My Internship Experience, Spring/Summer 2007 Contemporary Technologies, Inc.: RemoteDBA Group Nicholas W. Conroy Indiana University of Pennsylvania Computer Sciences Department

Road Map 4 Overall: Prepare future interns for the kinds of work experiences they may encounter 4 Introduce myself and where I came from 4 Explain the company’s history and my experience with it. 4 Describe my living conditions 4 Explain the projects and Technologies I worked on. 4 Wrap it up with special thanks and questions.

Introduction: Nick Conroy 4 Grew up in and around Philadelphia 4 Attended Lower Merion High School 4 Chose IUP because of strong programs that could lead toward video game design specialization 4 Majoring in Computer Science 4 Now planning a career in computer professions

Contemporary Technologies Inc. Remote Database Administration Experts

New Business Model Emerged 4 As a generalized tech firm, CTI began working on a new service in 1997: 4 Remote Database maintenance and repair 4 At the time, this was a small niche market 4 But 911 effectively destroyed the onsite training business 4 Remote DBA doubled from 2001 to The primary selling point was experts with 10 years experience, constantly available, day & night

Company Structure President Epi Torres Database Mgr Team Chris Foot (Oracle Ace, RDA management) Oracle Team Len D. (IUP Alum), Jeff C., Ralph B, Mark S., Sandy S., Jeff B., Joe M., Brian N. Brian H., Jenna L. (IUP Alum) SQL Server Team Chris B., Jessica B., John Y., Tim Foley (IUP Alum) DB2 and Legacy Systems Barbary A,, Sivaji A., Bob K. Sales Group Rob Brown Client contacts and business development Advertising and Marketing Matthew Benson Website Maintenance John Parker Administration Jayme Puza (Was Michael H. and Joe G.) Internal Network Tech support William McGinnis

444 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh

My Workspace at CTI

Place to Live, and Getting to Work 4F4Found an apartment on Craig’s list 4G4Good price, one free month 4S4Sublease 4H4Had to arrange credit check, payments, etc. 4E4Excellent location 4T4Took one bus to get to work, straight shot 4P4Parking on street easy

Phipps Conservatory Downtown Universities in Pittsburgh Sports Good Restaurants

My car and house There’s no place like home

View of the Room (Men living alone are kind of like bears, only with furniture – George Carlin, 1994)

Projects

Technologies used 4 Java and Java Script 4 SQL (Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and Access) 4 XML containers 4 Tomcat Servers 4 Windows extensively and Linux learning

Accomplishments and small Projects 4 Helped edit the database assessment process 4 Installed 2 rack mounted servers 4 Configured many laptops and servers for deployment 4 Tested VPN Connections to customers 4 Organized important documents and documented procedures

Monthly Report Automation 4 Every month, Remote DBA Experts generates a monthly report for customers who ask for it. 4 It involves gathering data that is generated by scripts and jobs run on a Customer’s systems. 4 This was done manually with copy and paste over hundreds of s.

Customers Company Server Construct Report Internet Automatic Data ed Monthly Report Process

4 Written in Unicode vs. ASCII –8 empty bits for each character 4 Every other line is blank because of this 4 Repeating and unfailing tags to be detected in order to scan the correct areas of each . Identical s with different data. 4 Identical file names. The s

Parsing Sam likes strawberries and cream Subject of the sentence? Verb?

The Parser 4 while ((line = in.readLine()) != null){ 4 Checks for end of file, a line only containing a null character is not the same as a null line. 4 if (line.length() > 15){ 4 Checks to see if the line is long enough to have information worth parsing, 15 is not that much because every other character is empty space. 4 if(target){ 4 target is a Boolean value that is checked after these logic gates, it eliminates the need to check unnecessary lines, just used to shorten processing time. 4 if(line.charAt(7) == '/'){ 4 ‘/’ is found as the 7th character in each line containing data, and is not found in the rest of the .

Web Time Entry 4 A crucial component to CTi, it allows us to bill customers for the work we do for them. 4 Using the open source project on Sourceforge, web time entry. 4 Customized specifically for CTi’s needs and preferences over the course of several months.

Time Entry Database & Web server Internet and LAN Remote Computers

Shown in action

XML Containers

Java Methods public DataSet initTimeCardsByEmployee(DataSet timeCardData,DataAccess dataAccess) { timeCardData.putStringField("EmployeeID", timeCardData.getUser()); getOpenTimeCardsByEmployee(timeCardDat a, dataAccess);

Pros/Cons of XML Containers 4 Allow on the fly editing of layouts 4 Abstracts out back end processing 4 Well suited to web deployments 4 Adds complication to architecture 4 Requires a well made parser 4 Cannot pass variables

So What?

IUP & the Internship 4 Classes that Helped: –COSC 341, Database Management –COSC 310, Data structures –COSC 220, Applied computer Programs 4 Things I could have used: –COSC 415 web development –Specific platform practice with databases

Conclusion 4 The Internship was singularly the most valuable experience I have ever obtained from in connection to an academic institution 4 History of CTi and my experiences 4 My living conditions 4 My projects

Acknowledgements 4H4Hope to return to CTi after senior year 4T4Thanks to Dr. Shubra and the IUP faculty for making this possible 4T4Thanks to everyone at CTI for a supportive, fun, learning-oriented atmosphere 4T4Thanks to my friends and family for continued support 4A4AND…

No Reason for this Picture Sidney, my little dog.

Questions? Elaborations? Explanations? Comments?