Summary of Qualifications
Seasoned IT Consultant/Windows Administrator with more than 25 years of experience in the: Design, Deployment, Implementation, Upgrade, Migration and Administration of: complex, high-availability, mission critical environments.Areas of Proficiency: (not in any order, have equal proficiency in each item)
- Physical and virtual (VMware & Hyper-V), multi-vendor, distributed infrastructures that have multiple database applications that require systems integration and interoperability.
- Enterprise Database: Physical design, storage architecture, implementation, migrations (ETL), integration and performance tuning. Have performed over 70 installations of Oracle and SQL Server. This includes complete setups of complex multi-instance failover cluster and parallel server environments.
- Deployment tools: Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2013. ADK, WAIK and SCCM (2012-R2). Beginning with bare-metal server installation, have created multiple SCCM 2012-R2 environments that include: PXE, WDS, DHCP, DNS.
- Upgrades: Server 2003 to Server 2008-R2 and/or Server 2012-R2. Desktops from anything to anything. Proficient with User State Migration Tool (USMT).
- Active Directory: Design, Implementation, Administration, Migrations, Enhancements and Upgrades. Proficient with rendom, the domain rename tool.
- Networking: Design, Implementation,
Performance Analysis & Troubleshooting.
- Environment Analysis: Hardware and software reverse engineering producing infographic, topology and schematic diagrams with narratives.
- Solutions Architect: Hardware and software needs analysis and solutions design
- Disaster Recovery: Design and implementation of sophisticated backup solutions to guarantee recovery and business continuity from all disaster/failure scenarios within recovery time objectives.
- Problem Solving & Remediation: Root cause analysis, divide & conquer and lateral thinking. Uncanny ability to remediate daunting problems and design creative solutions when others are stymied.
- Systems Programming: Administrative and deployment task automation, custom integration, interface & data migration (ETL) utilities.
- Soft Skills: Mastery of written and verbal English. Using Visio and PowerPoint can develop and deliver compelling presentations to management and technical audiences.
SOFTWARE:
| • SQL Server 6.5 to 2012 | • Server 2000 to 2012-R2 | • Windows XP to 8.1 Pro |
| • SQL Server Reporting Services | • Hyper-V 2008-R2 to 2012-R2 | • MS Project 2003 to 2010 |
| • SQL DTS & SSIS | • RDS/VDI pooled VM’s | • Visio 2003 to 2010 |
| • IIS 6.0 to 8.0 | • VMware ESXi 5.0 & 5.1 | • MS Office 2003 to 2013 |
| • Oracle 7.1, 8i & 9i | • AD, DNS, DHCP, NAT | • Dell OpenManage Suite |
| • Visual Studio 6.0 to 2012 | • ISA, TMG & Sophos UTM | • BESR 8.5 to SSR 2013 |
| • Symantec Endpoint Protection | • DirectAccess & RRAS | • Symantec BEWS 12 to 2012 |
| • System Center CM & OM | • Cisco ASA 5505 Firewall | • User State Migration Tool |
| • MS Deployment Toolkit (MDT) | • Windows Deployment Services | • Win Automated Installation Kit |
HARDWARE:
Professional Experience
Deployment Engineer
NICE/Nexidia, Atlanta,
GA
September 2015 to November 2016
Responsible for the total environment planning, preparation and deployment of: “Nexidia Interactions Analytics” (NIA) on both, cloud hosted, and client on-premises environments. NIA is a complex, multi-server, IIS web-based application that facilitates next-generation BI and data-mining of audio interactions from every conceivable source. The capabilities of NIA are amazing and spectacular!
Partner/Principal Consultant
No MiddleMan IT Services, Alpharetta,
GA
January 2015 to September 2015
Focus is on small businesses that need
enterprise expertise, but cannot afford rates typical of enterprise
consulting agencies.
Current focus is on upgrading client
environments to supported versions of Windows server and desktop.
● Server & Desktop OS Upgrades ● Hardware Upgrades ● P2V Migrations ● Disaster Recovery Analysis, Design and Implementation of Bulletproof Backup & Recovery Strategies.
● Active Directory: Design, Implementation, Administration, Migrations and Upgrades.
● Environment Analysis & Reverse Engineering producing: Infographic, topology and schematic diagrams with narratives. ● Needs Analysis and recommendations.
Deployment Engineer
American Insurance Group, Marietta,
GA
August 2014 to January 9, 2015
Statement of work was identical to upgrade project at Catholic Health
Initiatives, "Upgrade all XP devices to
Windows 7". Dell was the primary contractor.
Deployment Engineer
Catholic Health Initiatives, Englewood,
CO
March 2014 to June 2014
Deliverable was to employ Microsoft automated deployment tools/techniques
and upgrade 20,000 computers from XP to Windows 7. Microsoft was the
primary contractor.- Collaborate with and assist Microsoft offshore teams in Bangalore, India.
- When problems are encountered, tweak production Task Sequences in SCCM test environment and evaluate for use in production.
- Perform bare metal Lite-Touch (LTI) and User-Driven Installations (UDI) on special use workstations that run uncommon, esoteric applications.
- Troubleshoot and remediate end-user issues after upgrades. Create and supply technical documentation and feedback to offshore team so reference image can be tweaked and issues avoided in future deployments.
- Use standard tools from Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, i.e. bcdboot, bootsect & bcdedit to resolve startup issues and configure special use, dual-boot workstations.
- Onboard/train new employees on infrastructure/topology basics, i.e. Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, PXE boot test and productions environments.
Principal Consultant
Durham Geo Slope Indicator, Stone Mountain, GA
November 2012 to Setpember 2013
Responsible for all aspects of systems administration: architecture, database,
implementation, networks, operations & support! The following are some major
accomplishments: - Single IT Manager responsible for all aspects of IT administration and end-user support. IT infrastructure provides service to apx 100 users located in: Stone Mtn. Georgia, Mukilteo Washington, Richmond BC, Canada and West Perth, Australia.
- Position became available when previous IT manager (in position for 10 years) gave resignation. Assumed duties without benefit of onboarding/information exchange from previous IT manager. Hardware, software and operational schema were all totally undocumented. Tenaciously reverse engineered environment and produced professional documentation including logical and physical Visio diagrams.
- Primary applications include: SQL Server, Company ERP (Great Plains), on-premises Exchange Server 2010, file & print sharing and approximately ten 3rd party applications. Goal and priority has been to provide high availability to users.
- Adequate backup and recovery did not exist! Implemented a backup and recovery strategy based on Symantec System Recovery 2013 that provides both full image and granular recoveries. From this, I developed a “golden image”, automated workstation deployment procedure.
- Using a single dedicated physical server, created a Server 2012 VDI pilot implementation. Presented and demonstrated working VDI system to management as a virtual machine based replacement for the current session based, “Terminal Server”.
- Devised and executed Active Directory cleanup strategy; purged
literally hundreds of unused objects. Created AD policy that
continuously updates a Username to BIOS Hostname report.
Installed and implemented System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) & System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). - Single-handedly migrated four obsolete and down rev physical servers to 2012 virtual servers. As testing progressed, more than 8 undocumented (line of business) intranets were discovered. Setup IIS 8.0 on a virtual 2012 server and migrated hosting of intranet websites.
- Single-handedly upgraded “TimeClock 5.0” and SQL 2000 to “TimeClock-Plus v6.0” and SQL 2012; migrated the application from a down rev physical server to a newly created 2012 virtual server.
- Implemented DirectAccess and began a pilot; evaluation candidates selected from sales department.
- Single-handedly upgraded to a new version of client/server based Millennium (Payday-USA). Migrated server (including SQL database) from down rev physical hardware & O/S to a new 2012 virtual server running SQL Server 2012; retired 32-bit hardware.
Partner/Principal Consultant
No MiddleMan IT Services, Alpharetta,
GA
October 2011 to November 2012
Focus is on small businesses that need enterprise expertise, but cannot afford the rates typical of enterprise consulting agencies. My specialty is catapulting the IT capabilities of small businesses with limited budgets that have identified the need to better utilize and leverage Information Technology.
● Operations & Support ● Technology Refresh ● Optimal Utilization ● Bulletproof Backup & Recovery
Senior Support Analyst, IT Services
Kaiser Permanente,
Atlanta, GA
January 2011 to October 2011
Provide complex problem resolution via telephone and remote access to Northwest and Colorado regions
Planned Sabbatical
April 2010 to January 2011
Kevin Brown, the owner of Lords Computer and my beloved boss died of cancer. Worked with daughter and son-in-law on a multidisciplinary, high performance computing project. They had just returned to the U.S. after completing post doctorates at the Curie Institute, a leading research center in Paris, France.
Manager, IT Services
Lords Computer
Group Inc., Alpharetta, GA
October 2003 to April 2010
IT Services at Lords was a department of one. I was
responsible for ALL roles and functions: administration, architecture,
database, development, implementation, networks, operations & support!
The following are my major accomplishments:- Catapulted the IT infrastructure from a single NetWare server and 20 PC’s running Windows 95 to a sophisticated Active Directory domain comprised of: 8 PowerEdge servers running a mix of: 2003, 2008 & 2008-R2. By April 2010, nearly all of the 40 workstations & laptops had been migrated to Windows-7.
- Designed & implemented a sophisticated enterprise backup and recovery solution. Utilizing Symantec Management Platform (aka Altiris Notification Server) as the foundation, implemented Backup Exec System Recovery 2010 Management Solution. Capabilities include central management of backup and recovery from all disaster scenarios. This includes both data and bare-metal recovery, including recovery to dissimilar hardware. Bare-metal recovery is accomplished in less than 60 minutes.
- Designed and implemented fault tolerant RAID technology; providing highly available access to all enterprise data.
- Designed & implemented an ISA Server 2006 firewall solution in a two-host failover configuration. This solution provided high-availability, secure-access to the Internet. It also provided remote access to off-site workers via VPN & Remote Desktop.
- Designed & implemented an out-of-band (lights-out) management solution utilizing KVM over IP and Dell Remote Access Controller (DRAC) technologies.
- Scripting: Used VB6 and VB.NET to produce custom integration interfaces and data migration utilities. Automated many complex, time consuming and error-prone configuration and administrative tasks via the writing of Windows CMD scripts.
- Designed the network infrastructure, LAN and WAN, from the ground up. LAN Design, Implemented Layer-3 VLAN technology.
- Implemented a myriad of new technologies, Active Directory Group Policies, central FAX server, IIS 6.0 (we host 20 external websites) & Panda Enterprise antivirus to name just a few.
- Performance issues encountered and resolved were related to the need to do image based backups over the network. Tuning and optimization were required so backups would complete within the allocated time window.
- Implemented an entry-level integrated CRM and Accounting system. The implementation provides multi-user access to Microsoft Office Accounting 2008 (formerly known as Small Business Accounting) integrated with Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager. The SQL server database resides on a remote Dell PowerEdge/Windows 2008 server.
- Setup and maintained an isolated network segment for testing and training. Evaluated and purchased CBT training materials.
- Established and cultivated vendor relationships. Membership in the Microsoft and Symantec Partner Programs lead to Lords receiving approximately $60K worth of NFR (free) software for internal use (the entire Lords IT infrastructure runs on NFR software).
- Provided world-class support for the entire IT department -- front-end, back-end, desktop and users! Everything ran on NFR software obtained through membership in the Microsoft and Symantec Partner Programs. Vendor support was not available for this NFR software, I provided all support.
Partner/Principal Consultant
No MiddleMan IT Services, Alpharetta, GA
December 2001 to October 2003
Worked as an independent contractor
and provided professional services to former Ross Systems clients. Deliverables
to recent clients have focused on the following technical areas:
1.) Platform migrations from OpenVMS to Windows 2000.
2.) Oracle 7.x to 8i upgrades.
3.) Windows NT to 2000 upgrades.
4.) Database and Infrastructure performance tuning.
5.) Backup and Recovery analysis and design.
6.) Systems and Infrastructure documentation.
Sr. Technical Consultant, Advanced Technology Group
Ross Systems, Inc., Atlanta, GA
July 1998 to December 2001
Preformed the complete technical setup and integration of a complex, enterprise-wide, client/server ERP application at customer sites throughout North America.
Project Management: Managed my time, coordinated my schedule and worked autonomously to accomplish high-level deliverables within narrow time constraints and tight consulting budgets.
Database: I have performed over 50 installations/upgrades of Oracle and MS SQL. These were complete setups of complex multi-instance failover cluster and parallel server environments. Created and populated metadata and legacy data into complex ERP schemas that each contained over 2,800 tables. Proficient with Microsoft Data Transformation Services (DTS) and in writing 3GL/4GL data conversion and interface programs. Devised and implemented backup and recovery strategies -- both data and bare-metal restores.
Windows 2000/2003 Network Infrastructures: 1.) Preformed analysis of existing environments. 2.) Designed and implemented logical topologies and subnet addressing schemas. 3.) Setup and configured DNS, WINS, DHCP, IIS, FTP and RAS servers. 4.) Installed and configured routers i.e. protocols, NAT and static routing. 5.) Established and maintained Internet SOA records. 6.) Produced professional documentation consisting of network and data storage topology diagrams and narratives.
Win 2K AS, Failover Clusters:
Assembled hardware and installed software of 2-node, single quorum,
server cluster configurations. Configured clusters for both
active/active and active/passive modes. Derived and created groups,
resource and virtual servers. Installed Oracle 8i RDBMS and Oracle
Failsafe. Tested and verified correct operation of failover and
fallback.
Win 2K AS, NLB Clusters: Derived and configured: Cluster Parameters, Host Parameters and Port
Rules. Used the Network Load Balancing Manager and WLBS Cluster Control
Utility to accomplish administrative and troubleshooting tasks. Storage
Area Network (SAN): specified, installed and configured large, external
RAID arrays. This has included specialized host-plus-controller
mirroring schemas that allow 24x7 sites to take one mirror-set offline
for backup and then bring it back online for automatic
resynchronization. Implemented LUN masking to prevent data corruption by
intended access to storage devices. Hardware has consisted of a myriad
of: HSJ’s, RAID controllers, Fibre Channel and SCSI adapters.
Storage Area Network (SAN): Specified, installed and configured large, external RAID arrays. This has included specialized host-plus-controller mirroring schemas that allow 24x7 sites to take one mirror-set offline for backup and then bring it back online for automatic resynchronization. Implemented LUN masking to prevent data corruption by unintended access to storage devices. Hardware has consisted of a myriad of: HSJ’s, RAID controllers, Fibre Channel and SCSI adapters.
Systems Programming: I have automated many complex, time consuming, and error-prone
configuration and administrative tasks via the writing of sophisticated
OpenVMS DCL (.COM) and Windows (.CMD/.BAT) scripts.
- Field Applications Engineer, Broad Vision, Inc., Redwood City, CA
- Sr. Technical Consultant, Systems & Computer Technology, Malvern, PA
- Sr. Technical Consultant, Advanced Technology Group, Ross Systems, Inc., Atlanta, GA
- Independent Technical Consultant, EzHT, Inc., Alpharetta, GA
- Senior Systems Specialist, Customer Support Center, Digital Equipment, Alpharetta, GA
- Information Systems Specialist, Digital Equipment, Colorado Springs, CO
150 semester hours toward a Bachelor of Science degree. A BS degree is usually granted after completion of 120 semester hours. Unfortunately, responsibilities of life required relocations and credits from multiple institutions did not coalesce into a degree.
Courses completed include: Computer Science, Calculus, Biology, Physiology, Pharmacology and Medical Microbiology. Advanced, calculus based courses include: Chemistry, Physical Chemistry and Biophysics.
Academic goal was to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry with the intention of applying to medical school.
Consistently on the Dean's Honor List for maintaining a high GPA.
- Marine Corps 1970-1973. Field Radio Operator (MOS 2511/2531).
Service in Vietnam
Honorably Discharged - Air Force 1973-1977. Independent Duty Medical Technician (IDMT,
AFSC 902x0C)
Emergency Room, Offutt Air Force Base, Omaha, NE
Honorably Discharged - Colorado Air National Guard 1977-1978. Independent Duty Medical
Technician (IDMT, AFSC 902x0C). Tactical Air Evacuation,
KC-130 Aircrew. Buckley Air Force Base, Aurora, CO
Honorably Discharged - Wyoming Air National Guard 1978-1980. Independent Duty Medical
Technician (IDMT, AFSC 902x0C). Strategic Air Evacuation,
KC-130 Aircrew. F E Warren Air Force Base, Cheyenne, WY
Honorably Discharged
SCUBA diving, boating and general aviation (private pilot rating).
1970 high school graduate from the world famous Boys Town. Boys Town was founded in 1921 by Edward J. Flanagan, a Roman Catholic priest.