Matthew Boehm |

Overview

MySQL Consultant / Architect / Trainer, based in Houston, TX.
Specializing in large, complex MySQL installations.
World-class instructor-led training delivery.
Pretty good with C, PHP, GoLang, and bash one-liners.

Public Events

Employment History

Percona, Inc

Senior Instructor / Principal MySQL Architect / Principal MySQL Consultant November 2012 - Present

As Principal MySQL Architect / Principal MySQL Consultant, I assist many Fortune 500 companies with their MySQL woes. Anything and everything from performance tuning, backups and recovery, system design and query optimization. My areas of speciality include Percona XtraDB Cluster, ProxySQL, and Orchestrator.

As Senior Instructor, I am responsible for the curation, creation, and delivery of various MySQL-related training topics. I have traveled all over the world teaching clients on the best practices of MySQL and other current technologies.

PayPal, Inc

Senior MySQL DBAFeburary 2012 - November 2012

As leader on a team of 3, I managed the day-to-day MySQL operations for 2,400 MySQL servers.

Designed, architected and implemented upgrades of all MySQL Servers from 5.0 to 5.5.
Participated in weekly-rotating on-call duties.
Designed and implemented data validation tools between master and slaves.
Managed a datacenter migration, requiring the moving of 100+ MySQL servers, with zero downtime.
Tracked and managed progress of other team members.
Implemented massive monitoring tools solution using MySQL Enterprise Monitor.
Functioned as capacity planner between upper management and developers.
Provided plans and implementations of performance tuning.
Provided guidance and consultation on SQL design with developers.
Rewrote several legacy scripts in multi-threaded C to more efficiently execute ETL jobs.
Wrote new maintenance scripts in bash and PHP to automate weekly and monthly tasks.

Dell Secureworks

Senior MySQL DBAJanuary 2011 - December 2011

Managed the day-to-day MySQL operations for 200 MySQL servers in 3 different cities.
Project managed and executed the upgrade of those 200 MySQL servers to 5.1.54.
Project managed and executed core business MySQL servers' hardware upgrade without downtime.
Created monitoring scripts to preemptively catch bad queries, long running queries, etc.
Instigated policies for ‘best-practices’ when troubleshooting MySQL issues.
Performance tuned MySQL servers for optimal speed and efficiency.
Provided consultative expert advice on new projects and deployments.
Assisted in the training of 200 developers on best practices for SQL design when using MySQL.
Facilitated as the ‘approver’ of all schema changes in new development.
Participated as team lead for MySQL databases on new code deployments and DDL changes.
Initiated a global MySQL partitioning effort to improve query performance and facilitate automatic archiving of older data.
Created a schema comparison tool, in PHP, to find the differences between tables of two different hosts.

Softlayer, an IBM Company

Senior MySQL DBAJuly 2008 - December 2010

As the Senior MySQL DBA for SoftLayer Managed Hosting department, I oversaw the database needs for all things MySQL by provide consulting services for new, existing and growing customers and troubleshooting issues when they arise.

I also developed new and innovative ways to increase efficiency within the Linux team by introducing new or improving existing methods of automation.

Created and launched Northstar Managed Hosting’s MySQL support offering.
Established and documented guidelines and ‘best-practices’ for managing and maintaining MySQL.
Developed and maintained custom backup and recovery solution for MySQL.
Worked closely with vendors and other open-source software to develop advanced MySQL monitoring and performance statistics.
Created and maintained an internal “dashboard” which allowed engineers to more efficiently utilize their skills and decrease response time to customer issues.
Created several automated reports to give management better visibility into ticket metrics (ie: initial response time, longest tickets, hours worked per ticket).
Created a bandwidth graphing system for use by the technical account manager to supplement customer invoices.
Created documents to assist in cross training MySQL to other employees.
Obtained necessary certifications pertinent to job (Certified MySQL DBA, Certified MySQL Cluster DBA, Red Hat Certified Engineer).
Manage the day-to-day MySQL operations for 40 customers.
Provide consultative services and expert opinions and recommendations to new and existing customers during the (re)design phases of their topology.
Teach customers how to understand table creation and index usage based on industry best-practices.

FamilyTree DNA

Senior MySQL DBANovember 2007 - July 2008

Designed, implemented and maintained fault tolerant network services in a co-location facility.
Used HP ProCurve 2800's to implement VLANs for separating layer 3 networks and STP to provide High-Availability to individual machines.
Used WatchGuard 750e Firebox's to create client VPN access, static VPN tunnels to branch offices, prevent DDoS attacks, manage layer 3 routing and provide NAT translation to protect back-end servers.
Lead programmer of company sister site. Designed with 100% PHP5 using the Symfony MVC framework and MySQL Cluster 5.1 back-end.
Designed, implemented and maintained MySQL 5.1 Cluster.
Installed, configured and maintained linux servers using Fedora Core 8.
Installed, configured and maintained Apache 2.2, mod_proxy, mod_security and mod_cache to act as front-end caching servers and to provide protection from various user attacks such as SQL injection.
Setup monitoring services on linux servers using SNMP, Cacti, Zabbix and IPMonitor. Integrated Apache and MySQL into monitoring to provide additional statistical performance graphs.

VoilaIP Communications

Senior PHP ProgrammerMay 2007 - October 2007

Senior PHP programmer for company website and customer backend systems.
Initiated a refactoring of customer signup process; utilized Symphony MVC framework.
Designed and maintained database systems; MySQL

OmNovia Technologies

Director of DevelopmentOctober 2005 - November 2007

Responsible for designing, implementing and maintaining high-availability Linux-based, Apache and MySQL server nodes in a clustered environment thus providing 99.999% uptime of company websites and databases.
Implemented email-based customer support ticket system and knowledge-base forums, which reduced customer support calls by 75 percent.
Lead programmer for all aspects of company's web-conferencing products.
Using PHP, created web-portal allowing customers to manage their own accounts, view invoices, pay bills, modify conference room settings and create events thus dramatically reducing support calls.
Improved system efficiency over 60 percent by converting main application from CGI to mod_perl.
Used AJAX and XML to reduce extraneous data sent by server which improved efficiency.
Using PHP, developed several in-house utilities to help eliminate redundant and tedious tasks.
Programmed in Flex/Flash ActionScript 3 to develop newest version of company conferencing product which will further reduce support calls.

Cypress Telecommunications

IT DirectorAugust 2004 - September 2005

Tested customer VoIP phones (Cisco 79XX, Polycom 501), T1 and PRI links to VoIP carriers and VoIP quality with nationwide carriers.
Designed and maintained Cisco Powered Networks (7200, 2600, 5300 Series Routers).
Designed and maintained centralized MySQL database system.
Created Web-based control panel for customers that allowed them manage their own accounts and call patterns.
Maintained company email, Web and DNS servers (qmail, apache, bind).
Released patches and bug fixes to open source VoIP PBX, Asterisk (C, MySQL)

Certifications

AWS Certified Foundational - 2022

Education

BA Geography, CS Minor The University of Texas at Austin, 2004

During my 4 years at UT Austin, I was Vice-President of the Residence Hall Association; managing the communications of over 25,000 on-campus residents. I was employed by the core web-design team and internal linux team for 2 years.

Vice President, University Residence Hall Association, 2001-2004

About

Born and raised in Texas.
Advanced Level / National Competitor in West Coast Swing dance.
I enjoy snow skiing, scuba diving, roller coasters and camping without technology.