Cambridge, England, United Kingdom
A successful technologist designing multi-cloud architecture and DevOps solutions across many different industries, most recently defence and healthcare. Previous to that nearly 20 years experience in IT and Cloud services management.
Deploying restricted Azure landing zones using MCAF framework Design and deployment of log analytics workspaces including replication to secondary regions Deployment and management of AVD hosts including access policies Microsoft Fabric solution design Writing and deploying Yaml pipelines
Working with internal and external customers on cross collaborative initiatives across Gov Cloud Azure and AWS platforms adhering to strict controls. This role focussed around the following services - Virtual networks inc peering, Azure bastion, virtual machines, load balancers, and other services. - Terraform IAC deployment and code management across both AWS and Azure - Active directory both AWS and native Windows Active Directory deployments including certificate authorities and associated infrastructure development. -Microsoft Fabric deployment project including management of billing and design. Building and contributing to existing solutions and designing high and low level documentation including ensuring the approval through software/technical/security assurance stages. Automation first approach with use of common IaC toolsets e.g Terraform, Rancher, Azure Devops, Gitlab.
Design and implementation of new cloud architecture for reporting and analytics, data classification and master data management in Azure utilizing Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Fabric and a number of external services. Ground up design and build of Microsoft Fabric tenant through proof of concept to MVP development including overall architecture, best practice design, all within an agile project methodology. Design and build of AWS Sage Maker AI/ML services along with Technical design documentation for the solution. This involved working with AWS SMEs closely to evolve the concept Deployment and configuration of Azure resources including Microsoft products in the networking, security, monitoring, compute and serverless realms (some examples of) Also working with containerized services such as AKS, Kubernetes, Terraform and associated services.
Management and deployment of continuous improvements for the business, removing constraints between development and operations teams whilst promoting a DevOps ethos throughout. Cost savings and implementing best practice across all cloud services. Also part of the ieso on call team triaging out of hours critical incidents. On Call: Part of two on call services: -24/7 weekly rotation with a team of 5 covering triage of all critical incidents with the patient platform, associated services in azure and other business systems. -A weekly on call support rotation for an internal service whereby software engineers can raise support requests mon-fri Skills: Kubernetes / Azure / Azure DevOps / Vs Code / Terraform / Atlassian / OpsGenie / Prometheus / Grafana / Cloudflare / Azure AAD / Git / Linux / API Configuration and management. Training: AZ-900 certified (Oct 22) Notable projects completed in new role to date: -Ground up design and build of self-hosted build agents for our Azure DevOps pipelines. -Implemented OpsGenie and connected to all required services in Azure to improve efficiency and streamline cost. Building integrations, alerts, user memberships, incident rules, routing rules all within terraform. -Introducing alerting in OpsGenie and Slack for failed pipelines - This involved creating a template pipeline used by developers to check for task or job failures and subsequently generating alerts in OpsGenie and Slack. This was then superseded by project service hooks. -Built a global tagging policy for use with all Azure resources. -Successfully coordinated an upgrade of staging + production redis cache instances.
Some examples of projects and activities completed in this role: -On call service management out of hours -Headed up an IT project introducing a full ITIL service desk for one of the departments in the business that required stringent regulatory compliance. -Introduced Microsoft Teams as a replacement to Cisco Webex Teams as the business changed -Completed a SharePoint Migration project for the entire organisation with a view to streamline the use of file servers -End user training JIRA/SharePoint/Teams (Webex and Microsoft)/General IT/Office/Azure -DNS and infrastructure continual improvement programme. -Completed a project to expand into a new office space. Responsible for implementation, purchasing, configuring of all IT for new office, managing relocation of staff, ensuring stringent quality and regulatory compliance throughout, liaising with the Board and SLT to obtain approval. -Made substantial savings for the business during regular review of applications and services in use, suggesting alternatives or best practice improvements as part of the continual improvement program for IT. -Developed and implemented a customised Jira Servicedesk system for all internal IT to use. -Introduced new phone system for our US Office -Implemented JAMF Pro to manage all Apple devices and bring them inline with compliance and governance requirements. -Achieved Prince II foundation, Practitioner and Prince II Agile certification
-Design, development and implementation of SharePoint and related applications -Collaborating with internal departments and teams in order to deliver improvements -Information management -SharePoint Metadata development -SharePoint workflow designer -Flow administration and deployment -Unified Communications enhancement
Promoted to an Application Analyst position within C.U.P responsible for the technical administration, consultancy and ongoing development of the Press' SharePoint, Workday and Atlassian solutions. SME for each supported application, I provided a consultative approach for the business and stakeholders along with training colleagues in the team. SharePoint Online Administrator with knowledge of the full suite of O365 applications and beyond. PowerShell administrator, implemented break/fix and emergency restrictions to deployed Apps if required. Also an eDiscovery manager with good working knowledge of generating all eDiscovery content The largest proportion of my role at CUP was acting as the SME for Workday, managing all aspects of the application, configuring modules Time and Attendance, EIB Integrations, Compensation. Implemented a continual improvement programme for workday including advanced tenancy configuration and integrations to third party applications such as SAP are typical examples of my role. I have built a portfolio of adaptability and development throughout the business allowing me to connect and unify people and progress development in the corporate environment. The Press' dynamic and collaborative environment has enabled me to advance my knowledge substantially in many areas not just regarding software. Becoming proficient with how the business is designed and organised as a whole in addition to the tools used, has been equally instrumental in my understanding and personal development. Since I started this role I have participated in several instructor led courses/Workshops to accompany my development. These include: SharePoint: QA course on Administering SharePoint 2013, Workday Reporting, Integration fundamentals, Business Process Administration, Security Fundamentals and Workday Studio
Application Support:- - Responsibility for all Atlassian support and maintenance requests globally within the organisation - Lead technical contact for major upgrades of Jira and Confluence environments responsible for approving work carried out and also ensuring smooth transition to the upgrade process. - Extensive customization of systems - Mantis bug tracking software support and migration onto other platforms - Marval ITIL framework monitoring/tracking/fault resolution/reporting and SLA management - SQL development and use, lookups and data checking joins etc.. Filemaker :- - Global support of Filemaker databases around the world including administration, database development, database branch synchronisation between three global locations, batch scripting and other tasks as required. - Part certified in BCS Requirements Engineering - QA Certified in SharePoint administration as SP global admin and MS Office 365 admin
Working in this role for Citizens Advice proved to be very useful, and gave unique insights to configuring and maintaining an abundance of remote use equipment from server side down to terminals. A summary of my day to day responsibilities below -IT Support and maintenance of the IT equipment. -Server installations, -Troubleshooting, -Xenapp configuration, -Citrix use and setup, -Desktop repairs, -Advicehub kiosk install and repair, -Management duties. -Sharepoint design and maintenance -Microsoft Visio Experience -Administration of Fortigate Firewall and associated components -ProCurve networking diagnostics