// about
One engineer, the whole stack.
I'm Chris Woodall — a Linux administrator and infrastructure engineer with 20+ years supporting production systems across wireless, fiber, cable, cloud, and healthcare environments. I've built carrier fiber networks, run BGP peering with major transit providers, deployed GPON to tens of thousands of subscribers, kept hospital systems running, and I now manage hybrid AWS and on-premises infrastructure day to day. RedCyfer is how I bring that directly to small businesses.
Most small businesses can't justify a full IT team, so they end up stitching together a web designer, a hosting company, a network installer, and a payments consultant — none of whom talk to each other. I'm all of those in one person, which means the parts actually fit together and there's one number to call when they don't.
> How I work
- Direct I'll give honest pushback when an idea isn't worth building
- Maintainable Practical solutions over trendy ones — I have to support them for years
- Transparent You get the reasoning, not just the invoice
- Owned Self-hosted and standards-based where it counts, so you're not locked in
> Core skills
Cloud & IaC
AWS — EC2, RDS, S3, VPC, IAM, ALB, CloudFront, ElastiCache — with infrastructure managed as code in Terraform.
Systems
Linux (Ubuntu, RHEL/CentOS), Windows, and macOS; virtualization, monitoring, backup/recovery, and performance tuning.
Networking
BGP, OSPF, MPLS, VPN / IPSec, GPON, and carrier peering — from the access layer to the backbone.
Security & firewalls
MikroTik, Palo Alto, Cisco, and WatchGuard, plus AWS Security Groups, WAF, and CloudFront.
Automation
Python and Bash scripting to make systems repeatable, self-healing, and boring — in the good way.
Web & load balancing
NGINX, Apache, OpenLiteSpeed, and HAProxy — the tier that keeps sites fast and available.
> Experience
Linux Administrator · managed hosting & IT services provider
Administer production Linux servers — installation, patching, security hardening, and performance tuning — with AWS-integrated infrastructure managed in Terraform and system automation in Python and Bash. Improved reliability and deployment consistency through automation and version-controlled configuration.
Network Engineer · regional fiber & wireless ISP
Led large-scale fiber buildouts exceeding 1.5 million feet. Configured Juniper core routers and established BGP peering with Hurricane Electric, Cogent, and the Equinix peering fabric; designed a redundant 100 Gb backbone with multiple 10 Gb transit links for uptime and fault tolerance. Deployed Nokia GPON and managed ISP infrastructure, including long-haul fiber backhaul to a major regional datacenter.
Fiber Network Engineer / Coax Operations Manager · rural electric cooperative's fiber utility
Deployed Calix and DZS fiber core equipment and completed a fiber network serving 33,000 members, converting legacy coax systems to fiber. Built the installation/construction/management curriculum and standardized troubleshooting metrics, response, and escalation.
Systems Administrator / Network Engineer · regional medical center
Administered Linux, AS/400, and Windows servers in a hospital environment — patching, hardening, and performance tuning — and automated tasks in Python and Bash. Replaced legacy network gear with Cisco switching, wireless controllers, and access points.
Detailed work history and references available on request.
> Training & certifications
I invest continuously in the material — recent focus on AWS and infrastructure as code:
- AWS Deep-dive coursework across the Cloud Practitioner, Solutions Architect, SysOps, and Developer tracks
- Terraform HashiCorp Terraform Associate — hands-on labs
- Databases Mastering AWS RDS
On the certificates themselves: I put my time into the knowledge, not the exam voucher. I'd rather understand a system deeply and prove it in what I build than collect paper that says I passed a test — and the running platforms speak for themselves.