Jan 1995 to Feb 1996
CSC Computer Sciences Ltd
European Research Manager
279 Farnborough Road, Farnborough,
Hampshire, GU14 7LS
(now DXC.technology)
My association with CSC culminated in the role of European Research Manager of the Technical Research
Facility. The job entailed creating, running and managing a research facility focused on the design
and implementation of effective and efficient ways to pool resources. In addition to setting up the
facility, during my eight month tenure, I wrote an operating manual that allowed it to function in an
organised fashion, established a presence at CSC’s French, German, Dutch, Italian and Spanish
affiliates and forged working relationships with key people in the United States where CSC Europe’s
parent organisation is located.
The Technical Research Facility evaluated new technologies as well as proposals for implementation of
technologies into CSCNet on a European Scale. It also carried out a number of external and internal
research projects. The design, building and implementation of a complete workstation to LAN to server
management system based upon a thick infrastructure / thin client model was but one of the projects I
spearheaded.
Work done by the Technical Research Facility, during this period, saved the company $18m
per year.
I had come to CSC as a result of six months of work done on contract from Data Supplies. At the end
of this period, CSC offered me a permanent position with its UK operation as Technical Issues Manager.
This involved managing a small team of engineers who solved internal and external client problems.
Earlier, I had played a more technical role as the sole 3rd level support person for all internal
network issues.
The CSC Network is a worldwide entity large enough to have its own class A internet
address. The UK part of CSCNet connects approximately 15 CSC sites and about 70 client sites. The
required rate of change was high and I was involved at an architecture level utilising new technologies
in the overall network infrastructure for CSC and its clients at an architecture level.
Clients include
British Aerospace, Lucas Industries, United Distillers, the NHS and the MoD.
The LAN had evolved over a
period of time, but its real growth occurred during the period I was involved in design for CSC and its
clients at an archetecture level; the most challenging aspect of the work involved management of the rate
of change.
In the UK Headquarters, I managed Novell NetWare 4.1 file servers, Windows NT 3.51 servers,
a number of UNIX boxes and approximately 300 desktop users as well as about 500 portable users, who
floated in and out of the office and required access to network services on an ad-hoc basis.
I was also
responsible for providing solutions to diverse queries coming from client sites and networks concerning
that their help-desks had been unable to solve.
Due to the scale of the system, I planned and implemented a number of changes that resulted in better
utilisation.
Among other things, fibre cards were placed in all the servers. The primary login server
contained three fibre cards, and I utilised NLSP routing to achieve load balancing. Each server
also contained an STP card used for segregation traffic destined for printers or IP traffic.
In addition,
I was involved in WAN management and Internet access. The organisation had a variety of devices enabling
connectivity, including Hughes Enterprise Hubs, Cisco and Wellfleet routers, leased line and frame relay
connections. At the time these were all leading edge technologies.