficial indexes, and copied the data in the most efficient way available. I was also involved in activities to begin using master data management.
08/10 to 03/11 Mackin Educational Resources – SQL Server DBA
I joined Mackin as a SQL Server DBA. The company provides products and services for K12 libraries. The business operations are supported by a set of SQL Server 2000/2005 databases, several web applications, and numerous desktop applications. The system was built piece-by-piece over several years, often under aggressive timelines and with minimal development coordination, so it suffered from the typical symptoms of neglect.
My role with Mackin was to lead an initiative to rebuild their database foundation and their business applications. The main task was to merge several interdependent databases into one comprehensive database. This avoided excessive data migration and eliminated data redundancy. The work included OLTP data modeling using ER/Studio, designing database architectures, establishing database standards, and writing efficient TSQL code.
08/09 to 02/10 Zepol Corporation – Senior Database Developer
I joined Zepol as a Senior Database Developer. The company provides international trade information (imports/exports) to subscribers. The raw data comes from a department of the US government and Zepol manipulates it and presents it in a variety of ways with a public web application. The system is based on the Microsoft technology stack. Zepol operates a predominantly read-only data warehouse OLAP environment.
My role with Zepol included maintenance for the ETL processing. I performed data profiling, data analysis, SQL programming, and performance tuning. The goal was to gather more (or better) business intelligence from extremely dirty data, with minimal documentation and no support from the source. It was a business challenge more than a technical challenge.
03/07 to 07/09 Wingenious – System Architect, Designer, Developer
I started Wingenious myself to pursue a few business ideas. The initial project involved building a database-driven public web application. The system uses five types of servers (database, web, file, SMTP, and custom) to ensure security, stability, and scalability. The work required me to apply most of my existing technical skills, and learn some new skills.
I was responsible for the system architecture and the database development, and I also performed the vast majority of the user interface design and development.
The web application, called ServiceForMe.com, is available for viewing by request.
ServiceForMe.com is based on the Microsoft technology stack. The SQL Server database contains about 75 tables, hundreds of generated objects, and roughly 250 custom stored procedures which implement almost all of the business logic. The ASP.NET application is constructed with a data access layer, master pages, inherited base pages, custom state management, header/footer controls, custom controls, and other typical elements.
In addition to the public web application, I also designed and developed a Windows Forms application called DBGizmo. It’s a tool for SQL Server workers and the principal functions are browsing structure/objects, analyzing structure/objects, and generating SQL routines. The application is constructed with file system access, database connectivity, encryption, and several types of Windows Forms controls (many with customized behavior).
The application is available for download… http://www.DBGizmo.com
05/01 to 03/07 Questar Educational Systems (QES) – Senior Data Architect
I joined QES as a Senior Programmer/Analyst, but I soon became the database person for the young company. My initial work involved data collection, data manipulation, and client reporting. I soon took on data modeling, database design, and database administration. I handled every production database responsibility, core stored procedure development, and performance tuning. I performed numerous data import, data export, data transformation, and data analysis tasks. I led a small team of database developers who extracted sets of data from the production database into data marts and manipulated it for client reporting.
I was deeply involved with creating the architecture for the orderly flow of data and files through networked systems, particularly the mission-critical enterprise web application.
I used several different software tools to perform my work at QES. I had Query Analyzer and Enterprise Manager running at all times. I used SQL Server Profiler and Performance Monitor as needed. I used ER/Studio for data modeling purposes, but also for generating VB.NET code modules, ASP.NET code modules, and T-SQL routines. Microsoft Office was used for various tasks. Access was used for stand-alone applications and the early client reporting. Excel was used for informally presenting tabular data to internal and external customers. Word was used for documentation and all the usual purposes. I also used a variety of text editors, each one having different strengths.
Hobby Experience:
My ambition, my curiosity, and my passion for technology does not simply cease when I leave my employer’s environment each day. I continue to think about IT work on my own time, as a hobby that I enjoy. I read about industry trends, new products, and new ways
of using IT to solve business problems. I engage in software development to sharpen my existing skills, learn new skills, and create tools for future work. My hobby activities have been focused on database matters in recent years. I have conducted research, developed software, authored articles, and continued to enhance my technical abilities.
The IT work I do as a hobby prepares me to excel for my employer.
In 2014/2015, I designed and developed a database-driven public web application for the fantasy sports market, called VICTIERY.com.
VICTIERY.com is based on the Microsoft technology stack. The system consumes XML feeds for statistics in a completely automated process. The XML feeds are parsed and stored. The data is aggregated according to user selections. The application is driven by a large set of custom stored procedures. I performed all the system architecture work, while the actual GUI was created by another party under my direction.
The web application can be accessed here… http://www.victiery.com
NOTE: The XML feeds for statistics are no longer active so the statistics are not current.
I authored a short Database Architecture e-book which comments on several important concepts in the context of SQL Server. The e-book, which is merely my opinion in 2005,
is free. It has been downloaded thousands of times and it remains popular. The e-book content is not necessarily current and I do not necessarily follow every suggestion in my own current database work. The download is available here…
http://www.wingenious.com/database.pdf
I authored database architecture articles for publication by a variety of SQL Server web sites. I authored a series of articles describing selections from my large library of T-SQL stored procedures. These articles were written from early 2004 through early 2006, and most of them are still accessible online. They are listed here…
http://www.wingenious.com/articles.html
http://www.wingenious.com/dbaction.html
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