Published using Google Docs
2024+ Bryan's CV - Curriculum Vitae - PUBLIC
Updated automatically every 5 minutes

Bryan Johnston

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brattex/

Bryan Johnston

Senior HPC Technologist II

Centre for High Performance Computing

Advanced Computer Engineering Lab

bryan@johnston.za.net

Cape Town, South Africa

As a Senior HPC Technologist with over 7 years of experience in the national Centre for High Performance Computing, I have designed and deployed more than 30 HPC systems across the African region. I have led an international team to develop the first-of-its-kind scalable and self-hosted virtual HPC training environment for HPC system administrators and users. My knowledge of systems architecture, performance optimisation, and information security has enabled me to serve on several national HPC steering committees, and my expertise in analytical problem solving and project management has equipped me to lead diverse teams to deliver complex projects on time and within budget. I am a collaborative team player with excellent communication and leadership skills, and have experience in mentoring colleagues. I am always seeking opportunities to extend my personal development where I may continue to innovate and meaningfully impact the HPC community.

Current Role

Senior High Performance Computing Technologist II

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

Advanced Computer Engineering Lab (ACE Lab)

Jan 2023 - present

Leading the HPC Ecosystems Project, which consults national governments and regional scientific institutions towards the design and deployment of repurposed tier-1 HPC systems (exceeding 30 sites) and delivers the technical HPC training and operationalisation of the HPC systems in diverse computing environments. Facilitating the transfer of digital skills through several Human Capital Development initiatives. Performing technology evaluations and leading project task teams to develop technology packages to contribute to the global HPC hardware and software ecosystems. Expanded the HPC Ecosystems community from 148 members in January 2023 to over 225 members, to date.

Responsibilities

  1. Project Lead: HPC Ecosystems Project.
  2. Leading the establishment of a formal self-governed HPC community structure for Africa.
  3. Advancing Human Capital Development in the field of HPC.
  4. Mentor and support ACE Lab technologists and engineers.
  5. Support establishment of policies, communities of practice, and mechanisms to further high quality collaborations with partners / stakeholders.
  6. Lead the initiative for HPC curriculum development and delivery at local academic institutions.
  7. Perform technology evaluation pertaining to HPC hardware and software.
  8. Providing hardware and software solutions to address bespoke requirements.

Current Projects

HPC Ecosystems Project

Repurposing of decommissioned tier-1 HPC systems for distribution as mid-tier systems for research institutions / centres in Africa.

  • Software stack and hardware specification design, deployment and continuous revision.
  • Technology research and development (incl. software / hardware solutions).
  • HPC System Administrator readiness and training.
  • HPC Community leadership and support for 33+ HPC sites, 225+ global members.
  • Leadership engagement and consultation, including policy framework development (Research Labs; HPC Centres; National Governments / Ministries).

“Cloudless Cluster Lab” - standalone, scalable & sustainable HPC technical training lab

Development of a self-hosted virtual cluster that is available indefinitely on the HPC practitioner’s local system for continuous learning and training.

  • First-of-its-kind resource for standalone / offline cluster experimentation.
  • Software and virtual hardware specification design and deployment.
  • Automated and reproducible virtual cluster deployment using Infrastructure as Code tools.
  • Content development and delivery using GitOps / DevOps / Agile principles.
  • Publication available in Journal of Computational Science Education (jocse.org) (ETA. March 2024)

ARM-based HPC Evaluation & Monitoring Probe

Development of a standalone Raspberry Pi-based cluster to perform HPC datacentre readiness evaluation and continuous HPC datacentre monitoring.

  • Leading a team of HPC technologists and engineers to design and implement a Pi-based cluster probe to evaluate datacentre parameters and provide standalone HPC performance monitoring.

High Performance Computing CyberInfrastructure National Framework Development

Relating to various National Government HPC Steering Committees

Professional Experience (past 10 years)

Senior High Performance Computing Technologist I

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

Advanced Computer Engineering Lab (ACE Lab)

Jun 2016 - Dec 2022

Increased HPC systems from 5 to 28 sites in Africa and founded an HPC virtual community (reaching 148 members). Optimised and standardised the community HPC software stack. Provided detailed reporting for government departments, prepared HPC policy documents, and served on several national HPC steering committees. Facilitated NSF/donor-funded multi-day co-located international workshops. Oversaw procurement for HPC system resources. Developed the first-of-its-kind scalable & standalone virtual HPC training platform for a globally adopted HPC software stack.

Principal Technician: Systems & Operations (Scientific Computing)

University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN)

School of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science

Aug 2013 - May 2016

Managed a team of six technical personnel to provide scientific computing support for the Westville campus. Provided oversight and responsibility for all technical operations, including asset inventory management; access control management; network and server infrastructure; software and hardware specification; procurement; cross-discipline scientific computing support.

Principal Technician: Academic & Research (Scientific Computing)

University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN)

School of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science

May 2013 - May 2016

Responsible for supporting technical requirements of academic research and advanced scientific computing. This included designing and deploying advanced computing resources and reviewing existing systems for optimisation and performance enhancements. Deployed and administered several HPC systems, including the 1000-core flagship Dell HPC; Cyclops 64-core SMP; Firebird 1 & 2 ROCKS clusters; 1536-core Ranger SUN HPC.

Additional work experience (i.e. more than ten years ago) is available upon request

and is also published via LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brattex

Education

Master of Science (Computer Science)

Georgia Institute of Technology

Specialisation: Computing Systems

Jan 2019 - Dec 2021

GPA 3.9

CS6200 Graduate Introduction to Operating Systems

CS6290 High Performance Computer Architecture

CS6250 Computer Networks

CS6035 Information Security

CS6460 Educational Technology

CS8001 Learning At Scale

CS8001 Data Structures & Algorithms

CS7638 Robotics: AI Techniques

CS7646 Machine Learning For Trading

CSE6220 Introduction to HPC

CS6515 Graduate Algorithms

CS6750 Human Computer Interaction

CS8001 Machine Learning & Data Science Tooling

Bachelor of Science Honours (Computer Science)

University of Natal

Jan 2000 - Dec 2000

Bachelor of Science (Computer Science & Economics)

University of Natal

Jan 1997 - Dec 1999

Strengths and Skills

Leadership

  • Team development & mentorship
  • Community building & management
  • Steering Committees, policies and workflows

Project Management

  • Administration & Project Management

Training and Education

  • Pedagogy and andragogy
  • Cognitive science

Communication & Public Engagements

  • Public speaking
  • Scientific presentations / panels
  • Delivering lectures

Research and Development

  • Scientific research
  • Technology evaluation
  • Product development
  • Human Computer Interaction principles

Parallel & Distributed Computing

  • Systems design, architecture & optimisation

Software Development

  • Most recently: C, Python, BASH
  • Parallel API’s: OpenMP, MPI, CUDA
  • Systems Development: DevOps & Agile principles
  • Algorithms & Optimizations

System Administration

  • System design & configuration
  • Linux environments
  • Networking
  • Ethernet & InfiniBand
  • Design & topologies
  • SDN / automation
  • Virtualisation (VMware, Virtualbox)
  • Automation/Orchestration/Infrastructure as Code
  • Puppet, Ansible, Vagrant
  • Spack
  • OpenHPC
  • Provisioning (DRBL)

Most recent / non-exhaustive list

Organizations and Leadership

Association for Computing Machinery

Special Interest Group on High Performance Computing - Education Chapter (SIGHPC Edu) - Regional Chair (Africa)

https://sighpceducation.acm.org/ 

Mar 2023 - present

Planning Committee: SC21 Student Programming Technical Sessions

SC21 Supercomputing Conference 

Nov 2021

Special Interest Group on High Performance Computing - Resource Constrained Environments (SIGHPC-RCE) - Membership Coordinator

https://sighpc-rce.acm.org/ 

Nov 2016 - Nov 2018

Centre for High Performance Computing

CHPC Cybersecurity Champion

Aug 2021 - present

NICIS-Centre for High Performance Computing

Team Lead: National Integrated CyberInfrastructure System Data Stewards

Nov 2021 - present

Publications

Let’s Get Our Heads Out of the Clouds (A Scalable and Sustainable Approach to HPC Training Labs for Resource Constrained Environments and Anyone Else Stuck in the Clouds)

Research Paper presented at ACM Supercomputing Conference ’23 (SC’23)

SC23 Proceedings Tech Paper bphpcte114 

Nov 2023

Delivering Digital Skills Across the Digital Divide

Research Poster presented at ACM Supercomputing Conference ’23 (SC’23)

SC23 Proceedings Tech Poster 150s3

Nov 2023

HPC Ecosystems Project: Facilitating Advanced Research Computing in Africa

Research Poster presented at ACM PEARC’19

Proceedings of the Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing 

July 2019

Milestones and Awards

HPCwire 2022 Editors’ Choice Award - Workforce Diversity & Inclusion Leadership Award

2022 HPCwire Awards - Readers' & Editors' Choice

Nov 2022

CSIR Excellence Award: Best Master’s Student

CSIR Excellence Awards 2022

Nov 2022

NGEI Excellence Award: Human Capital Development (HPC Ecosystems Project)

CSIR NextGen Enterprises and Institutions Excellence Awards

Nov 2022

“This is HPC on Intel” invited panelist

Intel® HPC Developer Conference

Nov 2019

CSIR Excellence Award: Human Capital Development (HPC Ecosystems Project)

CSIR Excellence Awards 2018

Nov 2018

HPCwire 2018 Reader’s Choice Award for Workforce Diversity Leadership

2018 HPCwire Awards - Readers' & Editors' Choice

Nov 2018

References are available upon request.

Cut it down to 4 or 5 pages.

Condense the wordy parts.

ScienceSlam@SC20 First Prize Winner (Outreach) and Grand Prize Winner (Overall)

ScienceSlam@SC20 International Competition

Nov 2020


Bryan Johnston

Senior HPC Technologist II

Advanced Computer Engineering Lab (ACE Lab)

Centre for High Performance Computing

MS Computer Science (Computing Systems) - Georgia Institute of Technology

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brattex/ 

About

Current Role

Senior HPC Technologist II

(Council for Scientific and Industrial Research)

As a Senior Technologist in the ACE Lab, I am responsible for leading one of the Lab’s main projects - the HPC Ecosystems Project.

I lead a team***

CSIR

Jan 2023 to present

Responsibilities

Special Projects

Professional Work Experience

Job Roles

Education

Tertiary Education

MSc. Computer Science (specialization: Computing Systems)

Georgia Institute of Technology

2019-2021

Senior HPC Technologist I

(Council for Scientific and Industrial Research)


EDIT: please refer to my Linkedin link for latest updates

CURRICULUM VITAE @ 2014-10-29

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/bryan-johnston/8/9a5/b43

http://tiny.cc/bjcv

Bryan Johnston

Principal Technician for Academic Research in School of Maths, Stats, and Computer Science, UKZN

Durban Area, South Africa

Information Technology and Services

Current

Past

Profile

Bryan Johnston is a motivated individual with a passion for innovation, service and leadership in the Information Technology field and the community. Bryan obtained his BSc (Computer Science and Economics) from Natal University and completed his Honours degree (Computer Science) the following year (2000). He formed his own computer and technology business ("BTE") in 2000 and while performing business services for SOHO clients, developed a sound understanding of network infrastructures and hardware troubleshooting and broad-based solutions provisioning.

   In 2005 Bryan entered a full-time position at the Head Office of a multinational company as the Senior Systems Administrator. He later moved to UKZN as a Senior Network Technician for the Specialised Scientific Computing Unit which enhanced his experience with systems administration, network maintenance, server support, solutions provisioning, consulting and hands-on involvement with cutting-edge and breakthrough technologies.

   In mid-2012 Bryan moved back to industry as Senior Systems Engineer for an I.T. consulting company where he adopted more responsibilities as a technical manager over other I.T. engineers within the organisation. Currently, Bryan is employed as Principal Technician for Academic and Research support at UKZN within the School of Maths, Stats and Computer Science. Given Bryan’s ambition to become a pioneer leader in I.T. as a specialist in cutting-edge system solutions with a wide-ranging impact on technical operations, he has focused towards growing his experience in High Performance Computing.

Personal Details

Full name: Bryan John Johnston.

Marital Status: Married

Languages: English (home), Afrikaans (intermediate), Italian (intermediate), Portuguese (Basic), Zulu (very basic), German (attended intermediate classes until end of 2010), French (very basic), Spanish (very basic)

E-Mail address: bryan@johnston.za.net

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/bryan-johnston/8/9a5/b43

Work Experience (Overview)

Principal Technician

University of KwaZulu-Natal

Educational Institution; 1001-5000 employees; Higher Education industry

May 2013 – Present (1 year 6 months)

Principal Technician responsible for academic research support in School of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science in the College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science.

Particular focus on supporting Astrophysics and Cosmology Research Unit and High Performance Computing.

Technical Operations Supervisor

University of KwaZulu-Natal

Educational Institution; 1001-5000 employees; Higher Education industry

August 2013 – Present (1 year 3 months)

In addition to the role of Principal Technician (Academic & Research), now also supervising two Senior Systems Technicians, a Desktop Technician, and a Technical / Helpdesk Administrator for Westville campus.

Content Contributor

El33tonline

September 2009 – July 2014 (4 years 11 months)

Providing up-to-date commentary and insight on the latest gaming hardware and software available, with special emphasis on game reviews, previews and opinion pieces.


I.T. Manager (Acting)

PFK Electronics (Pty) Ltd

Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing industry

August 2012 – April 2013 (9 months) Durban Area, South Africa

Seconded to PFK Electronics 4.5 days per week on behalf of Cais (Pty) Ltd;

Fulfilling roles of I.T. Manager at PFK HQ in Umbilo Road.

Senior Network Engineer

Cais (Pty) Ltd

Privately Held; 1001-5000 employees; Information Technology and Services industry

May 2012 – April 2013 (1 year) Durban Area, South Africa

Senior Engineer for Isegen South Africa (Pty) Ltd. (onsite 0.5 days / week)

Acting I.T. Manager at PFK Electronics (Pty) Ltd. (onsite 4.5 days / week)

Senior Technician

University of KwaZulu-Natal

Educational Institution; 1001-5000 employees; Higher Education industry

January 2012 – April 2012 (4 months)

Senior Technician for School of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science in the College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science.

Senior Network Technician

University of KwaZulu-Natal

Educational Institution; 1001-5000 employees; Higher Education industry

June 2006 – December 2011 (5 years 7 months) Durban Area, South Africa

Senior Technician for Specialised Scientific Computing Unit in the Faculty of Science & Agriculture

Senior Systems Administrator

SouthAfrican Coaters (Pty) LTD

June 2005 – April 2006 (11 months) Durban Area, South Africa

Management and administration of complete IT infrastructure

Volunteer Experience & Causes

Missionary

Westville Baptist Church, South Africa

Civil Rights and Social Action

Courses & Certifications

Principal Technician

University of KwaZulu-Natal

Apple Certified Support Professional

Projects

UKZN HPC System (Hippo)

 June 2014 to Present

Team Members: Robin Humble, Bryan Johnston, Jon Sievers, Leonard Els

Mentorship from lead engineer for configuration, rollout and administration of UKZN's Hippo HPC.

Once HPC is commissioned, I will be one of the administrators of the system.

Hippo is a 1000 core (2.5 GHz 64 GB RAM) HPC running HP SL230s Gen8 and HP SL250s Gen8 compute nodes. Running CentOS, using OneSIS for deployment.

Astrophysics and Cosmology Number Cruncher

 May 2013 to Present

32 core 500 GB RAM super computer running RedHat Enterprise Linux used to accelerate academic research computing that is pioneering the stuff of legend.

Ranger HPC Test System

Deployment, configuration, rollout and administration of Ranger HPC chassis (192 core 2.3 GHz 1.5 TB RAM) as a simplified and experimental / training HPC.

Ranger chassis running CentOS, using Cobbler, Torque, Puppet.

(presently awaiting arrival of Ranger HPC from CHPC)

External Examiner: School of Engineering (UKZN)

 October 2014

Served as External Examiner / Moderator for Computer Engineering Design 2 (ENEL3CB H2), which is a design (project) course for 3rd year Computer Engineering undergraduates.

Skills & Expertise

  1. High Performance Computing
  2.  SQL
  3.  Programming
  4.  Visual Basic
  5.  MySQL
  6.  XML
  7.  Linux
  8.  Software Development
  9.  System Administration
  10.  Windows Server
  11.  Databases
  12.  Networking
  13.  Network Administration
  14.  Servers
  15.  Operating Systems
  16.  VMware
  17.  Microsoft Exchange
  18.  TCP/IP
  19.  Integration
  20.  Windows
  21.  Troubleshooting
  22.  HTML
  23.  Visual Studio
  24.  Web Development
  25.  Systems Analysis
  26.  Virtualization
  27.  Software Documentation
  28.  C++
  29.  Java
  30.  Lisp
  31.  VBA
  32.  Turbo Pascal
  33.  Prolog
  34.  Novell Netware
  35.  Assembler
  36.  First Aid
  37.  Public Speaking
  38.  Drama
  39.  Acting
  40.  Apple OS
  41.  Database Design
  42.  OpenMP

Computers, Administration

Platforms

Programming

Other Applications and Hardware

General

Leadership Experience

Acting Technical Operations Supervisor UKZN: 2014 to date

Acting IT Manager IT Dept. (PFK Global HQ): 2012 to 2013

SSCU Student Helpdesk Supervisor: 2009 to 2012

Home Group Leader: 2004 to 2015

Chairman of Romax Court (commercial/residential Sectional Title complex): 2008 to 2011

BTE Founder / Owner and manager: 2000 to date

Young Adults Committee: 2004 to 2009

Various selection panels / call committees

Hobbies & Interests

Gaming

Drama and performing arts

Running

Touch Rugby

Squash

Languages


Education

University of Natal

Master of Medical Science (MMedSc), Medical Informatics and Telemedicine

2004 – 2013

Pending mini-dissertation; failing which it's a Post-Graduate Diploma in Medical Informatics.

Bachelor of Science Honours (BSc Hons), Computer Science

2000 – 2000

Computer Science Honours project: Computer-Aided Knowledge (C.A.K)

Bachelor of Science (BSc), Computer Science & Economics

1997 – 1999

Activities and Societies: Science Student Council, Armourer, Fencing, Touch Rugby, Orientation Committee, Gym

Westville Boys High School

Matric Exemption

1992 – 1996

49 Matric points, 8 subjects.

Maths, English, Science, Afrikaans, Accounting, Geography, Adv. Maths, Computer Science

Activities and Societies: Debating, Library, Computer, History, Drama, Rugby, Chess, Editor of School Newspaper, Class Clown


Work Experience (Detail)

UKZN, Westville

May 2013 to date
Principal Technician: Academic & Research Support

3 projects

3 courses

CAIS, Durban
May 2012 to April 2013
Senior Systems Engineer

August 2012 to April 2013
Acting IT Manager

UKZN SSCU, Westville Campus

January 2012 to April 2012

Senior Technician for School of Maths, Stats, and Computer Science (MSCS)

June 2006 to 2011

Senior Network Technician for Specialised Scientific Computing Unit (SSCU)

El33tonline (www.el33tonline.com)

September 2009 to June 2014

Content Contributor

SouthAfrican(sic) Coaters, Westmead

June 2005 to April 2006

Senior Systems Administrator

BTE, Sole Proprietorship

2000 to date

Founder / Owner

References

Revd. Richard Erasmus (Executive Pastor: Westville Baptist Church)

Mr. Andrew Kruger (Partner in a private consulting practice)

Mr. Jonathan Graham (Financial Manager: Reutech Communications, a Division of Reutech Limited)

Mr. Leonard Els (Manager of Technical Operations: School of Maths, Stats & Computer Science)

Contact numbers and additional references available upon request

Comprehensive academic record

Available upon request


—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Page  | 5