Van Vangor

A manufacturer had an ERP system running on an AS400. The parent company wanted access to daily cumulative sales data.

The solution was to setup a daily ETL job that brings the sales data into an small SQL Server database, and then provide remote access to that database to the parent company.

The ETL portion of the job was accomplished using PowerShell and Transact-SQL scripts. The AS400 system spits out the data into a CSV file. The PowerShell and T-SQL scripts clean up the… Show more

A manufacturer had an ERP system running on an AS400. The parent company wanted access to daily cumulative sales data.

The solution was to setup a daily ETL job that brings the sales data into an small SQL Server database, and then provide remote access to that database to the parent company.

The ETL portion of the job was accomplished using PowerShell and Transact-SQL scripts. The AS400 system spits out the data into a CSV file. The PowerShell and T-SQL scripts clean up the CSV data into a format that's acceptable to BULK INSERT, and then the data is BULK INSERTed to a table in the SQL Server.

A secondary requirement was that the manufacturer wanted to keep tack of when ODBC connections were being made to the SQL Server. To solve to this problem, logon auditing was enabled on the SQL Server instance, and then a Transact-SQL script was created the scraped the SQL error logs for logon activity. All logon-related transactions are imported from the SQL error log to a permanent table within the SQL database. A PowerShell script runs every day to that calls the previous T-SQL script to import the latest logon activity data, and then the past 24 hours worth of logon transactions are emailed to the IT Manager. Show less

eComSystems is a SaaS provider primarily focused on advertising solutions. Their applications are built on Microsoft-technologies including IIS, SQL Server, and the .NET Framework, and their apps are hosted on servers local to their Sarasota office.

In case of disaster, eCom wanted to be able to fail-over their infrastructure to a co-location in Azure IaaS (Infrastructure As A Service). I was a member of a team that set this up starting in the early summer of 2017. The transition is… Show more

eComSystems is a SaaS provider primarily focused on advertising solutions. Their applications are built on Microsoft-technologies including IIS, SQL Server, and the .NET Framework, and their apps are hosted on servers local to their Sarasota office.

In case of disaster, eCom wanted to be able to fail-over their infrastructure to a co-location in Azure IaaS (Infrastructure As A Service). I was a member of a team that set this up starting in the early summer of 2017. The transition is largely handled through DNS fail-over using DNSMadeEasy.com. All servers in Sarasota were duplicated in Azure. Regular data syncs were automated between Sarasota and Azure, and this included files, databases, and Active Directory.

Hurricane Irma decided to march through Florida in early September 2017, and this plan was only about 75% complete when we got the news. Luckily, we had a week to quickly finish up the essentials, and then we shifted our production environment from Sarasota to Azure on Saturday, the day before Irma hit. It was successful.

Our customers continued to use their applications in the the Azure environment for the next several weeks. Then in early October, we brought the applications back home to Sarasota.

eComSystems found the Azure IaaS environment to be significantly more expensive than running the servers locally, and so that's why production was shifted back to Sarasota. However, Azure IaaS is adequate for an emergency co-location.

During this project, the DNS changes were automated via PowerShell scripts that accessed the DNSMadeEasy API. Show less

eComSystems is a SAAS provider primarily focused on advertising solutions. Their flagship product, AdStudio, is a web-based application that allows customers to easily design and manage advertisements including circulars, flyers, etc. AdStudio is a sophisticated design program that handles multiple layers much like InDesign. AdStudio also accepts data feeds for inventory items which quickly allow the user to drag and drop images, SKU's, etc. into the layout. Additionally, it allows the… Show more

eComSystems is a SAAS provider primarily focused on advertising solutions. Their flagship product, AdStudio, is a web-based application that allows customers to easily design and manage advertisements including circulars, flyers, etc. AdStudio is a sophisticated design program that handles multiple layers much like InDesign. AdStudio also accepts data feeds for inventory items which quickly allow the user to drag and drop images, SKU's, etc. into the layout. Additionally, it allows the piping of sale information into the customer's POS system so that their registers automatically receive the latest sale information.

When I was hired, the current version of AdStudio (V2) was developed in Silverlight using RIA services and Entity Framework with SQL Server for the DB.

AdStudio had to be converted to use an HTML5/JavaScript client that communicates with an ASP.NET server via REST and JSON. The database stayed the same, but the client and server parts were completely rewritten.
Database:
- SQL Server 2012
- SSRS
Server:
- ASP.NET 4.6.1
- C#
- Enterprise Library
- OWIN
- Web API
Client App:
- HTML5/CSS
- JavaScript
- AngularJS 1.5.x
- AngularUI
- Restangular
- TypeScript
- jQuery
- DataTables
- Lodash
- Moment.js
- LESS
- Bootstrap

I was one of several full-stack developers working on this project. Each of us worked at all layers from the server to the client. Nobody got to specialize.

It was completed ahead of schedule in early 2017.

Additional tools/technologies used:
- Visual Studio 2013
- Git
- Grunt
- Node.js
- Bower Show less

A local managed services firm hired me to write some PowerShell scripts to automate various tasks including:
- Prune Ubiquiti UniFi MongoDB database weekly
- Record Citrix XenApp concurrent license usage hourly (CSV)
- Traverse Active Directory OU's and count users in each OU monthly (CSV)
- Traverse Active Directory OU's and then query computers within these OU's for existence of Citrix Single-Sign-On EXE (CSV)
- Network Printer Assignment
- Fix group policy issue where… Show more

A local managed services firm hired me to write some PowerShell scripts to automate various tasks including:
- Prune Ubiquiti UniFi MongoDB database weekly
- Record Citrix XenApp concurrent license usage hourly (CSV)
- Traverse Active Directory OU's and count users in each OU monthly (CSV)
- Traverse Active Directory OU's and then query computers within these OU's for existence of Citrix Single-Sign-On EXE (CSV)
- Network Printer Assignment
- Fix group policy issue where service accounts were being denied ability to logon. Show less

I-Net's customer, a nursing home management company with 15 facilities, needed key performance indicator reports built that showed how many hours were being worked by each department at each facility versus the current patient census (head count) at that facility. These reports needed to be updated daily.

The challenge was that their patient census data was stored in an external SAAS app (PointClickCare or PCC), and their payroll data was stored in a different, external SAAS app… Show more

I-Net's customer, a nursing home management company with 15 facilities, needed key performance indicator reports built that showed how many hours were being worked by each department at each facility versus the current patient census (head count) at that facility. These reports needed to be updated daily.

The challenge was that their patient census data was stored in an external SAAS app (PointClickCare or PCC), and their payroll data was stored in a different, external SAAS app (Paycom). The solution involved several steps.

A replicated SQL Server database was setup for the PCC census data. PCC drops off a transaction log every hour on an SFTP site. A PowerShell job runs every hour to pick up the transaction log and import it into the local SQL Server 2012 database via RedGate SQL Backup Pro.

Paycom drops off an XLSX file daily on an SFTP site. A PowerShell job downloads this file to a local server.

A FileMaker Server 14 database was created as a central repository. Scheduled FileMaker script jobs run several times a day to import the Paycom XLSX files as well as key tables from the PCC database. This data is aggregated into further tables to allow for easier crosstab reporting of the payroll hours at each facility versus the patient census data (Hours Per Patient Day).

The reports are accessible via FileMaker Pro, web browser (WebDirect), and PDF exports. Show less

Oxford's customer, a multi-billion dollar food distributor, bought another distributor, and they were consolidating their warehouse and distribution logistics. Some distribution centers were being dropped while others were being added. This affected their DNN 7.2.2-based B2B e-commerce app and required modifications to some of their custom code:
- Investigated code for scope of changes
- Updated several stored procedures
- Updated some user controls (VB.NET and C#)
- Changes… Show more

Oxford's customer, a multi-billion dollar food distributor, bought another distributor, and they were consolidating their warehouse and distribution logistics. Some distribution centers were being dropped while others were being added. This affected their DNN 7.2.2-based B2B e-commerce app and required modifications to some of their custom code:
- Investigated code for scope of changes
- Updated several stored procedures
- Updated some user controls (VB.NET and C#)
- Changes were rolled out in a 3-tiered environment: Development, UAT, Production
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An IT Services firm had a virtualized infrastructure on 2 host systems running older versions of Hyper-V. The existing infrastructure included multiple DB servers, multiple IIS servers, an Exchange server, a Domain Controller, and several other servers. The problems with the existing infrastructure were as follows:
- VM's could not be migrated between hosts without shutting the VM's down.
- The scheduled backups of the VM's were taking the VM's offline during the backup process.
-… Show more

An IT Services firm had a virtualized infrastructure on 2 host systems running older versions of Hyper-V. The existing infrastructure included multiple DB servers, multiple IIS servers, an Exchange server, a Domain Controller, and several other servers. The problems with the existing infrastructure were as follows:
- VM's could not be migrated between hosts without shutting the VM's down.
- The scheduled backups of the VM's were taking the VM's offline during the backup process.
- The individual web sites were being backed up, file-by-file, which created millions files on the backup drives and bogged down the file system. For example, a defrag of the host system took 48 hours or more.
- Backups were taking 8 hours or more.
- The VMs were using dynamic VHD files, and some of these had grown very large and were fragmented.

I performed the following tasks:
- I upgraded both Hyper-V host systems to 2012 R2.
- I configured the processors in all of the VMs to support live migration. Now all of the VMs support live migrations between the two host systems.
- I created a PowerShell script to backup the web sites (SQL DB and files). The files are zipped. Now a host defrag takes less than 30 minutes.
- I created a PowerShell script to perform a live backup of the VMs using the baked-in Windows Server Backup utility. It runs nightly. The VM's stay online during backups.
- I changed the backup drives from USB to SATA. This increased the throughput of the backups by 4 to 6 times, and the backup window was reduced from 8 hours to 2 hours. This is true even though more servers are being backed up each night.
- I created a PowerShell script to compact the VHD files of the VM's and to also defrag the VHD files, themselves, and this is scheduled to run weekly. The size of the VHD files for the servers has been greatly reduced in most cases, and this has cut down on the size of the backup images, too.

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Moore Creative's customer, a professional association with 10K+ members, had a DNN e-commerce site that was also used to track continuing education and manage memberships for its customers. The site needed some enhancements and a face lift. My part of the project involved the following:
- Upgrade DNN from 6.2.9 to 7.3.4
- Upgrade CataLOOK from 6.5.3 to 6.8.5
- Fix custom code breakage during the upgrade process (User controls, C#)
- Fix skin breakage during the upgrade process… Show more

Moore Creative's customer, a professional association with 10K+ members, had a DNN e-commerce site that was also used to track continuing education and manage memberships for its customers. The site needed some enhancements and a face lift. My part of the project involved the following:
- Upgrade DNN from 6.2.9 to 7.3.4
- Upgrade CataLOOK from 6.5.3 to 6.8.5
- Fix custom code breakage during the upgrade process (User controls, C#)
- Fix skin breakage during the upgrade process (VB.NET, CSS, HTML)
- Clean up membership data within SQL Server DB (T-SQL)
- Provide support/training to staff for UI changes during upgrade.
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A small restaurant in Venice opened in November 2014 and needed a simple, brochure site that was easily viewed on mobile devices. We used DotNetNuke as the framework.
- DotNetNuke 7.2.1
- Responsive Design (CSS/HTML)
- Open Graph Protocol (OGP) tags are embedded for better integration with FaceBook.
- SSL/TLS (HTTPS)

Engage Software's customer, a Professional Association with over 10K members, had an old DNN site for managing the association membership as as well continuing education credits. They were looking for upgraded functionality. The site was not going to be upgraded. Instead, the content from the old site was going to be "forklifted" into a fresh installation of DNN.

My part of the project involved the following:
- Inventory existing modules, pages, content.
- Pull the content… Show more

Engage Software's customer, a Professional Association with over 10K members, had an old DNN site for managing the association membership as as well continuing education credits. They were looking for upgraded functionality. The site was not going to be upgraded. Instead, the content from the old site was going to be "forklifted" into a fresh installation of DNN.

My part of the project involved the following:
- Inventory existing modules, pages, content.
- Pull the content from the old site, clean up the code, and prep the content to be deployed into the new DNN site. This involved over 800 pages. This was performed at the database level. (T-SQL, HTML, CSS) Show less

Oxford is a global IT services firm that hired me for a project for one of their customers.

The customer is a multi-billion dollar distributor, and through an acquisition, they inherited a vintage 2007 DNN 4.3.5 web application with heavy customization to handle customer orders. The DNN site handled the shopping cart, invoice history, order status, etc. But the actual fulfillment was handed off to an AS400/DB2 system. This site was experiencing over 1 million page views per… Show more

Oxford is a global IT services firm that hired me for a project for one of their customers.

The customer is a multi-billion dollar distributor, and through an acquisition, they inherited a vintage 2007 DNN 4.3.5 web application with heavy customization to handle customer orders. The DNN site handled the shopping cart, invoice history, order status, etc. But the actual fulfillment was handed off to an AS400/DB2 system. This site was experiencing over 1 million page views per month.

One of the big challenges was that the original developers modified the core DNN code instead of implementing all customization through modules. And yes, a lot of the customizations were in compiled assemblies with no source code.

My part of the project included the following:
• Decompile source and split the customizations out from the DNN Core
• Upgrade site from DNN 4.3.5 to DNN 7.2.1
• Convert some of the custom code from VB to C#
• Implement Active Directory (AD) integration for multiple, non-trusted domains.
• Write several custom modules involving AD account management
• Perform internal web statistics analysis that included info about specific users.
• Resolve IBM iSeries DB2 driver conflict
• Lots of T-SQL work including updating stored procedures and resolving collation conflicts.
• Move app from IIS 6.0 to 7.5.
• Convert app from .NET 2.0 classic pipeline to .NET 4.0 integrated pipeline.

When it was time to go live, I built a complex SSIS package to import the live data from original app with DNN 4.3.5 schema to the new app with DNN 7.2.1 schema.

The new site launched in August 2014 and the project has been completed successfully. The customer doesn’t want their name advertised for security purposes. However, the in-house project manager and in-house developer on the team agreed to be references, and I’ll provide these references on request so that you can verify that I’m not making this up!

I was in Chicago for two weeks, but I worked remotely the rest of the time. Show less

This is a small e-commerce site for renting flyboards which are a new extreme water sport. It's based on the DotNetNuke CMS, and it utilizes various technologies including SQL Server-bound forms, jQuery, and JavaScript.

I had been planning on using a hosted e-commerce solution or an e-commerce add-on module for DotNetNuke to complete this project. However, due to some of the specific needs of the client, I ended up building a solution from scratch.