Introduction

Over the course of the summer I had the pleasure to work with ORION as a software developer. ORION is an Internet Service Provider for major research institutions, school boards and medical facilities. They are also a non for profit company that focuses on creating a reliable service for everyone in Ontario. They also have initiatives to bring the internet to the nether regions of Ontario which is interesting because we take the internet for granted.

Goals

Effective requirements gathering

Although this is a trivial skill it is probably one of the most important ones. I learned that if you don't ask the right questions you end up doing a lot of work that is not what is required. During the term I worked on various projects by myself, I worked with various technical and non technical departments to generate requirements list that were detailed and accurate to their needs. Gathering accurate requirements allowed me to plan and complete my projects without surprises or revisions. Having this skill will greatly benefit me in the future as requirements gathering is a fundamental building block of effective software development.

Robust Code

Since I was the only developer at the company at the time my code needed to work after I left. To insure quality code I worked on creating well documented, clean and thoroughly tested code. I used GitHub to store my documentation files and code and various python libraries such as selenium to test my gui's. This skill is a great transferable skills as it adds value to the work I complete and leave with the company.

Big Data and DDOS Mitigation

During the course of the semester I worked closely with the security team to enforce security and help use their DDOS mitigation solution Arbor. Arbor tracks and logs over 20,000 packets every second on the ORION network and all this information is stored for later analysis. Using Libraries such as Pandas to test hypothesis and tools such as Hadoop the team and I were able to filter specific packets that were malicious. By doing this we reduced down time and server load significantly.

Job Description

My primary role at ORION was to work with network teams to evaluate and use the various tools supplied by ORION such as their SIEM and Arbor to generate statistical insights and transparency. Alongside assisting the various teams and departments in the specification of and development of customized software tools as required.

The most unique aspect of this job was the diversity of projects and keeping all of them on track and manageable. I had to develop excellent time management skills which I already possessed from school. The Software Design courses that I have taken in year 1 and 2 have been extremely helpful in preparing me for

Conclusion

Overall the experience was great. It taught me a lot about managing time, keeping on top of tasks and providing quality work that I can be proud of. I'm very proud to work with Big data to develop statistical models that have helped and will continue to help ORION's network run smoothly in the future. Working with many different and diverse teams gave me insights into were their problems lie and helped me understand how to better suit their needs. ORION is a great company and gave me a lot of freedom to develop and strive and would love to work with them again in the future.