Kashif Ahsan

Developed the applications and Infrastructure architecture and blueprints which reflected business logic of the line of business
•Guided solution vision and strategy by providing a breakdown of complex projects, applications and systems
•Analyzed current information technology environment to detect critical deficiencies and recommend solutions for improvement
•Analyzed and identified applications for cloud assessment and fitment, mapping workloads across IaaS, SaaS and private clouds
•Consulted with infrastructure, security, and application development projects to identify when it is necessary to modify the technical architecture to accommodate project needs
•Overseen the evaluation and selection of hardware and software products
•Conducted reviews and analysis of needs and goals for the development and implementation of the infrastructure and application
•Documented all technical architecture design
•Advocated, and augmented the principles of information technology strategies and current Associated Bank standards and processes
•Analyzed business drivers to determine business information and technical architecture requirements
•Analyzed technology industry and market trends and determine potential impact upon the line of business
•Created and maintained the architecture road map for the line of business. Supplying this road map to the line of business to be integrated with the product road map.
•Assisted on identifying organizational (skills, processes, structures, and culture) and financial impact of the infrastructure architecture.
•Recommended and redesigned the replacement or redevelopment of applications and infrastructure
•Provided design, estimates for projects. Guide/mentor PM's, BA's, SA's on current technologies used, etc.
•Evaluated incoming work requests providing feasibility assessment, and where possible also provide with initial solution options/ideas to aid sizing of the effort.
•Provided ad-hoc technical guidance to the business solution teams. Consults on all technical and design activities.
•Used automated software configuration and deployment processes for on-prem and cloud infrastructure to deploy Linux and Windows servers

Provided assessment and designed consulting for a small and large scale client virtualization and cloud projects
•Actively led the consultation to prospective client and product capability assessment and validation as it applies to the technical sales process
•Worked on issues that impacted design/selling success or address future concepts, products or technologies.
•Designed and implemented Server, Desktop and application virtualization technologies to different client sites
•Involved in a technical sale by delivering a high-impact business transformation programs through the use of Cloud Computing and other related technologies
•Designed, Configured and Supported Citrix NetScaler, VMware Horizon View, Citrix Insight Center, XenApp 4x/5/x/6x/7x, XenDesktop 5x/7x, Citrix Director, Citrix StoreFront, Provisioning Servers 6x/7x, Citrix XenMobile, Citrix UPM, License server in single and multi-datacenter deployments
•Configured and managed Load Balancing, Global Load Server Load Balancing(GSLB)
•Used Monitoring tools like Citrix Edgesight, Insight and MS SCOM to Monitor Virtualize environment
•Installed and configured Certificates on NetScaler and StoreFront Servers
•Configured Monitors, Methods, persistence, Policies and priorities settings on NetScaler
•Ensured optimal performance of all Citrix infrastructure and delivery servers by proactively conducting ongoing performance monitoring and by tuning/adjusting as necessary
•Performed incident resolution, Problem Determination and Root Cause Analysis in accordance with Service Level Agreements
•Performed application and infrastructure integration, created policies, performed environment builds and scalability tests, deployed pilot and production environments
•Delivered windows core infrastructure application solutions (Active Directory, Identity Management, DNS, DFS, DHCP, PKI, Clustering, SFTP, End User
•Resolved issues for cloud clients and development teams. Takes initiative and conducts follow ups to ensure business issues are resolved in a satisfactory and timely manner consistent with service levels and expectations
•Worked directly with vendors like Microsoft, Citrix, VMware, Cisco to resolve the outstanding issues related to different clients
•Utilized multiple monitoring and reporting systems (Solarwinds, SCCM, SCOM, Splunk, Citrix Edgesight and Insight) to maintain and troubleshoot environments
•Utilized Microsoft SCCM for automated software distributions
•Involved in a various Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange migration projects
•Led project management activities for new system requirements, data center migrations and new technology exploitation

Planned and designed new VDI infrastructure at Guggenheim Partners with the most up-to-date VDI technologies
•Supported relating to technical issues involving Microsoft's core business applications, as well as virtual environments built on Citrix, Microsoft, and VMware
•Installed and configured Citrix NetScaler Gateway, XenApp servers, XenDesktop, Provisioning Server, Citrix User Profile Management, internal and external web interfaces and EdgeSight on VMware ESX 5.0
•Packaged and virtualized applications according to the adhered standards of Guggenheim thorough Citrix Profiler
•Configured, managed and troubleshoot Citrix environment through EdgeSight
•Configured and Managed access points, like Access and Secure gateways and web interfaces with RSA agents and SSL certificates
•Managed different zones and users accessing Citrix environment from all over the world
•Assessed need for any system reconfigurations or changes (minor or significant) and execute them if required, within corporate compliance of change management
•Communication with PM’s and Manager, helpdesk and end user as required: keeping them informed of incident progress, notifying them of impending changes or agreed outages
•As necessary, travelled to a different location of Guggenheim Partners and area to provide on-site support and implementation of technologies that cannot be handled remotely or via telephone
•Configured and managed user profiles between Chicago and New York through DFSR
•Perform SA&Ds, health checks, rack new infrastructure and work on decommissioning servers

Engineered and implemented a virtual desktop infrastructure for external cloud clients
•Strategized and aligned technology plans with business priorities and urgencies
•Installed and update Xen Server 5.6/6.0 according to best practices
•Configured and managed local and SAN storage
•Rapidly deployment of VMs using golden-master templates and PVS images
•Understand, create and manage high availability clusters to protect the cloud environment
•Monitored and tuned cloud infrastructure
•Patched and updated ESXi, XenServer and XenApp Servers
•Created a secured login for the clients through access gateway
•Configured and managed exchange 2010 in cloud environment
•Configured and managed PVS, XenDesktop 5 and XenApp 6.5environment
•Provided end to end support services to internal and external cloud clients
•Configured Citrix User profile management 4.0 and VDI baseline policies
•Documented all the cloud work on SharePoint 2010
•Travelled to different client locations in Wisconsin and Illinois
•Configured and Setup HP and Wyse thin clients

Engineered and Implemented citrix XenApp 6.0 and XenDesktop 5.0 farm
•Through the use of proven methodologies, tools and best practices ensured the successful implementation of Citrix and Microsoft technologies
•Worked in a Dynamic Data Center to deliver high level support for Virtualized Environment
•Deployed, configured and managed more than 100 Citrix XenApp 6.0 and 5.0 servers
•Published and packaged hundreds of virtualized and hosted applications in XenApp farm
•Performed application and infrastructure integration, created policies, performed environment builds and scalability tests, deployed pilot and production environments
•Configured and managed Catalogs and Desktop groups in XenDesktop Studio
•Configured XenApp web site that integrates with XenDesktop and XenApp to provide end users with access to virtual desktops and virtualized applications
•Configured Citrix User profile management 3.2 and VDI baseline policies
•Published legacy applications through VM Hosted Apps
•Configured and managed provisioning services environment for XenDesktop 5.0
•Configured and managed Master Target Devices and Golden vDisk images
•Managed and Upgraded VHD files
•Configured, managed and troubleshoot Citrix environment through Edgesight 5.3
•Configured alerts, device maintenance and counters on Edgesight 5.3
•Created VMs on XenServers 5.6 and VMware ESX 4.1
•Used XenConverter to convert machines from P2V and V2vDisk
•Sequenced and packaged applications through App-V 4.6
•Created App-V 4.6 procedure flow chart to follow the standard process of virtualizing applications
•Member of a Documentation and an Assessment team to examine the process and development of a VDI frame
•Created weekly, monthly and quarterly reports of servers, Desktops and applications performance

VMware vSphere
•Imported ESX hosts into vCenter
•Configured vCenter server for Guest OS customization
•Converted VMs into a template and deployed new VMs from that template
•Converted templates back to VMs and deployed a new VMs as a clone of an existing VMs
•Added and configured hot add virtual disks to VMs
•Created new folder in the VMs and Templates view
•Assigned restricted permissions to the local guest account
Windows Admin
•Implemented, managed, monitored, and troubleshoot of Windows server 2003 and 2008
•Configured and maintained domain controllers
•User rights and permission, disabling and enabling accounts, file and folder permissions and configuring security templates as per need
•Performed Window server 2003/2008 backup and restore
•Configured group policies in OUs
•Performed upgrades, installation of software and drivers and essential desktop troubleshooting
•Assisted in troubleshooting user problems relating to Operating System issues, Network Connectivity, TCP/IP configuration, upgrades, MS Office products and Internet connectivity
•Utilized Norton Ghost imaging to automate installations and standardize desktop\laptop configurations
•Configured, managed, and troubleshot Remote Desktop and remote assistance
•Used App-V Sequencer to sequenced and packaged applications to end users

Citrix Admin
•Installed and configured Microsoft Application Virtualization Administrative Template (ADM Template) for the App-V clients
•Installed and configured App-V with the Citrix App-V integration kit
•Installed and configured Citrix Profile Management for profiling
•Installed and published applications using Resource Manager Application Wizard and assigned published resources to users
•Monitored, optimized and troubleshoot published applications
•Provided support for Citrix, IIS, Active Directory and general server related issues
•Created Citrix policies on bandwidth, client devices, printing, user workspace and service level on Citrix XenApp 5.0 Advance Configuration
•Monitored and troubleshoot connectivity to the data store in SQL Server 2005
•Monitored farm health and gathered information about the servers and the licenses in the farm using Edgesight v 5.2 on basis of different tests
•Configured Load Evaluators on XenApp 5.0 Advanced configuration