About Me
I have over 15 years of experience working in an IT Cloud Consultancy role. I currently work as a Virtualisation and Cloud Consultant (Public cloud, Private Cloud and Hybrid Cloud) for a Managed service provider.
I am also an RYA Powerboat instructor and VHF Radio SRC Assessor. I love to be in the classroom or out on the water. I am also an RYA safety boat driver for large sailing events at local and national clubs.
I have exceptional knowledge and hands on experience with the products and technologies listed under skills and knowledge.
I am highly skilled in my work and take pride in what I do, ensuring that it is completed to the best of my ability. I am a VMWare Certified advanced Professional.
I am looking to further develop in my specialisms and gain new knowledge. I have a great passion for my work and am always keen to learn or teach.
Outside of work I run a website design agency, enjoy power boating, as well as spending time with my young family.
Professional
Qualifications
Experience
At Espria (Formerly EACS) I am a Senior Cloud Consultant and currently Interim Cloud Practice Lead.
On the Hybrid Cloud Platform I work on projects of all types and sizes. These range from a simple Exchange onpremises to Microsoft 365 Migration to a full Azure cloud scoping and migration to Azure Stack HCI. I get given a proposal from Pre-sales and then form a Low Level Design and then impliment the proposed design and hand over either to the Espria managed services team or back to the customer.
I also get involved with NetApp, Vmware, Hyper-v and networking projects as well as anything and everything windows.
I have recently been appointed Interim Practise Lead to stand in until a replacement for the last lead is found. This has seen me develop standard templates for LLD’s to make life easier for the other consultants and cloud engineers as well as step up to mentor them through to being well on their way to becoming fully fledged senior consultants.
I specialise in:
- Microsoft Azure / Office 365 / AVD / Intune / Autopilot / Networking / Storage / Scale sets / Availability sets etc
- Vmware vsphere 6.x and 7
- Vmware SRM, and horizon view
- Cisco UCS
- Compellent, Pure storage and Netapp
- Zerto virtual replication
- Brocade and Cisco MDS
- Cisco catalyst and Nexus switches
At Digital Space (Formerly Timico) I work on the Cloud Platform team, a team of 5 people managing all the shared infrastructure in our 5 datacentres accross the UK. I mainly focus on the AZURE side of things but do the other bits when required
I specialise in:
- Microsoft Azure / Office 365 / AVD / Intune / Autopilot / Networking / Storage / Scale sets / Availability sets etc
- Vmware vsphere 6.x and 7
- Vmware SRM, and horizon view
- Cisco UCS
- Compellent, Pure storage and Netapp
- Zerto virtual replication
- Brocade and Cisco MDS
- Cisco catalyst and Nexus switches
At Proact I work on the infrastructure team, a team of 3 people managing all the shared infrastructure in our 15 datacentres accross UK and Europe. I specialised in:
- Netapp ONTAP 7-Mode and cDOT
- Netapp snap products including SMSQL, SME, VSC, SnapDrive
- Vmware vsphere 4.x, 5.x and 6.x
- Vmware vrealise Automation and Ops manager
- Vmware SRM, and horizon view
- Trend deep security
- Cisco UCS, Dell hardware and HP hardware
- Citrix Netscaler
- Tintri, Pure storage and Nimble
- Zerto virtual replication
- Brocade and Cisco MDS
- Cisco catalyst and Nexus switches
- Cisco ASA Firewalls
At BGL I worked on the Wintel team as a senior Wintel analyst, a team of 8 people managing all of the business’s servers and core applications. These included
- Windows server 2003/2008/2012
- Unix OS’s
- Exchange 2010
- Vmware vSphere (5 separate environments total of 40 hosts (5 vcentres))
- Active directory
- Direct access
- Backup exec/net backup
- Netapp HA filers
- VSC, Snap Drive, SMSQL, SME
- SCOM
Plus more
I am the main administrator for the VMWare environment so part of my role was:
- Managing the 40 esxi hosts in the data centres using VSphere client, esx cli and powercli.
- Upgrading, via update manager, esxi 5.0 hosts to esxi 5.5, then aligning the guest VM tools and hardware version and overcoming related issues.
- Fault finding and troubleshooting ESX and Vcentre and associated components (update manager etc.)
- Managing hosts, clusters, vSphere HA and DRS. Managing Data stores and data store clusters.
- Using ESXTOP in interactive and batch mode to troubleshoot performance issues
- Regular patching of esxi hosts
The storage part of my role included:
- Creating aggregates, assigning appropriate disks to raid groups
- Creating volumes, CIFS shares and NFS exports
- Creating LUNS using SDW or Netapp CLI
- Managing de-duplication and compression
- Troubleshooting issues with SDW etc.
- applying ONTAP updates
- Controller takeovers
- Troubleshooting issues with the storage systems
- Brocade zoning
I also acted as a technical escalation for my Wintel colleagues when they needed help or advice about an issue with Active directory, windows, group policy and more.
At the AB Foods IT shared service centre I worked on the 4th line sysadmin team, a team of 4 people. My team’s responsibility was for the core ‘shared’ applications.
The applications we looked after were as follows:
- VMWare VSphere
- SAN (USP-V, AMS, HUS, VSP, Small NetApp HA deployment with 4 shelves)
- Commvault
- Exchange 2007 / 2010
- Active directory
- RSA
I was the main administrator for the VMWare vSphere estate. My role included:
- Managing the 60 esxi hosts in the data centre and 25 esx/esxi hosts spread over 7 remote sites using VSphere client, esx cli and powercli.
- Upgrading, via kick-start script and update manager, the esx 4.0 and esxi 4.1 hosts to esxi 5.0, then aligning the guest VM tools and hardware version and overcoming related issues.
- Use and manage Host Profiles.
- Fault finding and troubleshooting ESX and Vcentre and associated components (update manager etc.)
- Managing hosts, clusters, vSphere HA and DRS. Managing Data stores and data store clusters.
- Using ESXTOP in interactive and batch mode to troubleshoot performance issues
- Regular patching of esxi hosts
I was also a storage admin managing the Hitachi storage arrays (USP-V, AMS, HUS and VSP) as well as a small Netapp HA deployment. As part of this my role included
- Creating storage pools and aggregates
- Creating volumes / LDEVS /LUNs
- Mirroring these using the correct technology for the platform (snap mirror / Universal Replicator)
- Troubleshooting storage performance
- Presenting storage to physical servers and VMWare, ensuring LUNs are path’d and presented correctly
- Applying OS patches
- Replacing failed disks
I was also expected to use, configure and update exchange 2007 / 2010, Commvault simpana 9 and RSA securID.
Recent Jobs
November 2021 - Present | Espria (formerly EACS)
Interim Cloud Practise Lead / Hybrid Cloud Consultant (Azure and VMWare)
At Espria (Formerly EACS) I am a Senior Cloud Consultant and currently Interim Cloud Practice Lead.
On the Hybrid Cloud Platform I work on projects of all types and sizes. These range from a simple Exchange onpremises to Microsoft 365 Migration to a full Azure cloud scoping and migration to Azure Stack HCI. I get given a proposal from Pre-sales and then form a Low Level Design and then impliment the proposed design and hand over either to the Espria managed services team or back to the customer.
I also get involved with NetApp, Vmware, Hyper-v and networking projects as well as anything and everything windows.
I have recently been appointed Interim Practise Lead to stand in until a replacement for the last lead is found. This has seen me develop standard templates for LLD’s to make life easier for the other consultants and cloud engineers as well as step up to mentor them through to being well on their way to becoming fully fledged senior consultants.
October 2018 - November 2021 | Digital Space (formerly Timico)
Virtualisation Consultant - Azure, VMWare, Hybrid Cloud
At Digital Space I have been seconded to the Azure practise 3 days a week for the last year as a Professional Services and Change consultant. This involved me performing work of all types on Azure and Office 365 including Intune, Autopilot, license Uplift, Azure Print, AVD deployment, automation and a whole load more. I am currently working to take my AZ-104 exam.
On the other days I was responsible for the hosted private cloud platforms, these were four platforms that consisted of Vcloud Director, VMWare vSphere 7, NSX-V and Zerto. I am a VCP-DCV and a VCAP-DCA certified consultant.
July 2015 – October 2018 | Proact IT UK Ltd
Senior Infrastructure Consultant – Vmware (Vsphere, vCloud Director, Netapp, Zerto, Netscaler and Cisco UCS
At Proact I worked on the Infrastructure team looking after the systems that make up the IaaS, SaaS and shared platforms. These systems consisted of Vmware vSphere on UCS blades backed by NetApp, Pure and Tintri storage.
My team is responsible for the management, upgrade, quarterly maintenance and reconfiguration of these platforms. I also configured, upgrade and maintain Citrix Netscaler and Xenapp platforms hosted on these environments.
These platforms existed in 5 UK datacentres and multiple datacentres across Europe. I am used to owning projects to deploy, upgrade troubleshoot and migrate these to keep them in-line with vendor standards and emerging technologies. Another essential part of my job was to architect and design new platforms when needed.
May 2013 – July 2015 | BGL Group Ltd
Senior Wintel Services Analyst – Vmware and Netapp
Whilst at BGL group I was responsible for the installation, upgrade, management and maintenance of the 4 VMWare vsphere environments. This also included the management and provisioning of the NetApp 7 mode HA filers, and Brocade infrastructure. ]
This role included monitoring, capacity and resource issues/planning and responding to break fix issues with the above. I was part of the Wintel Services team and as well as the above I took on a lot of other responsibilities, namely Active directory Group Policy, Exchange 2010/2013. DFS plus other wintel tasks.
August 2011 – May 2013 | Associated British Foods PLC
Senior Server Analyst - Storage and Virtualisation
The group SSC manage about 1400 servers and related infrastructure spread across our business units. These are a mixture of Windows Server 2000, 2003 and 2008R2 as well as a few Ubuntu/Red hat. They are a mixture of Virtual, physical and blade servers across two data centres and remote locations. The Sys Admin team also manage the ‘core’ business applications such as Exchange, OCS, SCCM, Commvault, VMware, SAN storage, RSA authentication, Active Directory etc.
We carry out all monitoring and proactive remedies, ensure the core systems are up and running properly. This role also involves the commissioning and decommissioning of servers, investigating and fixing calls that have been passed to us from the 3rd line team and calls that we log for ourselves as a result of daily system checks.
Nov 2009 – August 2011 | The Peele Community College
Senior Systems Administrator
As systems administrator I manage all aspects of the school’s IT provision, including Servers, desktop/laptops and networking equipment. My main responsibilities were to ensure all the servers were up and running, backups had completed and all services were healthy. When necessary I performed daily maintenance tasks on the servers/applications to keep them in a healthy state. At busy times I would assist the IT Technician to look after the desktops and laptops and assist the staff and students.
Jan 2011 – April 2011 | Lady Jane Franklin School – SECONDMENT FROM PEELE
IT Technical Consultant
I was seconded to LJFS to improve their network and server infrastructure. They were on a county Managed solution, but wanted more control of the network, and a network that the school could manage themselves with in house IT staff. It was my job to design and present this solution to the management and, once authorised, install and configure the core components. Then I had to train the in house IT staff. I also implemented new technologies for them, mainly a Moodle VLE and FOG as an imaging solution.
Skills
I have exceptional skills and hands on experience with:
- Microsoft Azure administration
- Azure backup and DR
- Azure networking and gateways
- Azure Bastion
- Azure virtual Desktop
- Azure subscriptions
- Azure Virtual Machines
- Azure SaaS
- Azure DNS
- Azure Migrate
- Azure Storage
- Loads more Azure!
- Setting up Microsoft 365 Tenants from scratch
- Migrating from on-premise to Microsoft 365 and migrating from Google to Microsoft 365
- Microsoft 365 – Exchange, Teams, Azure Active Directory, Endpoint Manager/Intune, Autopilot administration
- CSP Licensing
- Exclaimer Email signatures
- Veeam Backup for Azure
- Veeam Backup for office 365
- Zerto
- VMWare vCloud Director
- VMWare Vsphere
- VMWare SRM
- Cisco UCS B and C series, including installation and configuration, firmware upgrades, fault finding and management
- VMware vrealise Ops and Automation
- Pure storage, NetApp and Dell Compellent
- Exchange 2010 (MCTS), 2013, 2016 and 2019, including migration, High availability, namespaces, database recovery
- Microsoft Windows as well as LINUX Ubuntu and Centos
- MS Active Directory, DHCP, DNS and ADFS
- Cisco MDS and Brocade installation, design and configuration
Education
Peterborough Regional College
BTEC National Diploma IT – Distinction, Merit
Langley Park Boys School 2000-2005
GCSE’s
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