Huzefa Akhter

Head of IT Department at Wethaq Takaful Insurance Co

• Kuwait - Sharq
• My current job since March 2007

Company Info: One of the leading Insurance Company of Kuwait with around 140 Employees scattered over 1 Head Office and 5 Branches.

Role: Managing and guiding a team of 3 reporting to CEO. Key Responsibilities :

1) Maintain the complete Backup Strategy including that of the Oracle Database
2) Maintain, Backup, Optimize the IIS, ASP.NET Web-Server and the company website.
3) Installed, configure and maintain the SAMBA domain server.
4) Study - Design - Test - Implement new technologies within the Infrastructure.
5) Implementation of virtualization to include 3 backup servers in one hardware box.

Implementations to reduce the IT costs for the company :
1) Implemented Open Office in place of MS-Office and converted all office files to open format.
2) Implemented SAMBA domain controller server with LDAP backend and configured it to be the PDC to replace the Windows based Domain controller.
3) Changed all test Oracle DB windows based servers to Linux based.
4) Currently planning to switch all desktop's to be Linux based.

Other work and achievements in this company include:
• File / Folder Permissions and User administration for Linux file server
• Installation and administration of Apache Web server on Linux server
• Extensive Cron Jobs Management.
• Extensive Tape-Drive (LTO3) management from Sun Solaris including backups and restore.
• Configure VLAN and Port Security for switches
• Configuration of Access-lists on Cisco Pix Firewall for Infrastructure firewall
• Support 2 Junior Administrators for any difficulty as well as by training.
• Automation of various Systems Administration tasks via MS-DOS Batch Scripts
• Responsible for Servers / Network / Internet / VPN uptime.
• Intermediate Administration of Unix Servers and maintaining the Security Logs and system messages.
• ISA server firewall configuration. Key Infrastructure Implementations :
• Implemented and maintain Linux based oracle test database for developers.
• Designed and Implemented Windows 2003 Group Policy to tighten security.
• WSUS implementation.
• Part of the team that implemented Citrix for remote branch Client's connection
• Re-Designed the complete Backup Strategy for all servers and client Emails and Important Files.
• Installation of Open VPN (router based) with password less clients with TLS certificate authentication.

Scripting (Implement / Develop / Maintain):
• Auto Emailing the output of all scripts on a daily basis for easier auditing.
• Import / Export scripts for oracle 1 1g database hosted on a Sun Solaris server.
• Filtering the daily IIS logs for auditing access to particular sections of the website.
• Backup Scripts using xcopy / robocopy / rsync
• Backup / Restore of the Microsoft SQL server 2008 for HR application.
• Two-way Backup / Restore scripts for Microsoft SQL server 2008 production and backup server syncing on daily basis.

Backup Responsibilities:
• Manage / Monitor Daily Database Dump (Export) for the Production Database though Oracle's exp utility.
• Maintaining Cron Jobs for various backup related tasks on Solaris 10 DB server.
• Monthly UFS dump for the entire Solaris File system. (Single-user mode)
• Daily Backing up Client PC's Important Files though scripts.
• Monthly Cloning of Domain / Citrix / ISA / Oracle APP server via Ghost Utility.

Insurance System Responsibilities:
• Daily basis user queries management from front-end (Premia) and back-end (Oracle DB).
• Management of Premia / Final7 / Group Life / Group Medical insurance System.
• KNET Mastercard PHP based payment gateway implementation without any third-party. (For policy payment collection)
• SMS / WhatsApp payment links sending automated PHP based implementation. (For policy payment collection)
• Design and manage reporting needs of users and management.
• Manage Oracle AS Middleware User Sessions and configuration.