Hammad Ahmad

Headquartered in Dubai, UAE, The First Group is a global property developer with a fast-growing portfolio of upscale hotels, residential properties and real estate asset management services. I was responsible to develop, implement, maintain, support and optimize IT systems, particularly Servers, Network, Security and Compliance. In addition, I was working with vendors, management and IT staff during the implementation and maintenance of systems.

Accomplishments:

• Implemented cloud and on-premise systems in hybrid configuration while ensuring security and compliance.
• Ensured adherence to compliance and least privilege by implementing access controls and access review procedures.
• I was a part of in-house Security Operation Center to predict, detect and mitigate the cybersecurity threats, which includes Event monitoring, Networking monitoring, File server audit and Application monitoring using a blend of tools and SIEM.
• Developed the strategy plan on how Cloud Migration will benefit the enterprise in terms of Availability, Scalability.
• Implementation of systematic and measurable end-user information security awareness training system, to protect the users from targeted attacks, viruses, spam and phishing attacks.

I was promoted to System Engineer role with primary responsibility to ensure stable operations of the organization's IT Infrastructure. I managed AD, DNS, DHCP, File Server, Print Server, SQL Servers, Web servers, Networks, BES12, MAAS360 (MDM), Exchange Server, Skype for Business, IP telephony and Citrix.

Accomplishments:

• Implemented Citrix (VDI) to improve information security to allow branch and remote office users to perform their duties while company data remained in the Headquarter servers.
• Executed the upgrade of physical servers into a virtualized environment to provide high availability and scalability.
• Implemented Network Access Control to protect the LAN and Wireless networks.
• Resolved escalated issues by serving as a higher escalation level (L2 support) on wide-ranging issues.
• Promoted to Senior Systems Engineer.

I was responsible for supporting the IT Infrastructure, and when needed IT support duties were also included. In this role, I was also responsible for diagnosing, troubleshooting and resolving day to day IT issues on or before time, in line with agreed SLAs. In addition, liaised with external vendors for IT services.

• Managed Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, Network, Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES5), Cisco Telephony, Antivirus & Backup.
• Provided support to modify the configuration for Cisco 1800 router and Cisco, 2900, 3550, switches.
• Assisted in projects, such as technology refresh and rollouts.

Started working for The First Group, my responsibilities included inventory management, documentation and maintaining detailed records of technical activities. In addition, I managed IT purchase requests and coordinated with Du and Etisalat for telecom services such as Internet, PRI lines and Blackberry enterprise services. Also, I collaborated with remote offices to address their concerns.

• Established organization wide Helpdesk and ensured that support tickets are being handled as per SLAs.
• Managed IT purchase requests in alignment with Procurement & Finance.
• Provided Level 1 (L1) technical support to staff as a backup tech staff.

DAE Academy is an educational institute for technical education. My core responsibility was to troubleshoot issues related to IT systems, hardware and software. In addition, I configured IT equipment and applications as per requirements.