Karl S. Allen

Mr. Allen is an experienced designer and systems integrator of high-performance computer systems covering a variety of business areas, advanced technologies, and systems platforms. He has served as a CTO, architect and lead designer for several advanced technology firms and is widely recognized as a leader in a) the development of client-server based systems, and b) the performance analysis/benchmarking of those systems. He is experienced in knowledge management, data warehousing, document image management, and internet applications development. Mr. Allen also is considered an industry expert in telecommunications and has substantial experience in the financial services and geo-spatial systems markets, as well.

Employment History

Professional and
Business Experience

Was contracted to be the acting CTO for a venture capital company. Was responsible for setting the direction of technology investments, vetting technology innovations, and assuring contract terms. Assumed responsibility for the advanced knowledge management and geo-spatial information system components of the program.

 For a major telecommunications company provided technical management on a Telecom billing and customer care system. Assumed the chief technical architecture role responsible for all planning and systems integration for a 500-person, $600 Million, development effort reporting directly to Executive Management. Also provided senior level design and consulting support on the execution of benchmarks required to performance certify the applications and network systems infrastructure under target operating volumes, deploying such test automation as LoadRunner and WinRunner from mercury Interactive.

Was responsible for setting up a performance test lab for a major financial services firm. Responsible for defining all test plans and execution/analysis/management of the lab. The focus was operational and performance certification testing, for a Unix/Sun/Sybase and Oracle distributed client/server environment Developed volume stress tests of the system using LoadRunner. Achieved factor of 100 improvement in overall efficiency/throughput of the system. 

Implemented a near real time data warehouse for the Las Vegas gaming industry. Integrated the warehouse with e-CRM (customer relationship management) technology.

Lead systems architect on development of an advanced knowledge management system, providing intelligence dissemination to the President of the United States over secure internet  and employing advanced search/synthesis and e-book reading technology.

Implemented a performance certification test lab for WEB based application suites for MCI. Set up the test lab and executed all aspects of performance testing for up for the client’s Intranet based Purchase and Pay product set.  Implemented volume stress tests of the system using LoadRunner. 

For a major vendor of UNIX hardware in Europe, provided management consulting and tool development services in the areas of systems sizing, benchmarking and competitive performance analysis. Assisted in developing methodologies for evaluating the performance of computer applications (hardware and software) and for comparing UNIX and LAN based applications across competitive vendor systems.

Conducted a risk management audit of a real-time trade reconciliation and securities clearing application for a major stock exchange. Evaluated the proposed design to ensure that it met data integrity, performance and reliability requirements. A major aspect of this project was to analyze and certify the systems design for guaranteed message delivery within certain real time performance constraints. As one part of this effort, conducted performance test/measurements.

Designed and developed a capacity modeling tool for predicting the response time and throughput of applications. Responsible for the integration of expert systems technology and design and development of network performance prediction algorithms in an MVS/SNA environment.

For a leading financial services firm was contracted to form a small swat team to trouble shoot and resolve performance problems on a distributed client/server based UNIX application spanning several countries. Succeeded in isolating the root cause of the problems through the use of Sniffer network analysis tools and subsequently improved the performance of the system by an order of magnitude.

For a major imaging vendor, was chief engineer on an open systems based product architecture. The architecture implemented a two-tiered client-server hierarchy, yielding significant scalability. Managed the development of a variety of custom image and work flow applications for clients in the financial services, pharmaceuticals, and transportation industries, as well as in the public sector. Conducted extensive performance analysis to assure the design & implementation.

Supported performance testing on the implementation of a network systems generation product for a leading computer vendor. Conducted performance benchmarks and measurements in MVS, VSE and VM environments using such tools as RMF, SMF and VMMON. Constructed models of performance using these measurements to isolate "time sinks" in the system. Succeeded in improving the performance of the system by several orders of magnitude.

Managed systems integration of object-oriented analysis and design  for a large systems development organization. Responsible for coordinating and standardizing all company design efforts and documentation. Supervised the first large-scale design effort using the object-oriented methodology.

Implemented a document image management system for one of the nations largest insurance companies. Was chief architect for the project and responsible for all technical trouble shooting efforts.

For a major imaging vendor, managed the development and implementation of their imaging and work flow products. Implemented a domains based, distributed architecture. Provided on- and off-site support for beta and production users. Managed the addition of a wide area networking support subsystem. The project was completed on time and within budget with zero defects found during QA.

For a major health insurance provider, designed an enterprise-wide problem and event tracking system for claims transactions. The system was architected using client-server technology to provide distributed access over local and wide area networks.

Designed and developed a variety of financial and customer service applications in a very broad range of development environments, ranging from C on UNIX servers to PL/1 on MVS- and VM-based mainframes.

Publications and Presentations

Allen, K.S., "Performance Certification: Practice and Methods", Mercury Interactive User Conference, Orlando, 1998

Allen, K.S., "Diagnosing Response Time Bottlenecks", Mercury Interactive User Conference, Orlando, 1998

Allen, K. S. and Malick, D., "Image Enabling Your Business Applications", Imaging World, 1993.

Allen, K. S. and Levy, A. I., "The Role of Performance Engineering in Applications Development", Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Management, 1985.

Allen, K. S. and Levy, A. I., "A Case Study in Software Performance Engineering", Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Capacity Management, 1983.

Education

B.S., Computer and Informational Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1981