Building the service and its customer portal
At Datastring, I built and operated infrastructure across Europe and the United States and developed dsportal, the customer portal for our backup and recovery services.
I developed workflows for configuring backups, reviewing backup activity and storage use, and finding and restoring data. This included Microsoft 365 backup and recovery.
The portal also connected the service to customer accounts, subscriptions, invoices and reports. I worked on the ways customers and administrators could manage their services, control access and find the information relevant to them.
Working on both the infrastructure and the portal kept the software connected to the practical work of running the service. Reports needed to make backup activity clear, and recovery screens needed to help people find what they wanted to restore. I built both the connections behind those tasks and the screens used to work through them.
- My contribution
- Infrastructure engineering and operation, and development of dsportal.
- What I worked on
- Backup and recovery services, customer accounts, reporting and the portal connecting them.
- What I carry forward
- Build the service and the way people use it together.
Building the platform from architecture to interface
I designed and built Ekco Shield, including its web interface and iPhone app, as part of my ongoing work at Ekco. It brings together my experience in infrastructure, backup and software development.
Information about backup jobs, security findings and support work often lives in separate systems. Shield brings those views together, giving people a shared place to understand the operational picture and investigate what needs attention.
The platform covers backup monitoring and reporting, security and vulnerability views, support tickets and time reporting. I built the connections that bring that information together and the screens people use to work with it.
I built the iPhone app to bring service information and everyday support and quote tasks onto the phone. Someone can check what is happening with a service and continue the work from there, keeping the mobile experience connected to the wider platform.
- My contribution
- Platform design, connecting services, web interface and iPhone app.
- What I worked on
- A shared platform for backup monitoring, security and vulnerability information, reporting and support workflows.
- What I carry forward
- A useful interface starts with understanding the systems and information behind it.
Self-service Microsoft 365 backup
I built self-service Microsoft 365 backup tooling using Veeam’s application programming interface (API), which provides a way for software to interact with its backup platform. My contribution was the integration and customer workflow around that platform.
This is the sort of work I enjoy: understanding what an existing system can do, connecting it to a practical requirement, and building the missing software around it.
It also sits between two parts of my background. Infrastructure experience helps me understand the service underneath. Software development provides a way to make that service easier to work with.
- My contribution
- API integration and self-service tooling.
- What I worked on
- A customer-facing backup workflow built around Veeam’s existing backup platform.
- What I carry forward
- Automation should address an actual workflow, not exist simply to add another layer.
Technical work across acquisitions
At Ekco, my work included engineering across varied infrastructure environments and technical involvement in more than thirty acquisitions.
I worked with colleagues across different virtualisation platforms, storage systems and established ways of operating.
Working across different environments is one reason I prefer to understand a system before deciding what should change. A familiar product name does not describe everything about how a particular service has been put together.
- My contribution
- Hands-on engineering, architecture and acquisition-related technical work.
- What I worked on
- Technical integration across varied infrastructure environments and operating practices.
- What I carry forward
- Understand the existing system and the people who operate it before deciding how to move forward.