MARCOL

VMware Platform Rollout
- Migrating from Citrix XenServer over to VMware vSphere, Dell R630s
- Upgrading from Windows 2008/2012 to 2012R2 and 2016
- Migrating from 1Gbps to 10Gbps LAN and SAN switching, various switching vendors and configurations
- Migrating to VMFS shared storage; 5x shelves Dell PS6210 and PS6210x storage
- Migrating from physically disperse networking environments to logically truncated networks; for ease of centralised management and administration
- Active Directory Cleanup
- Exchange Server Upgrade 2007 to 2010

Infrastructure and Virtualisation Consultant

Federation of Small Businesses

DFS Migration Programme; replicating network shares between sites. Delivering Shadow-Copies for daily restoration points, developed some DFS-R PS scripted reporting.

Implemented several PowerShell Active Directory Audit reports; and Exchange Configuration and Health reports - running monthly. Providing management with an overview stance of both estates.

Network assessment and implementation of VMware Virtual Distributed Switching (vDS); working side by side with Cisco Catalyst switching stack adjustments and Cisco ASA re-configurations with multiple data-centres. 

Aided the project assessment and technical delivery of several Windows Server 2003 OS Migrations, upgrades and complete migrations.

Assisted with the project technical delivery of a Mitel Virtual Phone System; incorporating 200 handsets, spanning several office locations. Majority of the work involved AD Scripting, automating software installs with Group Policies, network switch re-configuration work, VLAN and DHCP setup and general assistance of provisioning the new users. Delivering Firewall and NAT rules for smooth transition to a wide variety of Mitel products; including a Dialler, Call Centre management suite, Collaboration tools and Campaign tools.

Infrastructure Consultant

Frontline Consultancy & Business Services

VMware ESX configuration corrections, host migration, Veeam backup and replication to remote VSA. Backup Exec taking staged jobs to tape; performance optimise tape library. Planned future migration to off-site collection.

Assessment and planning of 802.11 wireless access points; including supporting network VLANS and delivery of PKI certificate services for machine based authentication.

Planned and delivered Symantec Enterprise Vault for MS Exchange. Automated mailbox provisioning and archival, performed PST imports automatically; exchange server upgrade (2010>2013). configured AutoDiscover/OAB/ClientConnectivity rules. Blackberry Server database migration, BES service migration too. Finished mailbox moves, public folder migrations. Old host decommissioning.

WSUS powershell scripting. Working in a dev environment I built automation scripts to deliver a 'roll up' gap for having 9+months of no WSUS services. To perform staged migrations from unmatched to patched, delivering 1x months of updates at a time. Planned to be utilised by several customers in future.

LANSA powershell automated update rollout. Automated the delivery of updated LANSA DLLs, from a staging area to a series of UNC paths. Automated the termination of active running processes for those paths; automated log off of RDS services and handled logging and reporting.

Virtualisation Specialist

Tackling Domain Controller failures making use of dcdiag, ntdsutil, ntfrsutil and repladm detect and correct some fundamental design flaws. This is still work in progress.

Tweaking Active Directory Sites and Services, improving replication, redundancy and overall improving logon and authentication.

Re-designing DNS resolution both internally and externally, improving both performance and security. Linking subnet design with sites/services along with DNS reverse lookup zones.

Migration of email filtering products from Google Postini,EMF and MimeSweeper over to a vastly improved MimeCast cloud service offering. Everything from design, implementation and a very custom configuration has been done. Go-live went very smooth; I also hosted several internal training sessions. I learnt a lot during this; and would love to work with MimeCast again some day.

Broken up the Group Policy Objects into a structured design; re-introduced all of them over the course of 3 months.
-- Power Management (predicted 40% power savings during a typical month)
-- Network Access Control (vastly filter what can be accessed via the TCP/IP layer - firewall, dcom filtering, wmi control, rdp lockdown and much more)
-- Device Access Control (lock device classes; permit individual device IDs - via AD control groups)
-- Internet Explorer (financial industry governance enforcement for browser controls)
-- MS Office/Java/Hydra/Nice Policies (applied application specific customisations)
-- Windows Policies (provide performance enhancements and remove unnecessary services)
-- Company Policy (login script improvements, scripts -> CSE)


AD Automation from HR DB; Powershell Scripting; new OU structure, automated accounts and mailboxes. 

Designed "Role Profiles" for Active Directory; migrated 4x teams as proof of concept, slowly migrated users groups over. This provides a platform for future development of the AD environment.

Expert, freelance BGP engineers