Network Consulting Engineer
Cisco Systems
Total years of experience :14 years, 9 Months
o Currently I am associated with Cisco Systems Dubai, as an outsourced employee from Cloud9 Networks. I am part of Cisco team that has architected and deployed Middle East region ‘s first ever electronic Federal Network (FEDnet) that currently hold UAE Government’s smart cloud and has connected all Federal Government entities in UAE.
o Managing the team of four cloud infrastructure engineers to ensure 99.9 % services uptime SLA.
o Ensuring Level 2 and 3 infrastructure supports to all 42 Federal ministries of UAE government.
o Designing and configuring the expansion of FEDnet infrastructure which consist of Cisco’s Firewalls, Routers, Switches, Citrix Load Balancer, Cisco UCS Fabric, Cisco ACI Fabric and VMware NSX for Software defined networking, DELL/EMC for Storage solutions and VMware vSphere ESXi and vCenter 6.0 for virtualization.
o Coordinating with Pre-sales teams for BOQ validations as per business requirements. o Presenting new projects high level and low-level designs to management for their approval.
o Proactively working on Cisco ASA 5585-X, Cisco SourceFire IPS, Fire-Power Defense Center to monitor the traffic pattern/signatures at cloud core and aggregation links.
o Presenting FEDnet security and cloud solution various government ministries
o Proactively analyzing faults and problems that may arise to affect the services and restructuring the network accordingly.
o Providing IP network design and connectivity configuration of new regions and sites between FEDnet Cloud and any other Federal ministry.
o Responsible for Implementation and troubleshooting of IGP protocols (OSPF), redundancy and fault tolerance mechanism such as VPC and HSRP between various network devices like Cisco ASA, Cisco Nexus 7K, 5k, Cisco ASR 9K, Cisco UCS Fabric interconnect and Software defined network of Cisco ACI Fabric.
o Engaging with federal ministries and local ISP’s to on board every ministry at FEDnet cloud via MPLS core network.
o Engaging with Pre-Sales teams of different vendors like Citrix, EMC, Huawei and VMware to validate network design of complex solutions.
o Proactively upgrade network components like Cisco ASA 5585-X, IPS, FirePower Defense Center, Nexus 7000, 5000 and 1000v switches, Cisco ACI Fabric, Cisco UCS Manager and EMC Storage array with WAN Replication devices of EMC Recover Point.
o Making sure to on-board new projects from UAE government within timelines while ensuring the highest quality of service to customers.
o Designed, configured and tested the end-to-end connectivity of IPV6 at FEDnet cloud by making configuration changes at internet firewalls, Core firewalls, Core switches, Customer edge firewalls and Cisco ACI fabric and VMware NSX.
o Organize and plan standard operation procedures to minimize downtime of network impact severities.
o Actively following the company policies and procedure to ensure change management, incident management and problem management would not conflict with ISO compliance.
Worked as network consulting engineer and solution architect for various projects by Cisco Advance Professional Services team. High level details of achieved milestones for each project are mentioned below:
IOC Cloud
o Designed the expansion and scalability for du IOC Cloud (IOC). Project scope consisted of BOQ creation in CCW tool, Low Level Design document (LLD), Network implementation Plan (NIP) and Network Ready for Use (NRFU) documents and end to end configuration of services till project sign off.
o During the expansion project, Cisco UCS 6296 fabric was configured and integrated with production SAN switches (Cisco MDS 9500) for storage connectivity and Nexus 5k’s for network connectivity via VPC.
o Upgraded the Cisco UCS Manager from 2.1.1(f) to 2.2.7(c).
o Successfully completed all project meetings by ensuring complete customer satisfaction since project kick off till project sign off, including customer wish list during the on-going project phases.
du SDP Cloud
o Create BOQ, Created the LLD, NIP and NRFU documents for Cisco UCS and SAN infrastructure as per globally accepted format of Cisco AS team.
o Configured the Cisco UCS 6200 Fabric Interconnect and Cisco MDS 9148S via FCoE SAN infrastructure with EMC 5200 storage array.
o Configured service profiles and Installed VMware ESXi 6.0 hypervisor on physical servers and vCenter 6.0 as virtual Machine.
o Integrated the VMware vCenter with Cisco ACI Fabric for software defined networking which later reduced the infrastructure level operational overhead to 75 %.
o Successfully completed all project meetings by ensuring complete customer satisfaction since project kick off till project sign off.
du KMUCC
o Created BOQ, Created the LLD, NIP and NRFU documents for newly manufactured Cisco UCS 6300 Fabric Interconnects with UCSM version of 3.1.1(e).
o Single handedly executed the end to end project which included the configuration of UCS Manager, zoning configuration on Cisco MDS SAN switches, configuration on EMC VNX 5500 Storage array for storage groups registrations and assignments of LUN’s from storage to VMware Cluster.
o Install and configured the ESXi 6.0 Update 2 as OS on all blade servers, vCenter 6.0 update 2 as VM and integrated with ACI Fabric.
Sharjah Economic Development Department
o Helped GBM pre-sales team to validate the BOQ for migration and Hyper-Flex deployment.
o Provided consultancy to GBM system by creating LLD, NIP, NRFU and MOP documents for SAN migration from Brocade switches to Cisco MDS 9500.
o Flawlessly executed the migration from Brocade to Cisco MDS without any network downtime.
o Install and configured the Cisco HyperFlex Hyper-Converged infrastructure within in 37 minutes for hosting services of SEDD IT infrastructure.
Prime Minister Office o Single handedly configured the network infrastructure for PMO IT DR site at Abu Dhabi.
o Network infrastructure consist of configuration of Cisco ASA 5505 firewalls, Cisco 2800 CE routers for connectivity with MPLS Core via PE routers (3800), Nexus 3k DC switches as Core switch and 3750, 2960X switches at access layer for connectivity with HP servers.
o Worked with Customers in United States for migration of services from on-premises Unified Communication Manager to Cisco Hosted Collaboration solution 8.6 (Collab9 Cloud)
o Upgraded the Data-Center infrastructure for Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution 9.1.1 in accordance with industry best practices. o Upgraded the Cisco HCS 8.6.2 Infrastructure to 9.1.1 including the upgrades of Cisco Nexus 7K’s,
o 5K’s and 1k virtual switches, 29XX ASR Router, MDS Switches for EMC Storages, Cisco UC-Apps (Cisco Communication manager, Cisco Contact Center Express, Cisco Unity Connection, Cisco Unified Presence and Attendant console) for Unified Communication, and VMWare vCenter 4.1 to 5.0.
o Configured the Cisco Nexus 7k VDC’s, 5K, 2k’s Fex and Cisco Nexus 1000-v distributed switch. o Worked on MDS switches for storage area network (SAN) for EMC VNX5200.
o Experienced in logical designs models, includes L2/L3, VPC, VDC, fabric-path, VPC+ Data-Center Zones, Spanning Tree, VLANs, VSANs and Physical Cabling.
o Upgraded the VMWare vSphere and vCenter from Version 4.1 to 5.1 and from 5.1 to 5.5 o Rack, Stack, Cable and Kick-start new servers for production/engineering projects
o Configured and managed the customer Cisco 37xx/4507R series switches.
Cisco IPCC Contact Center & IP Telephony:
• Upgraded CUCM 5.0 to CUCM 8.6 and IPCC UCCX Express from 5.0 to UCCX 8.5 using UC210 Hardware.
• Technical Planning and Setup of Company's Call Center for Inbound Help Desk and Outbound Tele-Sales. (Based on Cisco UCCX Express) in High Availability environment (150 seats).
• UCCX Scripting for database integration and XML parsing for Self-service IVR
• Implementation of OpenSource Call recording solution software Oreka for IPCC.
• Enterprise IP Telephony Deployment
• Design and implementation of Enterprise Video Conferencing, IP Telephony in High Availability environment (700+ IP Phones in 13 sites).
• Voicemail Integration of IP Telephony system
• Configure the Cisco 3811, 2801 and 2821 for E1 PRI as Digital ISDN line.
• QoS implementation for converged network
• SIP Integration between PolyCom VSX / HDX with CUCM (for Video end points)
• Enterprise IP Telephony Cluster Upgrade
• Integration of Microsoft Lync with Cisco CUCM 8.5
• Cluster upgrade of IP Telephony setup from CUCM 6.1 - 8.5
• Traffic management and shaping through QoS techniques.
• Configuration of Soft switch, Trunk Media Gateways, WAN Routers
• Cisco jabber Integration with CUCM8.5 and 8.6 for Smart Phones includes Apple, Android and BlackBerry
Routing & Switching:
• Leading the Team of 3 Members and directly reporting to Manager.
• Design and implementation of Enterprise MIS Communication Network by Static Routes and Routing Protocol OSPF.
• Configured and deployed the Cisco NEXUS Data Center Switch 5548 in the high availability of 4 separate 2K’s fabric extender.
• Configure and Deploy Cisco 2900, 3560PoE, 3800, 2800, 800, 4500, 6500, series Switches and Routers.
• Currently working on Cisco Routers 5609, 2811, 3811, 3801, 800 and Switches Cisco 3560, 3750, 2950 and Multilayer L3 Switches.
• Install, configuration of Cisco, Zexel, Raisecom Routers and Switches in the Pakistan, also work on edge device testing and stats.
• Configuration of Layer 3 routing protocols BGP (iBGP and eBGP), IS-IS, OSPF and MPLS.
• Technical support on the telephone calls and on site installations to Online Technical Support Department.
• Network Monitoring by free open source monitoring tools Network Monitoring System (NMS) like What’up Gold, Solarwind and Sysloger.
• Configuration and Deployment of Linux Based application MRTG, Centos OS, Squid (for Proxy Servers)
Network Security
• Network Security Policy Implementation for LAN(Cisco ASA) and MIS Data Center (Catalyst 6500 FWSM)
• VPN provisioning via Cisco ASA with authentication using RADIUS
• IPSec Tunnel, GRE Tunnel
• Configured the remote site VPN
• Responsible to communication and Support of Avaya and Aspect Unified IP solutions Configuration and connectivity.
• Implementation, designing, configuration of Servers and support of IP based Unified Communication call center.
• Configuration of Windows and Linux servers.
• PRI’s and GSM Gateway support.
• Configured the Domain control, Additional Domain Controller, LAN Cabling, Switches, and Hardware Software troubleshoot and installation. Windows server 2003 configuration, Active directory Support.
• Responded to issues of IT Support / Helpdesk.
• Responding to network connectivity and alarms, working in IP, WLL and transmission domains, using TEMIP and HP open overview.
• Responded to NOC BSS Alarms WLL and IP Domain.
• Responded to NOC NSS Alarms regarding WLL Domain
• Configured the Domain control, Additional Domain Controller, LAN Cabling, Switches, and Hardware Software troubleshoot and installation. Windows server 2003 configuration, Active directory Support.
• Responded to issues of IT Support / Helpdesk.
• Configured the Domain control, Additional Domain Controller, LAN Cabling, Switches, and Hardware Software troubleshoot and installation. Windows server 2003 configuration, Active directory Support.
• Responded to issues of IT Support / Helpdesk.
Project Management, Organizational Dynamics and Leadership
2004-2008 Bachelor of Computer Engineering (CGPA 3.09) Bahria University Islamabad, Key Module: 1) Computer Networks 4) Data Encryption & Security 2) Data Communication 5) Digital Logic Design 3) Hardware Description Language using VHDL 6) Digital Electronics
2002-2004 PRE-Engineering (58%) 502 Model College, RawalPindi
1992-2002 Secondary School (70%) F.G.Public Secondary School Rawalpindi