SUMMARY:

Problem solving with a focus on ownership and sound technical principles

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Confidential

Senior Database Engineer

Responsibilities:

• Installed and configured SQL monitoring tools to fill a metrics gap and inform future performance tuning
• Participated in offsite planning sessions with software and infrastructure team members, guiding conversations around OLTP/OLAP database design, Kafka message streaming, and scaling opportunities with legacy application stacks
• Separated reporting workloads from highly - active transactional database using RDS PGSQL, decreasing reporting disk reads by 75% and decoupling report use from other business process

Confidential

Microsoft / Cloud Services Architect

Responsibilities:

• Began implementing DevOps principles in infrastructure deployments, including using Git-compatible source control, automated deployment tools (Ansible, vRealize Automation, and SCCM), and custom deployment scripts (PowerShell)
• Improved deployment times for services from weeks to hours reducing workload on the team and enabling faster release testing
• Consistency between environments enabled simplified troubleshooting
• Deployed and operated cloud services in both Amazon Web Services (AWS) and on-prem (VMware vCloud Foundation)
• Leveraged automated scripting (Ansible and vRealize Automation) to deploy and configure machine instances (EC2/ESX-VM)
• Managed tagging to facilitate security, instance management, and cost-allocation
• Recommended and implemented cloud services where appropriate (Route 53, AWS RDS, S3, and EC2)
• Reduced legacy hardware footprint from 1000 servers to fewer than 500 and data center locations from 6 to 3 while expanding the number of environments supported and reducing downtime
• Managed and coordinated the technical aspects of a mission-critical application deployment while acting as a SME for multiple technologies
• Functioned as a development DBA for performance tuning stored procedures and index design
• Oversaw and assisted with 1.5TB OLTP data migration efforts to ensure data integrity was maintained and customer access was not impacted outside of normal maintenance windows
• Developed testing plans and presented results to management in support of tight release schedules
• Participated in Go/No-Go meetings to ensure technical concerns were heard and business partners could accurately weigh the risks involved during release
• Worked with management to evaluate and onboard multiple contractors in technical roles
• Evaluated business roadmaps and designed Active Directory standards and topology that addressed multinational management concerns and allowed simple integration to cloud services
• Discovery of existing AD infrastructure was complicated by the acquisition nature of the organization and consisted of 10 forests with 14+ domains
• Deployed new consolidated AD forests (4 to replace 10) and established usage policies for each
• Projected savings of $100k in support and maintenance
• Redesigned and unified GPOs across multiple forests
• Implemented a secure trust web between forests to protect data and services while allowing reduced support overhead
• Crafted and implemented RBAC policy for multiple IT services
• Acted as an AD architect for the deployment of Microsoft Privileged Access Management in collaboration with Microsoft Professional Services
• Functioned as a production DBA
• Discovered concerning metrics regarding capacity in the existing database environment and worked with members of management to develop a plan to address the issues
• Storage consumption by a latency sensitive file group was growing at an unexpected rate, with only 100 days of storage remaining when discovered
• Resolving this involved many aspects, including app development process changes, hardware expansion, and guidance regarding performance of the technologies involved (IIS and MSSQL)
• Migration was accomplished with 0 unplanned downtime and 0 negative customer impact
• New hardware provided ~3 years of growth and improved performance 4x without increasing licensing costs
• Documented processes for the first deployments of MSSQL 2016 in the environment
• Deployed the first MongoDB cluster in the environment enabling dev teams to move forward with innovative plans to use NoSQL

Confidential

Senior Technical Consultant

Responsibilities:

• IT generalist for a variety of infrastructure projects and clients
• Designed a tiered, scalable SQL solution for sales to clients of varying sizes and budgets
• Solution included DR and HA options as well as procedures for testing and failover
• Customizable documentation and scripting for troubleshooting and monitoring

Confidential

IT Solutions Architect

Responsibilities:

• Used PowerShell scripting to discover newly acquired VMware and AD environments, which reduced the time needed for acquisition projects by 80%
• Made several tools for properly creating VM computer objects in AD, notification email groups, and file folders for DFS shares ensuring naming consistency
• SQL query optimization via indexes and statistics including participating in code review to ensure performance in test before promotion to production
• Assisted in resolving performance issues resulting from the use of multiple coding practices (WCF and Entity Framework) on a single shared database
• Ensured proper index and statistics maintenance was performed on mission critical databases, and added indexes as needed by new code
• Provided developers regularly restored and scrubbed data from the production environment improving code quality and eliminating release-related database bugs
• Standardized SQL maintenance and backup jobs across 60+ instances in test and production environments
• Created PowerShell scripts to speed up compliance audits (SOX) which reduced man hours from 16-20 hours to under 1 man hour and produced more accurate reports for the auditors.
• Performed SQL security audits using TSQL and PowerShell scripts to resolve members of elevated security groups in SQL and associate them back to AD user objects.
• Designed, Planned, and Implemented MS SQL 2014 in a High Availability configuration (FCI) on Windows Server 2012R2 cluster
• Worked with industry leading consultants to design the HADR solution that best fit Atlantic’s requirements, goals, and capabilities
• Implemented a test version of the HA environment and performed extensive application and platform testing to ensure the solution met the requirements of 0 data loss for single server failure and 1 minute data loss for primary data center failure
• Planned cutover from the existing systems to the new HADR solution using the established SQL server migration documentation
• Implemented Database Mirroring for DR replication of critical production databases to remote datacenter in support of the HA cluster in the main site
• Utilized asynchronous database mirroring to ensure DR for the databases running on the HA cluster
• Mirroring is supported by custom alerting and monitoring through SQLSentry
• Documented process to be followed for HA and DR Failover events, and trained Systems team on proper procedures in case of outages, errors, and planned DR events.
• Installed and configured SQL Sentry for SQL server monitoring, capacity planning, and trend reporting.

Systems Manager

Confidential

Responsibilities:

• Created scripts to handle new Windows Server provisioning automation which cut the deployment labor of new servers down from 12 man hours to 1 hour and delivery time from 2 days to 4 hours
• Documented and established server naming standard and established baseline server template configurations which includes maintenance plans for the templates
• Scripted deployment of templates utilizing GuestOS configuration tools
• Responsible for Active Directory cleanup and upgrade (2008 - 2012), removing ~50% of AD objects using scripts to detect unused objects
• AD’s OU structure had been expanded repeatedly to accommodate acquired environments. This unused OU tree structure was collapsed and re-implemented using a documented OU design guide
• Implemented role-based access control (RBAC) to reduce the number of highly privileged accounts while ensuring normal work could continue. RBAC later became instrumental in successfully navigating compliance audits
• Handled staff turnover and replacement while building a team of competent engineers
• Developed staff training and professional development plans
• Authored and implemented change control processes resulting in 50% reduction in downtime and an increase in root cause analysis issues which caused outages
• Assessed storage needs and implemented a 10 Gb storage system, including converged datacenter networking
• Monitoring established storage speed as a bottleneck that was beginning to impact the performance of the highly virtualized environment
• The new converged network arrangement supported all data and storage switching traffic for ~100 vlans, 10 hosts, and 400 connected virtual interfaces
• Created DR plan using VM replication and new local backup strategies
• Worked with business application owners to establish recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) for each of our business critical applications
• Evaluated and selected a suite of software to meet the RTO/RPO goals, selecting Zerto for machines with low RTO/RPO goals and Veeam for machines with higher goal times.
• Implemented local SQL backups on all servers with replication to secondary storage for all production SQL servers. This cut actual recovery times from hours to minutes and data loss on recovery to approx. 1 minute
• Managed project milestones to ensure on-time delivery. Both semi-annual tests in the first year were successful and on schedule
• Added second datacenter as a DR site, and negotiated with vendors for the purchase of new servers, SANs, network equipment, collocation space, and all required licensing for this additional capacity.
• Managed the team responsible for replicating the configuration and deployment of the new hardware.
• Managed project resources and milestones to ensure on-time delivery and execution of two datacenter location changes with minimized downtime.
• Data integration between in-house developed Point of Sale and ERP systems (Dynamics Great Plains).
• Upon rollout, failures became immediately apparent and response processes were implemented. Subsequent job errors were reduced and finally eliminated
• Acted as DBA in building and supporting SQL servers for a variety of applications
• Create SQL server standards including build guide documents, maintenance job scripts, and alerting/notification processes
• Upgraded 10+ legacy (<2008r2) SQL instances.
• Integrated external HRIS system with internal new employee on-boarding process
• Reduced IT errors and increased consistency in new user account delivery
• Worked with the HR and IT departments to fully document all processes for new employee setup
• Used custom-written scripts to test the automated process and find historic mistakes in user provisioning, which resolved 100+ outstanding security requests
• Implemented RDS RemoteApp in order to audit installs of ERP software which reduced training for new users and improved user satisfaction with the ERP application.

Sr Systems Engineer

Confidential

Responsibilities:

• Worked on environment of 200+ servers supporting internal development team and dozens of industry apps
• Installed and configured SQL servers for infrastructure applications
• Delivered applications with remote desktop services to 60+ remote sites and managed terminal servers for 200+ users
• Managed VMware running on Dell PowerEdge servers and iSCSI storage
• Implemented DR and HA on VMware for 200+ virtual servers to meet established uptime and recovery goals
• Planned/executed VMware upgrade from 4.5 to 5 to maintain vendor support
• Created standards for Active Directory group policy objects, groups, and users
• Implemented ADFS and Exchange 2010 while migrating 750 users to Office 365
• Built 3 Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) farm nodes and 3 Federation Services Proxy servers for use in load balancing connections
• Developed common practice for documenting existing systems and sharing this knowledge among the Systems team

Confidential

Systems Administrator

Responsibilities:

• Implemented server monitoring systems and proactive maintenance schedules
• Planned, designed, and oversaw addition of collocation site
• Saved $10,000 per month in service costs
• Initiated and carried out virtualization initiative reducing hardware and maintenance expense by 70%
• Built and maintained 10+ SQL servers for industry and infrastructure applications
• Designed and supported a NetApp storage network and SAN
• Developed Group Policy objects for client and server configuration
• Demonstrated superior project management skills while working with other departments to select and deploy new software
• Created and maintained thorough documentation regarding environment design and change procedures

Confidential

Systems Administrator

Responsibilities:

• Administered and supported the company infrastructure systems including servers, network and remote access
• Troubleshot hardware and configuration issues spanning multiple test, development and production environments
• Performed code promotion to all environments (HTML, ASP, SQL)
• Provided internal end-user helpdesk support as needed
• Evaluated issue reports to establish trends and perform preventative maintenance and capacity planning
• Maintained system security using industry standard policies, anti-virus, and applicable vendor patches