Benson C. Pontawe

Valley Village, CA ***** ac8cct@r.postjobfree.com Cell: 323-***-****

https://www.linkedin.com/in/benson-pontawe-4b45909

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Seasoned IT Professional with a BS in Computer Information Systems. Experienced Data Center Manager with over 12 years of experience in team leadership, training, and process and policy creation. Experienced in troubleshooting of hardware and software issues for both internal issues and external clients in the web service industry. Highly detail oriented, possess a demonstrated knowledge of a wide range of technical issues. Problem solver, finding unorthodox solutions in otherwise problematic situations.

EDUCATION

DEVRY UNIVERSITY, Southern California

Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems, October 2003

●Graduation Honors - Cum Laude

●Toastmasters International

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

DATA CENTER MANAGER

December 2017 - November 2018

Total Server Solutions, LLC

Atlanta, Georgia

Total Server Solutions, LLC acquired ZeroLag Communications, Inc. in December 2017. I was the longest-tenured employee from ZeroLag, and maintained my position as Data Center Manager in the Los Angeles market, managing local engineers.

●Managerial/Administrative

Written HOWTO documents using Confluence to help junior level and cross platform engineers complete trivial and non-trivial tasks

Senior level hardware escalation/technical support for local and global remote data centers, utilizing FreshDesk and JIRA for ticketing

Interfaced daily across all sections of IT operations within the organization

●Projects

Led deployments of multi-cabinet/multi-device installation provisions for companies such as Roblox, London Trust Media, and MultiPlay in the Los Angeles market managing a temporary staff team, and installing Cisco UCS servers, Arista and Cisco switches, SuperMicro MicroCloud chassis and blade servers, MTP fiber in APC Netshelter Cabinets

Helped facilitate a data center migration in Miami, Florida moving over 600 devices from one facility to another in a two week span

Involved in remotely provisioning offsite servers

DATA CENTER MANAGER / INTERNET SUPPORT ENGINEER

August 2006 - December 2017

ZeroLag Communications, Inc.

Beverly Hills, California

ZeroLag Communications was a web hosting company where I was hired in as an Internet Support Engineer. Aside from doing customer support, I was performing data center tasks simultaneously. Within a couple months, I was promoted as the Data Center Manager in an Equinix IBX facility.

●Expert with Dell infrastructure such as Dell PowerEdge servers, Dell PowerVault and EqualLogic storage units, and utilized their version lights-out management Dell Remote Access Controller (DRAC)

●Directly involved with the building and maintaining of servers/devices/networks for clients such as the NFL, Magento, Graphics Packaging International, Decurion, Marlin Equity, Nami Media, Chess.com, Microsoft, Kaiser Permanente, Wellpoint, CBS Radio, Prodege, THQ, Done.com and SleepyGiant to name a few

●Managerial/Administrative

Responsible for capacity planning (cage, rack, power allocation), managing install pipelines, business procurement, hardware inventory, RMA process

Providing leadership, training, and mentoring to junior level engineers

Written HOWTO documents using Wiki to help junior level and cross platform engineers complete trivial and non-trivial tasks

Managing employee schedules/timecards

Conducted interviews and fully analyzing data for hiring new staff members

Conducted performance reviews for junior level engineers

Member of the operations governing board, interfaced daily across all sections of IT operations within the organization

Involved with security compliance audits for SSAE-16, SAS-70, PCI, HIPAA certifications

●Technical Support

Senior level hardware escalation/administration

Attended to server/device outages and sometimes required the use of bootable recovery disks (Knoppix, Ubuntu Live, BartPE), and/or hardware parts replacement of system components such as RAM, CPU, RAID controllers, hard drives, motherboards, power supplies

Resolved issues involving RAID

Assisted and troubleshooted customer requests over the phone, e-mail and/or through request tickets

Diagnosed e-mail client issues (Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, OSX Mail, Entourage)

Diagnosed server connectivity issues (SSH, RDP, ping, traceroutes, firewall, network sniffing, port scans), file transferring (FTP, SFTP), and/or DNS issues (Zone files, A records, MX records, domain registry)

Set up new e-mail accounts, virtual hosts, and databases

Assisted with migrating website content from previous hosting companies, and performed routine courtesy follow ups to ensure the customer was all set up.

Utilized monitoring tools such as Zabbix, Nagios, Icinga, MRTG.

●Provisioning

OS (Debian, Ubuntu, RedHat, CentOS, Fedora Core, FreeBSD, VMWare/ESX) installs for new server setups

Set up Windows Servers and associated services (IIS, MSSQL, ASP.NET, and/or PHP)

Set up Linux servers and associated services (Apache, MYSQL, PHP)

Rack servers (Dell, SuperMicro, Hewlett Packard (HP), Cisco, Sun Micro Systems, generic 1U-4U devices)

Setup networking equipment such as switches and routers (Cisco, Extreme Networks, Netgear), load balancers (F5, Brocade, Barracuda), hardware VPNs (Checkpoint) and firewalls,

Racked and configured power distribution units (PDU) (APC, TrippLite)

Running cable and cable management of copper (CAT5/e, CAT6) and fiber optic (LC, SC, SFP/+) network cables, and power cables

CUSTOMER SUPPORT TECHNICIAN / JR. WEBMASTER

February 2005 - August 2006

TRAMS, Inc.

Los Angeles, California

TRAMS, Inc. was acquired by Sabre Travel Network in February 2006.

●Assisted customers over the phone with software, hardware, and network specific issues involving ClientBase (CB) and ClientBase Browser (CBB), and seldom support of TRAMS Back Office (TBO) involving a Borland Interbase database

●Utilized Microsoft Outlook and WebEx, a web-based meeting tool, to communicate with customers

●Logged customer actions using WinTrin, an in-house program, and reported software issues to escalation desks and the Quality Assurance (QA) department

●Responsible for the maintenance, content, and publication of the corporate website

●Utilized Dreamweaver, GoLive, Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat, MS Visual Source Safe, MS Word, MS Excel, and file transfer protocol (FTP) clients to maintain and create help-documents, publications, and web pages containing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

WEBMASTER / CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE

May 2004 - February 2005

WoofersEtc.Com

Los Angeles, California

●Responsible for the maintenance, content, and publication of the company's e-commerce website

●Designed and built web pages using Dreamweaver and Photoshop

●Used Monster Commerce and MS Access to manipulate the back-end database

●Provided management of hardware activities related to the company's Windows Workgroup, and web-related issues

●Helped improve operations, decrease downtimes, and streamline work processes

●Worked cooperatively and jointly to provide quality customer service by taking orders and answering inquiries concerning the company over the phone and through email

●Looked over orders made online, and validated correct credit card information to prevent fraudulent orders using Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover credit card merchant services

PROJECT MANAGER / PROGRAMMER INTERN

July 2003 - October 2003

Guiding Star Technology Consulting

Los Angeles, California

●Responsible for planning and executing a team project, as well as organizing team meetings, and other project documents and correspondence

●Responsible for the design, programming and debugging of an MS Visual BASIC (VB) CRM tool for the company. The VB program was designed to be user friendly, contain user security, and access a standalone, MS Access back-end database. Through the VB graphical user interface (GUI), users were able to login and create invoice receipts, view customer inquiries, manipulate customer information, and manipulate employee information

●Helped with the debugging and implementing the company website which was done in FLASH, and contained an Active Server Page (ASP) for customer inquiry. This website was hosted through an Internet Information Service (IIS) server

●Used Macromedia MX suite, which included Dreamweaver and FLASH, to debug the website, and Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 to create the GUI

●Used Visio and Enterprise Architect to create Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams and flow charts to design the system

●Helped save the company thousands of dollars in development costs

●Worked as a contractor and assisted on running cables, setting up networks, and workstations

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INTERN

November 2001 - June 2002

Dorris Place Elementary School

Los Angeles, California

As a college student, I volunteered at a local elementary school and assisted the school’s technology coordinator.

●Installing software, assembling, troubleshooting, repairing, upgrading, and maintaining Apple Macintosh and PC workstations and peripherals

●Provided on-site desktop support to faculty and students

●Offered consulting solutions to the technology coordinator in selecting desktop and laptop computers, terminals, software, and miscellaneous items for school use

●Took inventory and created a workbook of current technological items

●Helped by saving the school district time and money by volunteering

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