Hassan Zohaib

Being the sole representative of the company in the UAE, I am responsible for dealing with 8 different clients with all matters related to IT. Clients range from variety of backgrounds; real estate, investment banking, property management, HR consultancy to name a few. Major responsibilities include managing network infrastructure for each client, L1 and L2 IT support issues, IT requisitions, project management, providing project consultancy and hands-on software and hardware configuration.
NOTABLE PROJECTS:
Arqaam Capital: With its headquarters in DIFC, Dubai, Arqaam Capital has additional offices in Libya, Lenanon, Egypt and South Africa. Responsible for providing entire network infrastructure shift from the old office to the new office including deployment and configuration of 24 new Cisco 3750 switches, MiTel call manager and MiTel collaboration system, network printers, Evoko Room Manager, Cisco 5500 WLC, Cisco ASA 5505-X firewall. The project also included liaising with various vendors including third party hardware and software providers, fitout companies, external ISPs and other vendors to ensure that all deadlines were met and the project could be closed successfully.
ONGOING JOB RESPONSIBILITIES:
• L1 and L2 support for clients
• Budgeting, acquiring and management of assets
• Creating policies, recommending changes and improving IT processes
• Managing, deploying, troubleshooting and upgrading IT infrastructure with emphasis on high availability
• Training employees on new technologies, products and changes to the systems
• Client services and support
• Acquiring, managing and creating relationships with clients
• Project planning, processing and output delivery to the client
• Project management and resource management

Responsible for supporting and lining up infrastructure technology with business strategy, integrating company processes with the appropriate systems. Lead operational quality through IT Policies and Procedures development, while also assessing the impact of emerging technologies geared towards strategic business needs.
NOTABLE PROJECTS:
Infrastructure shift from old office to new office location: Responsible for the movement of the entire infrastructure that served 1400+ people from the old office location to the new head office while maintaining all asset counts, network security and data integrity.
Business continuity planning and implementation team lead: Created new and amended existing business continuity planning tasks and procedures to ensure maximum level of business continuity with strong emphasis on creating redundant network infrastructure at hot-sites and streamlined data backups and restorations with minimum system downtime.
Implementation of FortiGate firewall, FortiAnalyzer, McAfee EPO and SQUID proxy on Linux: Reviewed existing firewall configuration and suggested installation and configuration of new Fortigate firewall, FortiAnalyzer and a SQUID proxy server based on Linux. The new firewall combined with McAfee EPO, SQUID and FortiAnalyzer enabled true, real-time heuristics in network management, network access control and data loss prevention. Successfully cut down on major network threats faced by the company and controlled bandwidth utilization.

Responsible for coming up with efficient and logical network designs, conducting network analysis and ensuring network security by meeting with clients, understanding their requirements and engaging the PPDIOO network life-cycle.

NOTABLE PROJECTS:
Private Company, Karachi - Network Design and Implementation
• Understanding customer’s requirements, and designing the best suited network with provisioning of future increase in devices and network load.

• Installation, configuration and hardening of Cisco 3900 ISR, FortiGate 300C firewall, FortiGate FortiAnalyzer 100C, Cisco Nexus 7000 core switch, Cisco Catalyst 2960-X access switches, Cisco 5500 wireless LAN controller and Cisco Aironet 1600 and 2700 managed lightweight access points.
• Designing routing solutions with EIGRP and OSPF route redistributions and policy based routing.
• IPSEC VPN design and implementation using FortiGate 300C firewall based on IKE and IKEv2 security protocols.
• Designing firewall policies in line with the client’s business requirements and plans. Implementing security policies, access restrictions, bandwidth management, load balancing and SYSLOG monitoringing the combination of FortiGate firewall and FortiAnalyzer.
• Implementing STP, VTP, HSRP and VLAN, VLAN filtering and inter-VLAN routing.
• Implemented TACACS+ server for user access authorization.

Private University, Karachi - Network Redesign and Implementation
• Redesign existing network infrastructure using the PPDIOO Cisco Network Lifecycle along with implementation of solutions to identified problem areas.
• Installation and configuration of: Cisco 2911 Series Integrated Services Router, Cisco Catalyst 4507 switches, Cisco Catalyst 3750 switches, Juniper SSG5 Firewall, Cisco 2500 WLC and Cisco 3500 access points.
• Manage all aspects of Network Installation, Configuration and Troubleshooting networking issues and security breaches
• Configured VPN tunnels on Cisco IOS and Juniper SSG5 firewalls.
• Designed and implemented various Routing protocols such as OSPF, EIGRP, and BGP across networks in multiple locations.
• Technologies supported (but not limited to) include HSRP, NAT, Quality of Service, WLAN, Redistribution and VLANs.
• Develop baseline/standard security configurations for network equipment and systems.

Responsible for helping the implementation team in configuring and installing network designs passed and approved by the design team.
NOTABLE PROJECTS:
Private Bank, Karachi - Network Implementation
• Configure Cisco 7200 series router, Cisco Catalyst 4500 switches, Juniper SSG20 firewall, WAN links aggregation, PagP, VLANs.
• Data center cabling design and implementation.
• Establishing ATM links between various office locations and inter-city offices.