Sr. Systems Architect
Ankabut
Total years of experience :24 years, 4 Months
About: Ankabut is a Cloud, Network & Managed service provider in UAE, that is part of Khalifa University.
=====Job responsibilities - 3 roles: Technical Pre-Sales Senior Architect Deputy Manager for IT Development & Planning =======
• Customer engagement, requirement analysis, tailored solution design & value proposition, identify business opportunities, upselling, cross-selling, RFP/RFI analysis & response, risk analysis, proposal development, POCs & cost/profit calculation.
• Design, build & integrate fault tolerant cloud / hybrid solutions for clients on Amazon AWS & Ankabut cloud that meet design, security, performance & business requirements. Migrate on-prem client applications & core services to cloud.
• Innovate & introduce new services to Ankabut cloud as IaaS, PaaS, SaaS or as containers.
• Evaluate new technologies, integration possibilities & partner with 3rd party solutions to expand the cloud offering.
• Multi-level stakeholder & C-level collaboration & lead project teams through the project lifecycle.
• Review yearly CAPEX / OPEX & Analyze BI reports to support business decisions.
• Lead a team of Systems, HPC & network Engineers. Managed resource allocation & timely delivery.
• Bridged technical and business communication effectively.
=======Achievements: ========
• Successfully convert 8+ projects / year. (cloud transformation, cloud services and managed services)
• Led & delivered a large IT services & consolidation project for a 3 company merger within 2 yrs & near zero downtimes.
• Spearheaded teams to switch core educational services from on-prem to remote within 2 weeks during COVID pandemic.
About: Masdar Institute, partnered with MIT-USA (now called, Khalifa University post-merger) is a flagship sustainability-focused research institute.
Job responsibilities - 2 roles: Senior Systems Architect Deputy Manager for IT Infrastructure Dept.
• Oversee Design, implementation, Maintenance, Team leadership, compliance, Budgeting, Vendors & business continuity.
• Manage projects, resource allocate, collaborate with IT leaders & executives to align IT strategies with business objectives.
• Conduct new product research, cost-benefit analysis & present value add / cost savings to management.
• Work with audit teams for compliance and set goals to fill the gaps. Ensure security & local government law compliance.
• Collaborate with vendors to plan & design for a new upcoming fully automated private cloud.
• Manage, administer & update existing VMware vSphere landscape for Migration to New cloud.
• Redesign & Rebuild older web applications into robust 3 tier architectures in a DevOps environment with High availability.
• Lead Tier 1 and Tier 2 operations team to effectively deliver as per agreed SLA. Interview, hire, assign tasks, train & mentor.
• Ensure operations & development teams follow design and deployment standards.
• Tier 3 support for Cloud, HPC, servers, network, security, datacenter, Linux, VMware, windows, database, network, load balancers, storage, SAN, backups, replication, high availability & security.
Achievements:
• Reduced research costs by $4M+ year-on-year through centralization, shared resources & modernization.
• Consistently cut IT operation costs every year through consolidation, resource optimization & software-based alternatives.
• Designed & built a 90-node Linux HPC cluster featuring 45+ HPC-tuned applications. Ranked 2nd in the region.
• Designed & integrated complete Infrastructure & audio visuals for Indias 2nd ranked Gaming Center.
• Designed and commissioned a complete Redhat HPC cluster solution for the Dust Forecasting Project including the integration with storage, backups & other research Linux / windows / application servers.
Job responsibilities:
• Built & Managed all Linux, Windows & VMware environments. (700+ servers, 2 petabyte storage & 2 HPC farms)
• Daily OS administration, maintain all IT Applications / research applications & databases, HPC administration, deployment of core IT services on windows and Linux platforms, consolidate Applications & services, certificate services, datacenter management, manage backup & disaster recovery, administration of Enterprise Storage/SAN & technical documentation.
• Lead, mentor & train an IT team of 8 administrators & 2 network engineers to provide tier 2 and tier 3 support.
• Ensure the support team work on service tickets, close & document as per agreed SLA and following ITIL standards.
Achievements:
• Transformed a 98% physical environment with 100+ servers to 99% virtual (VMware) in 6 months.
• Transformed non-redundant, unstable enterprise IT infrastructure to a redundant, functional & secure infrastructure.
• Established new research computing infrastructure, new enterprise Storage / SAN infrastructure, renewed core infrastructure, new VMware farm, new VDI solution, new backup/recovery & disaster recovery solution within 2 years
About: ITS is a market leader in providing comprehensive finance solutions, core banking, online banking services for corporate & retail banking in the Gulf Region.
Job responsibilities:
• Implementation & tier 3 support for large banks in UAE Core Banking deployment, manage/ migrate & upgrade of Server hardware, OS & Enterprise storage, Datacenter, DR Relocations, capacity planning & performance evaluations.
• Certified Platinum partner for Sun Solaris, Dell, VMware, EMC, Veritas & HP technologies in the region.
• Customer engagement as technical pre-sales for our IT solutions and services.
About: The GSC is a fast-paced, High-tech, research facility working on high-quality genome sequencing data & analysis technologies for humans, chimps, mice, & other species. The center receives over $1.3 billion in research funding every year. Now Called, McDonnell Genome Institute, Washington University - St. Louis, USA.
Job responsibilities:
• Build, Manage, upgrade & relocation of Datacenter, Servers, Storage, SAN / LAN network, HPC, backups & disaster recovery.
• Migrated 90% of IT services to Linux / POSIX-based platforms including user desktops with Linux roaming profiles.
• Daily Linux / Solaris system administration, HPC administration, network administration, Storage / backup administration.
• Build & Maintain centralized Linux application, version control, multi-version & multi-platform application builds.
• Collaboration with software development, heads & stakeholders.
FREELANCE WORK