Engineer Manager

Irfan Dharma

Mobile: 732-***-**** E-Mail: ************@*****.*********:************@*****.***

Professional Summary

I have more than 12 years of experience in System administration and 8+ years in virtualization engineering and operations. Extensive experience in VMware, Cisco UCSM/UCS Central and CCNA certified Network knowledge. Sound knowledge of Cisco UCS, HP, Dell and Intel server Hardware with up-to-date knowledge of latest design releases, bug tracking and firmware/ESXI updates.

Experience Synopsis

Virtualization Skills – IT professional with over 8+ years of experience in the area of virtualization with Installation, configuration and troubleshooting of VMware vSphere product lines. This includes VMware ESX 4.0, VMware ESXi 4.1/5/5.5/6.0/6.5, vCenter Server 5/5.5/6.0/6.5, VMware Site Recovery Manager, DRS, HA, Fault tolerance, vMotion/SVmotion, standard/distributed virtual switches and helper software like VMware Converter, PlateSpin, PowerConvert, Symantec Ghost. Datacenter migration, Basic Knowledge of using Powershell /power CLI in VMware environment.

Hardware - UCS blades/ RAC mount servers Install/Configuration Management/troubleshooting. Experience in supporting flexpod /vblock environment. UCSM, UCS Central. Knowledge of Vblock 500 series. Experience with HP C7000, Dell PowerEdge R730,T630,R7910,R720 & T620 servers, M1000e chassis

Physical-to-Virtual Migration Experience – Performed numerous P2V migrations using VMware’s P2V tool, VM Converter, PlateSpin Power Convert etc. Provided 24/7 support for datacenter migration using the latest Physical 2 Virtual (P2V) technology from VMware.

Storage – implement NetAPP/EMC VMAX3 SAN, NAS, vSAN 6.0 Storages. Troubleshooting of storage issues in VMware environment, adding/ removing storages. Sound knowledge of SAN based and NAS based storages.

Day-to-Day Maintenance Experience – design, build and testing of VMware environment. Installation and maintaining of numerous virtual machines consisting Microsoft Windows Server 2003, 2008r2, 2012/ RHEL servers. Migrating/upgrading windows servers. Performed ground up Enterprise Virtualization Services installing, converting, maintaining and administering of VMware ESXi, Virtual Center, VMotion, DRS, and HA, applying ESX patches, updates. Remedy, HPSM ticketing tool and queue management.

Network – CCNA certified network knowledge and experience with CISCO ASA/PIX firewall, Cisco VPN concentrator, catalyst and Nexus L3 switches, Extreme Switches, HPE switches configuration. Understanding of routing protocols. Network monitoring and Security tools like Solarwinds. Network cabling, server room/Datacenter cabling using Cat5/6e cables, network switches/UCS hardware rack and stack and configuration experience.

Professional Experience:

Intel – Chandler, AZ

Senior VMware Engineer/Operation January 2017– Present

Responsibilities:

Lead and participate in VMware technology roadmaps, testing and proof of concepts, solution validation. Participate in system design, improvements, Lab test and performance enhancements.

Provide Tier 3 support for VMware environment. Troubleshoot problem areas in a timely and accurate fashion and provide root cause analysis, involve the appropriate resources as needed.

Planning, testing, upgrade and migration of vSphere 5.1 environment to vSphere 6.0 and 6.5

Cisco UCS, Dell PowerEdge, HP, Intel server hardware upgrade (CPU, Memory, blades replacement etc) and firmware upgrades. Hardware level performance test, LAB test, Supports and troubleshooting.

vSAN 6.0 configuration/Lab testing including hardware configurations, configured SAN, NAS, iSCSI storages for the VMware environment.

Configure the network and security layer (vlans, routing table in L3 switches, Cisco ASA firewall rules etc) for VMware environment. Server and network switches and cables (cat 5, fiber, FSP) configuration.

Identify current operational process inefficiencies and provide recommendations for improvement.

Monitor the VMware environment and resource utilization through vROPs and provide recommendation for environment stabilization and improvement.

Windows 2008r2, 2012/RHEL server build (virtual and physical), configured Microsoft clustering. Converted 150+ physical servers to virtual (p2v) using vmware converter and migrated 1000+ vms from UCS environment to Netronix hardware environment.

Worked directly with datacenters and test lab environment to configure and test the server hardware requirement as per the request of client and application owners and maintained the hardware inventory, participate in hardware auditing. Identify and decommissions of hardware/testbeds which are no longer needed and update the Intel’s hardware inventory management tool and coordinated scrapping of unneeded equipment.

Review the hardware inventory and coordinate with project owners, application owners to identify required hardware (servers, cables, CPU, Dimms, storage, FSPs etc) for upcoming projects and place the order using Intel’s internal hardware management tool.

Create and update the white sheet, test lab documents, build documents. Keep the lap environment clean and neat.

Mentoring New hire engineers and 24/7 oncall support.

Arizona Public Service (APS)- AZ

Senior System Engineer (VMware/Cisco UCS) May 2016 – January 2017

Provide planning, designing, and configuration for the Windows Operating System and VMware environments, Cisco UCS /flex pod and Cisco UCS Central/UCS manager, VMware Horizon View. Working with clients to understand requirements, and translating those requirements into system design.

Responsibilities:

Successfully completed VMWare vSphere 5.5/6.0 Engineering Work (300+ ESX Hosts, 9 vCenters, 3000+ guest OS’s) and esxi 5.5 to 6.0 migration.

Successfully completed VMWare horizon View 7 Engineering Work (500 Users) and vRA, vROPS configuration.

Cisco UCS Central/UCS Manager (Flexpod environment) Installation, monitor, troubleshoot, testing and upgrade. Firmware upgrade of Cisco UCS. UCS hardware (chassis, blade, FI’s) configuration from scratch.

Configure vlans on L2, L3 switches and configure firewall rules (Cisco ASA and pix firewall).

P2V migration of 100+ production host using VMware converter

RHEL 6.5 and Windows 2008r2 and 2012 server build, Active Directory Domain Services, DHCP, DNS configuration

Creates “build documents” with complete procedures using Word\Visio diagrams.

Cisco Systems, RTP North Carolina April 2012 – March 2016

VMware System Engineer

Worked as a Virtualization Engineer in Cisco’s Service Oriented Data Center (SODC) program. SODC program is designed to provide a highly automated, secure, virtual server environment to Cisco’s global data centers. SODC leads the industry trend toward virtualization and automation using the network as the strategic foundation for the data center infrastructure, enabling consolidation of computing environments and sharing of application components across the entire data center infrastructure.

Responsibilities

•Operations Support. Build, Configure, and test ESXi hosts, Virtual Center Servers, VUM servers and general maintenance of virtual environment including hosts and virtual machines.

•Upgraded 2000+ Cisco UCS blades from ESXi 5.0 to ESXi 5.5 and 5.5 to 6.0 and Upgraded firmware of UCS fabric interconnects to the latest versions (300+ FI’s)

•Successfully managed physical and virtual infrastructure technologies to provide optimal flexibility and availability.

•Firmware/ESXI upgrade of Fabric interconnect, Cisco Blades and RAC mount servers

•Successfully manage a complete VMware deployment and upgrade lifecycle encompassing vSphere utilizing DRS, HA, vDS, VMotion, Storage VMotion, Update Manager and vSAN

•Provide technical and functional support to internal clients for the VMware virtual infrastructure (including ESXi, vCenter, Lab Manager).

•Perform P2V and V2V migrations of production and development servers.

•Troubleshooting vSphere/ESXi Cisco UCS performance related issues.

Project / General Management

•Contribute to architectural reviews, capacity management, and project planning.

•Mentoring lower level/New hire engineers.

•Work with corporate IT staff on projects related to the network and server infrastructure and security.

•Manage work queues, incidents, requests and service level agreements (Remedy ticketing tool) in accordance with policy.

•Manage technical documentation related to the functions of the server team.

•Co-ordinate with teams to move/ install server, storage and network equipment.

OHIO Attorney general - Ohio January 2009 – April 2012

VMware VSphere/Network Engineer System Administrator

•Make technical recommendations to management.

•Upgraded entire environment from ESXi 4 to 5.0 and 5.5 & Performed P2V Migrations 50+ servers

•CISCO ASA firewall, Cisco vpn concentrator, catalyst 3750/2950/2960 and Nexus 7k L3 switch configuration and troubleshooting. Switch configuration migration/testing, Datacenter migration.

•Understand of routing protocols (OSPS, BGP, EIGRP), site to site VPN configuration and troubleshooting

•Network security and monitoring tool Solarwinds, Nessus, BURP

Prudential insurance - Michigan January 2006 – December 2008

VMware VSphere Consultant

•Platforms include VMware VI3.5, as well as standalone Windows 2003. Test/Dev and Production environments consist +500 Intel-based servers, with approx. 80% VMware-based. Typical work day consisted of 90% VMware administration via Virtual Center and/or ESX host service console.

•P2V and P2P of approximately 400 physical Windows 2000 and 2003 servers to those hosts utilizing VMware Converter and to HP P-class blades using PlateSpin, while ensuring computing, memory, and disk capacity were maintained at acceptable levels.

Singer PLC February 2005 to January 2006

System Administrator

Windows NT, 2000 and 2003 server builds, network configurations, and third-party application installations

Provided implementation, Configuration, Support, maintenance for WINDOWS 2000/XP/ NT, MS Outlook, MS Office Suite 2000/XP Supported, troubleshoot and Configured TCP/IP, WINS, DNS, DHCP, Citrix, AD Active Directory.

Education

Bachelor of Science (Computer Science) from University of Colombo, Sri Lanka 2005

Certifications

CCNA (Cisco certified Network associate)

Red Hat Certified Engineer V5 (RHCE)

A+, Network+

Trainings Participate Summary

VMware VSphere 6.0/6.5 (VCP6)

Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI)

RHEL 6

Project Management

Splunk V5.x.x/6.x.x

Other Technical Skills

Enterprise Tools : Intermediate knowledge on Splunk V5.x, 6.x & Puppet V2.7

Ticketing Tools : AR Remedy, Service Now, HPSM

Management Tool : Nagios, Solarwinds, BURP, Oasis, Opmanager, Nessus

Backup Tools & utilities : EMC Avamar, Tivoli Backup (TSM), NetBackup, FLAR

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