Kris S. Amundson
Kris Amundson has been building and operating networks and network services for over ten years. As a seasoned network engineer, he understands the needs of communications delivery from small business cost savings to carrier class redundancy. As a systems engineer, Kris integrates critical business infrastructure to deliver information technology that works. "Networks must be fast, stable, and secure with applications that ride on them useful and fault-tolerant."
Kris began is career in administration of Novell Netware 3. As an administrator for Optec, a Portland based networking firm, he was exposed to the world of Ethernet, Frame Relay, Token Ring, and Cisco.
"Routers and the Internet was just heating up in 1993, and fast. Tinkering with these embedded Cisco pizza boxes connecting networks that would allow you send messages around the globe. I was hooked."
Returning from the Oregon Institute of Technology in 1998, Kris again hooked up with Optec and began a career path as a network engineer for the Cisco Gold Partner. Optec had a diverse client base in the Northwest including: State and local government, education, health, and small-medium enterprise.
In 2000 a unique opportunity to join the firm Metstream Communications presented itself. Tasked with building a carrier class backbone, Kris delivered scalable, reliable transit for voice, video, and data using ATM, DSL, wireless, and IP.
After the rise and fall of the startups, the Metstream network went live, but the funding did not, and in 2001 Kris headed for the Bay Area to help Equator Technologies rebuild their IT infrastructure.
With aging HPUX systems, Kris took the reigns providing FPGA engineers, and embedded software designers an IT infrastructure that was more stable, usable, and faster than their previous environment. This was accomplished with GNU/Linux and Solaris, new VoIP systems replacing an aging PBX system, and a 4-site ATM network providing VoIP, video conferencing, and high speed data to engineering teams around the country. New multi-site redundant email systems were built, and content management systems were put in place for collaborative development and documentation.
After some time in the Bay Area, and a small tenure managing Equator's Seattle office, Kris moved on to Portland State University, tasked with the engineering and operation of all aspects of their data network.
A campus of 25,000 students, faculty and staff, Kris kept the data flowing. He managed data networks for the residence networks, all of academic and faculty network delivery (minus Computer Science), the campus wireless network, and Internet/Internet2. Academic projects included the Northwest Access Exchange (NWAX), Portland Education Research Network (PREN) Internet2, and PREN pre-Wimax testing.
Kris has been hacking on and using Linux since 1994. He is very interested in the real world application of using Linux in all industries, including enterprise IT, embedded devices, and network management
In his spare time, Kris serves on the board of the GoBiodiesel Cooperative and is an avid composer of electronic music.
