IT Infrastructure Lead
Public Works Authority (ASHGHAL)
Total years of experience :24 years, 8 months
Roles and Responsibilities
• Working as a IT Infrastructure Lead for the Systems and Network Teams
• Responsible and Accountable for the overall IT Operations of Systems, Storage, Backups, Network, Data Centers
• One of the key resources in the Enterprise Architect team that is defining Cloud Strategy and IT Roadmap for the organization
• Managing all the Three Data Centers and its complete IT Infrastructure located across Qatar.
• Managing Storage Infrastructure - HPE 3PAR, HPE Primera, DellEMC Isilon, DellEMC VNX, DellEMC Unity, DellEMC SCv Series, Huawei OceanStor Dorado, DDN-Tintri Intelliflash and Brocade SAN Switches. Total Storage Capacity ~20 PB.
• Managing Server Infrastructures - HPE Synergy Frames, HPE Blade Chassic, HPE Virtual Connect Manager, Cisco UCS Chassis, Cisco UCS Servers, Cisco UCS Manager, DellEMC Rack Servers etc..
• Managing Backup Infrastructure - Veritas Netbackup, Appliances, Backup Policy, SLP, Replication across different sites, Tape out, NDMP, DB Backups etc...
• Managing Virtualization Infrastructure - VMWare vSphere 6.x, 7.x, vReliaze Operations
• Managing MS Azure Cloud, Exchange Online, MS Teams
• Managing Cisco Ironport Email gateway, BlueCoat Proxy, Infoblox (DNS, DHCP, IPAM), ManageEngine.
• Technical Consultant for CCTV Infrastructure
• Maintaining appropriate SLA for the IT Services
• Created Policies and Procedures for IT Operations, Data Protection and DR procedures
• Budgeting for IT Infrastructures - Systems and Network
• Writing Scope of Work Documents, Evaluations of Tender Documents
• Incident Management, Problem Management and Change Management
• Providing Monthly and Quarterly IT Service Review Report to the Management
• Multiple Vendor Management
• Focal point from IT Infrastructures Team to the Business and Application team
Projects:
• Setup a Complete Disaster Recovery Data Center from Scratch (includes Power, Cooling, Generator, UPS, ATS, Server Racks, Storage and DC Management Tool etc…)
• Setup a Co-Location Data Centers consists of various HPE, DellEMC, Cisco, Huawei and Veritas Hardware
• Introduced Periodic Disaster Recovery Drill for various applications
• Successfully Completed Data Center Tech Refresh Project which consists HPE Synergy Frames, HPE Primera Storage and Data Migrations
• Design and Deployed various storage arrays such as HPE 10400, Primera Storage Arrays, EMC Isilon, DDN-Tintri, Huawei Oceanstore in different Data Centers.
• NAS: Implemented EMC Isilon Storage Systems at Primary and DR Data Center
• NAS Migration: Implemented DDN-Tintri Intelliflash Storage and Migration Project
• Setup CCTV Infrastructures consists of 4000+ Cameras, 20+ PB Storage and 220 Remote Sites
• VMWare Implementation: Migrated and Consolidated multiple VMWare Infrastructures consists of 8 Clusters with 80+ nodes for multiple sites
• P2V Migration: Reduced 80+ physical servers as part of P2V and V2V projects
• Design and implemented complex hybrid migrations to Exchange Online from environments (Ongoing Project)
• MS Azure Cloud Journey: Setup MS Azure Landing Zone. Design and Implementation plans for migrating and hosting complex application workloads on MS Azure
• MS Azure Cloud Migration Project
• Design and implemented MS Teams for around 3500 users (ongoing project)
• Setup CCTV Infrastructures consists of 3000+ Cameras, 8+ PB Storage and 6 Sites
• Implementation of Enterprise Vault 12.0
• Implemented Best Practices for Backups and Replications
• Database Consolidation Project: Reduced significant Database licensing cost by Database consolidation projects
• Part of Cisco ACI Implementation Project
• Product Evaluation Ran various PoCs for Bluecoat, Fluke, Infoblox, ProofPoint, etc… Upgrades, Migrations and Consolidations….
• Design and Deployed Veritas Netbackup and various Veritas Netbackup Appliances
• Managing Operations for 3 Data Centers located in various locations. (Primary Data Center, Co-Location and DR Data Center)
• Setting up a Co-location Data Centers consists of HP c7000 Blade Enclosures, HP ProLiant Rack Mounted Servers, HP SAN Switches, HP 3PAR Storage, Installation of OS and other software and updates, FC Patching etc…
• Setting up a Disaster Recovery Site for ASHGHAL which includes DR for Exchange Clusters, Hyper-v Cluster, VMWare Clusters, SQL Clusters, AD, Backups using Symantec Netbackup and Appliances etc…
• Managing entire Backup Infrastructures which consists of 3 Master Servers, 7 Netbackup Appliances, 1000s of Client Servers spread across different region.
• Designed, Planned and Implemented Netbackup AIR (Auto Image Replication) between 3 different Data Centers.
• Managing entire Storage Infrastructures of Ashghal which consists of 3 HP 3PAR StoreServe 10000 Series Storage Systems, 2 EMC VNX 5300 and 1 HP EVA8000 Storage and EMC Isilon. The total storage capacity is more than 2 PB.
• Secondary responsibilities to manage the Virtual Infrastructures including both VMWare vSphere and Windows Hyper-V infrastructures which consists of more than 300 VMs in 6 Clusters.
• Managing Windows 2008 R2 and 2012 R2 Environment
• Server Level administration for Exchange 2010 DAG Environment
• Storage Provisioning to PROD Servers, VMWare and Hyper-V Cluster environments
• Responsible for creating, managing & maintaining zones on Brocad and HP SAN switches.
• Administration of Symantec Netbackup 7.6 Environments
• Configuring and Administrating Netbackup Appliances 5220, 5020 & 5000
• Administration of Symantec Netbackup 7.5 Opscenter
• Managing VMWare Virtualization Environments which consists of 4 ESXi nodes with around 70 VMs.
• Working on Windows Exchange 2013 upgrades and migration plan
• Successfully Completed the HP 3PAR StoreServ 10400 installations and configurations
• Creating and Managing Virtual Machines and Templates on both VMWare and Hyper-V
• Successfully Configured the VMWare Replication between the Data Centers.
• Monitoring GFI Mail Essentials
• Good working knowledge in System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)
• Good working knowledge in System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM)
• Good working knowledge in Websense, TrendMicro
• Assisting in defining Scope of Work Documents for the vendor
• Successfully completed the PoC for the Bluecoat
• Successfully completed the PoC for the Fluke Appliance
Roles and Responsibilities
• Played various Roles in Operation, Implementation and Designing Teams in Cisco
• Supported Cisco’s Internal Storage, Data Protection and VMWare Infrastructures.
STORAGE
• The Storage infrastructures consists of various EMC Storage products such as EMC Symmetrix, VMAX, DMX and Clariion boxes across various data centers
• Configuring, Administrating and Troubleshooting VMAX Storage Systems
• Storage provisioning to multi-vendor operating systems which include Solaris and Redhat Linux and Windows
• Configuring and Administrating MirrorView and SnapView.
• Data migration tools like Replication Manager, Recover Point and EMC SAN Copy.
• Configuration and administration of Power Path software for redundant path failover and recovery
• Configuration and managing CIFS and NFS shares
• Have successfully upgrade Cisco MDS Switch on various complex environments
• Have Successfully upgrade Solution enabler on various environments
• Working on Storage Management Software such as SymCLI, Navisphere Manger, Analyzer, EMC Solution Enabler.
• Creation of Zone set/Zone on MDS 9513 fabrics.
• Monitoring Storage array and reporting
DATA PROTECTION
• Supporting Cisco’s Internal Storage and Data Protection Infrastructures.
• Setting up Backup Infrastructures includes Design, Plan and Implement.
• Backup Technology includes Symantec Netbackup 7.5, EMC Avamar 6.1 and EMC Networker
• Technical Lead for Symantec Netbackup and EMC Avamar backup technologies
• Single Point of Contact for the Customer from the Data Protection Team that consist of around 16 technical staff
• Having Weekly/Monthly call with Customers and presenting Performance/SLA Review Report.
• Maintaining the Backup Success Rate SLA to
As a Team & Tech Lead (Backups) for EMEA Region accounts…
• Subject Matter Expert in Symantec Netbackup
• Maintaining Backup Success Rate to 98% in all the EMEA region accounts.
• Single escalation point of contact for all the account Technical and Administrative activity.
• Resource management, Technical Mentor, Escalated support, Leave management, On-call Roaster and Call Handling
• Monthly OPS Review PPT with all updates, Weekly Ops review with Team
• Risk Register Publish for all accounts and regular meeting with SDM followed by MOM
• Backup Capacity management, reports publish to account and take required action to improve the support
• Track all Initiative, Innovation and Encourage /motivate team to do Initiatives
• Improve the Documentation, process on all accounts
• Regular Daily Service Review call with team followed by MOM
• Track all project/baseline work and ensure timely completion
As a Technical Consultant, Projects worked…
1. Designed and Implemented the Backup Solutions to the Customer called iDP, Chennai ( a part of NHS, UK Company). The environments consists of around 550 VM Servers, 22 ESX Boxes, 120 Physical Servers and HP Tape Libraries. Implemented VMWare Consolidated Backups in the Environment.
2. Implemented the Netbackup Solution to the customer called AIA, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The environment consists of 2 Netbackup Master Servers running on RH Linux 5, 4 Windows Media Servers and around 300 Servers.
3. Netbackup 5.1 to 6.x Migrations for over 8 Environments which consists of over 13 Master Servers and around 32 Media Servers.
4. Participated in various DR Tests throughout the years.
As a Level3, Level2 Backup and Storage Technical Support Engineer
Storage Support Engineer
• Managing Storage infrastructures including storage provisioning, performance tuning, adding volumes, assigning ports, data movement, maintenance of severs & troubleshooting problems in environment
• Administration of DMX 3/4 through Symcli.
• Solutions Enabler Management (Installation/Up gradation).
• LUN masking, creating logical volumes, assigning WWNP, and zoning redundant paths to the storage array
• Creation of Zone set/Zone on MDS 9513 fabrics.
• Monitoring Storage array and reporting
• Expand the raid groups and/or pools capacity
• Backup Administration for large sized Data Center and Remote sites.
• Worked on IBM 3584 Tape Library, backing up nearly 1800 Servers and 200 Remote sites using multiple storage devices. Average backing up data is around 45 TB per day.
• Installing & Configuring the Veritas Netbackup Master/Media Servers and Clients.
• Involved in many DR Test and completed the DR test successfully.
• Upgraded the Netbackup 5.1 to 6.5 for more than 6 Environments.
• Troubleshooting the Backup Failures, Catalog backups and vault which includes UNIX, Linux, Windows OS, Oracle RMAN, Lotus Notes and Exchange backups.
• Performance Tuning to Improve the Backup throughput
• Addition, Deletion & Configuring Changes in Storage Units
• Addition, Deletion & Configuring Tape Drives in media servers. Creation of Volume Manager Global Database
• Creating and Managing Volume Pools, Managing tapes from SILO
• Creation of Vaults, management of the procedure of the vaulted tapes to be sent to Offsite
• Creation of backup policies, scheduling of backups and taking manual backups
• In depth experience in working with multiple teams, escalation process, change management & Turnover process.
• Implemented VMWare Consolidated Backups (VCB) for vCenter2.5 and vSphere
• Worked on Symantec PureDisk Backup Application
Project: Aluminum Corporation of America (ALCOA)
Providing a L2 based SLA support to the client which includes Hardware maintaenace, for around 3000+ servers, Core Windows Support, Exchange Server Support, Veritas NetBackup & ITO Monitoring.
In depth experience in working with multiple teams, escalation process, change management & Turnover process.
Hardware Support
Managing around 1200+ IBM X series servers across different domains of USA, Europe & Australia.
Coordinating with the site and with the IBM in different regions in getting the component fixed
Remote troubleshooting with RSA (Remote Supervisor Adapter card) and other remote tools.
Exposure to IBM director.
Windows server Administration (Windows Server 2000/2003)
Troubleshooting any ADS related issues.
Restore of Active Directory database.
Troubleshooting DNS, DHCP, DFS & Terminal servers related issues.
Troubleshooting and performance tuning different server issues.
Root Cause analysis of any performance related issues
Exchange server Administration (Exchange Server 2003 / Outlook 2003)
Proactively analyzing the occurring problems and finding the root cause and implementing the solution with the help of L3 engineers.
Performing Mailbox restore
Troubleshooting in respect of mails sending and receiving - outlook issues
Mailbox backup and restore.
Backup Administration
* Installing & Configuring the Veritas Netbackup Clients and Media Servers
Maintaining the Backup Environment with 2 - 9310 Powder Horn SILO, 3 Master Servers, 3 Full Media Servers, 45 SAN Media Servers and more than 1200 Servers as backup client in multiple platforms. Average backing up data size is 14 TB per day.
Troubleshooting the Backup Failures which includes UNIX, Linux, Windows, Oracle RMAN and Exchange backups.
Working knowledge on ERMs
Resolved many critical problems by working with Vendors.
Configuring Catalog Backups, Vault and Oracle RMAN Backups and ARO
Thru Correspondance Education
Board : State Board of Technical Education Duration : 1996 – 1999. ( 3 years ) Percentage : 75% ( First Class with Honors )