SUMMARY

• Sr. Network/Systems Engineer with 20 years’ experience implementing and supporting Local and Wide Area Networks, Microsoft Servers, and Enterprise applications.
• Extensive troubleshooting and administration skills on IP networks, Windows servers, and business critical applications, including an in - depth knowledge of performance analysis and optimization.
• Extensive experience deploying and administering Cisco routers, Layer 3 switches (datacenter/access), access points, and wireless controllers.
• 2+ years’ experience deploying, administering, and monitoring Palo Alto firewalls and Panorama, both on-premise and in Azure/GCP clouds. Including IPsec tunnels, Security Policies, URL Filtering, Palo Alto Global Protect remote access, High-Availability, Threat and Traffic log analysis, and Reporting.
• 2 years’ experience designing, deploying, and administering VeloCloud SD-WAN solutions for clients in the healthcare, hospitality, retail, manufacturing, energy, and information industries.
• Expertise in hardware installation, configuration, and troubleshooting, including Cisco Nexus 5672, Catalyst 2960/3650, IE3000/3300 switches, Palo Alto 3220/820/220 NGFW, HP Blade servers, IBM and Dell servers and workstations.
• Experience Administering Azure and Google Cloud Platform resources.
• Extensive experience administering Citrix XenApp deployed applications.
• Experience deploying and supporting virtualized servers running in a VMware/Cisco UCS infrastructure.
• 3 years’ experience working from home 100% of the time.
• Proven diagnosing and research skills for developing successful solutions to computer/network problems, as well as ability to write effective documentation of technical standards/procedures.
• Strong interpersonal, communication, and project management skills, with an assertive, productive, and self-starter attitude.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

Networking Skills: Cisco (Nexus 5672 and Catalyst 2960-X Switches, 2900/1900/800 series Routers, 2504 Wireless Controllers, Access Points), Palo Alto 3220/820/220 Firewalls, Panorama, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, SD-WAN, VeloCloud, Versa, LAN/WAN/WLAN, Avaya IP Office 500 v2, PBX, Performance Monitor, Active Directory/Group Policy, SharePoint, IIS, Installing, configuring, upgrading, troubleshooting, and repairing computer systems; TCP/IP, EIGRP, OSPF, VLAN, EtherChannel, vPC, HSRP, VRRP, IPSEC VPN, NAT, 802.1q Trunking, SNMP, DHCP, DNS, FTP, SMTP, Citrix XenApp 6.0/6.5, PowerShell; Telecommuting.

Operating Systems: Expertise in installing, troubleshooting, configuring, and updating: Cisco NX-OS, IOS, IOS-XE; Windows 2000/2003/2008 R 2/2012/2016.

Applications: SolarWinds Orion NPM, VMware vCenter, Wireshark, WSUS, Microsoft Office 365, SCCM, McAfee VirusScan and Netshield, Symantec Anti-Virus Endpoint Protection, Veritas Backup Exec, Symantec Ghost, Microsoft Visio, Robocopy, Ancile uPerform, Alchemy, ArcGIS, Landmark GIS, Datawatch Monarch, Bi-Cycle, Aternity, SiteScan, PagerDuty, ServiceNow, SysAid Service Desk, ServiceDesk Plus.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Sr. Network Engineer

Confidential

Responsibilities:

• Responsible for administering a multi-vendor, multi-site network infrastructure including VLAN management, routing, firewalls, ACLs, VPN tunnels, Azure/GCP Cloud resources, and WiFi.
• As part of a three-person team, assisted with the successful migration of Sanchez’ Data Center to a Colocation facility, and simultaneous relocation of Corporate Headquarters.
• Worked as an equal member of a three-person team for the seamless migration from WatchGuard to a Palo Alto firewall architecture, improving security across the Enterprise.
• As Lead Firewall Administrator, responsible for administering and monitoring Panorama managed Palo Alto firewalls, including creating and maintaining security policies, IPsec VPN tunnels in a mesh configuration, URL filtering, High Availability, threat and traffic log analysis, user and group roles, configuration backups, and reporting.
• Performed Network OS upgrades and failed hardware replacements including Cisco Nexus core switches, Catalyst switch stacks, Cisco Access Points, Cisco IE-3000/3300 field switches, and Palo Alto firewalls, maintaining compliance and business continuity.
• Designed and implemented an ATT Network on Demand backup link solution which reduced outages in the Sanchez SCADA field network.
• Administered Azure and Google Cloud Platform server and networking resources, including Palo Alto VM firewalls.
• Implemented a SolarWinds NPM network monitoring solution increasing visibility and reducing response time to server and network issues.
• Proposed and integrated a PagerDuty alert system with existing monitoring platforms and systems, including SolarWinds Orion, NetApp OneTAP, VMware vCenter, and Citrix NetScalers, eliminating missed alerts, reducing incident response times, and providing analytics on systems availability.
• Automated backups of Palo Alto configurations across the enterprise to prevent extended downtime in the event of hardware failures.
• Administered Avaya PBX configurations including users, extensions, call routing, ring groups, and voicemail. Performed system changes when Corporate office was relocated including PRI setup and number porting.
• Virtualized mission critical application servers reducing costs and downtime.
• Documented Network infrastructure and created detailed topology diagrams, flowcharts, and KB articles to improve understanding and troubleshooting of network related issues.

Sr. Network Engineer & Solutions Architect

Confidential

Responsibilities:

• Orchestrated the deployment and administration of SD-WAN solutions across a varied client-base, including the configuration and installation of 500+ SD-WAN Routers.
• Implemented and administered a Service-Desk solution which drastically improved response to customer trouble tickets and reduced support SLA breaches by 95%. Created Service-Desk policies and trained employees on system use increasing employee efficiency.
• Proposed and implemented an Incident Management system, which reduced missed support calls and improved incident response by 80%.
• Developed Service-Desk and Incident analytics which provided insight into operational maturity and effectiveness, decreased incident frequency, impact, and duration.
• Proactively monitored SD-WAN infrastructure performance for multiple customers, maintaining optimal network and enterprise application performance.
• Quickly resolved IP network issues to reduce waste and downtime while also ensuring client Service Level Agreements.
• Provided technical consultation and support to the sales team, increasing client acquisition.
• Collaborated with Sales, Marketing, and IT teams to optimize promotion of products and services.
• Created training materials and trained staff engineers on SD-WAN technology, which greatly reduced times to trouble resolution, increased deployment efficiency, and reduced implementation issues.

Sr. Systems Engineer

Confidential

Responsibilities:

• Provided infrastructure and application support as pertained to the Windows servers and related infrastructure for Apache’s critical business systems and applications, including the OpenLink Endur Gas Marketing platform.
• Administered and implemented enterprise application installations, upgrades, and system patches for production as well as numerous Test/Dev instances. Including the deployment of packages to production.
• Provided a key role in the testing and upgrade phases of Apache’s Endur system’s v10 upgrade project.
• Proactive monitoring, alerting, and analysis of the Endur application/spread server infrastructure to support delivery of services, resilience, and performance.
• Installed, upgraded and supported ICE (Intercontinental Exchange) configurations within Endur.
• Acted as liaison between the Marketing System Support and Infrastructure Services groups.
• Identifying and resolving faults and issues relating to the Endur server infrastructure, and assisting the Marketing Systems Support group with troubleshooting and problem resolution of any application issues.
• Documented and maintained policies and procedures for Apache’s OpenLink Endur infrastructure implementation and related administration tasks, as well as identified new ways to improve resilience, performance levels, and supportability.
• Managed and provided direction for the Endur server infrastructure, including performance optimization, resource allocation, system utilization, expansion, and how future and current systems could be exploited for the benefit of the enterprise.
• Provided training and regular updates to the Windows Server Team to ensure reliable support redundancy.
• Successfully completed the complete virtualization of Apache’s Endur instances by migrating to a VMware/Cisco UCS infrastructure.
• Hardware procurement, installation, configuration, and maintenance.
• Installed, configured, and maintained HP BL460 server blades and enclosures dedicated to multiple OpenLink Endur instances.
• Migrated OpenLink Endur client servers to Citrix XenApp 6.5.
• Implemented tools to monitor Windows servers’ resource utilization to proactively prevent system performance degradation.
• Provided detailed server performance analysis reports to identify and resolve resource bottlenecks.
• Proposed and implemented procedural and troubleshooting documentation standards for the Windows Server team for knowledge sharing and to deliver high quality and consistent service to the customer base.
• Implemented and administered WSUS to maintain Microsoft security updates/patches for a 400+ server enterprise, including international regions.
• Provided high quality daily support for a varied and numerous enterprise application base.
• Minimized downtime by resolving application conflicts expediently for a wide variety of mission critical programs.

Sr. Network Administrator

Confidential

Responsibilities:

• Administered, monitored, and maintained a 70+ server/600+ workstation corporate enterprise environment, including multiple servers at international locations.
• Planning and executing recurring system maintenance tasks, including the application of operating system patches, hardware upgrades, Cisco IOS upgrades, and conducting system security audits.
• Lead the development of an Infrastructure Consolidation/Remote Access plan for the relocation of data at multiple international locations to the corporate data center.
• Proposed and implemented a replication disaster recovery solution for mission critical Exchange, File, and SQL servers providing continuous data protection and proper recovery in the advent of abnormal termination of an application, operating system or hardware related problem.
• Administered and maintained network devices throughout the enterprise including Cisco 3640/2610/2811 Routers, PIX 515E Firewalls (with Failover), Cisco Catalyst 4507R/2900 Switches, and Cisco AP-1100 Wireless Access Points.
• Administering, maintaining, and troubleshooting Active Directory including Group Policy support.
• Planned and performed an Active Directory and Exchange 2000 upgrade to 2003, including the implementation of an Exchange Front-End/Back-End topology.
• Administered and maintained an Exchange 2003 Enterprise environment with 600+ mailboxes, including setting mail retention and delivery policies, and utilizing Recovery Storage Groups for mailbox recovery.
• Configured Exchange 2003 servers and mobile Outlook clients to utilize RPC over HTTP for secure remote access to mail resources.
• Configured and maintained multiple PIX-to-PIX and Router-to-PIX VPN tunnels between remote locations and the corporate data center.
• Planned and completed a network infrastructure installation and conversion for an acquired international company, including servers, workstations, routers, firewalls, and Domain migration.
• Proposed and implemented an Avocent KVM over IP solution to provide secure BIOS level remote support and minimize downtime of mission-critical servers.
• Administered a Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 Farm with Citrix Access Gateway (SSL VPN) and Advanced Access Control remote access/authentication technologies.
• Researched/tested/evaluated new technology and recommended future product direction to management.
• Created and maintained network documentation, including Visio topology diagrams, procedural standards and guidelines, disaster recovery plans, and data backup processes.
• Provided Tier-2 support to Help Desk personal for expedient resolution of workstation, printer, and application issues.