Vara Prasad Pothineni

acz6dj@r.postjobfree.com

480-***-****

Professional Summary:

VMware Engineer and Systems Administrator with over 13 Years of experience in Design, Implementation and Administration of VMware vSphere, Windows Server OS, Server Hardware (HP and Cisco UCS Blade infrastructure), Backup and Recovery, Disaster Recovery Solutions.

Professional experience with install, configure and administration of VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0/5.5/5 (VMware vCenter, vMotion, Storage vMotion, HA, DRS, FT, Host Profiles, VMware Update Manager -VUM, vSphere CLI, SRM)

Extensive experience in administration of Windows 2008/2003 servers in single and multi-domain platforms.

Expertise in building Microsoft Windows 2008 R2, 2008 and 2003 servers using MDT, Blade Logic.

Strong knowledge and hands on experience in data center Migration.

Experience in Migrating from HP blade servers to CISCO UCS B200M3/4 Servers.

Experience migrating from ESX 4 to ESXi 5, 5.5 and 6.0

Strong understanding of VMware Networking concepts like creation of Standard and Distributed vSwitch, different types of port groups, NIC Teaming and VLAN Problem management on VMware ESXi 5.X.

Experience in creating Baselines and managing patches using VMware Update Manager – VUM

Experience in monitoring vSphere environment for alerts and support production teams on escalated or higher priority issues.

Extensive experience in managing vendors (HP/CISCO UCS/Vision Solutions/Microsoft/VMware etc.).

Experience using remote management tools like ILO/DRAC/Cisco UCSM and vSphere Client etc.

Extensive experience managing Compute environment in datacenter like Chassis and Blade Management, replacing Hardware, Racking of new Chassis and Blades, updating firmware etc. on HP and CISCO UCS servers.

Experience in VMware VDI administration using VMware Horizon View.

Experience in ITIL Driven controlled environments. Using Change management principles to ensure all the incidents and change tickets were addressed as per SLA and SLO.

Used Tools like CA Unicenter, BMC Remedy, Clarity, HPSM, WFM, and Star Client for managing Incidents and Change tickets.

Worked as an individual contributor as well as in a team. Self-motivated and energetic professional. Strong Organizational skills and ability to multitask. Ability to quickly acquire an in-depth knowledge of the organization`s infrastructure and emerging technologies.

Having Good Knowledge of Amazon AWS Cloud Services, (EC2, S3, EBS, ELB, Elastic IP, RDS, SNS, SQS, Glacier, IAM, VPC, Cloud Front, Route53, Cloud Watch).

Core Technical Skills:

Compute:

Servers: HP BL 460c - Cisco UCS B200 M3/M4

Chassis: c7000/c3000 – Cisco UCS 5108

Operating Systems: Windows Server 2003/2008/2012

Virtualization: VMware VSphere 6.0/5.5/5.0/4.0, VMware Horizon 6.0/7.0

Backup and Recovery: CA ARCServe Backup

Disaster Recovery - DR: CA ARCServe Replication and High Availability, Double-Take 5.3/6.0. VMware SRM 6.0

Remote Management: ILO/DRAC/IMM/RIB/OBA/UCSM/vCenter

Patching: SCCM, WSUS, Blade Logic, VMware Update Manager.

Education:

Bachelors Degree in Commerce with Computer applications – B.Com from Andhra University – 2003

Vendor Certifications:

Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE)

ITIL V3 Foundation Certified

VMware Certified Professional (VCP 4.0), VCA6-DCV

EMC Certified Integrated Storage Administrator (EMCISA).

VCE Certified Converged infrastructure Associate (VCE Vblock Systems Foundations)

Professional Experience:

Charles Schwab & Co. Inc – Phoenix AZ August 2015 – till date

VMware/Infrastructure Engineer

Design, Install and administration of VMware vSphere 5.5 and 6.0 on HP BL 460c and CISCO UCS B200 servers.

Create vSphere Host Profiles, Standard and Distributed Switches.

Configure VMware vSphere HA, FT and DRS clusters to manage workloads and availability.

Creating Baselines and timely update of patches for all ESXi hosts using VMware Update Manager.

Support daily monitoring and optimization of VM servers and ESXi hosts in production, dev and Test environment.

Work with vendor and perform RCA for critical issues.

Design and implement migration of ESXi hosts from HP bl460c blades to Cisco UCS B200 M3/M4 Blades.

Perform health check, manage and Trouble shoot issues on Cisco UCS servers using Cisco UCSM 2.2(6e)

Create service profiles and service profile templates for new hosts in CISCO UCS Domain.

Update drivers and firmware on all Cisco UCS FIs and Blades, HP Chassis and Blade servers.

Replace Memory, CPU, Mother Boards, Blades, Chassis and Fabric Interconnects in Cisco UCS domain to resolve issues related to hardware failure.

Upgrade ESXi hosts from ESXi 5.0 to 5.5 and 6.0

Test Disaster recovery policies using VMware Site Recovery manager (SRM) and update DR policies run books.

Implement and manage Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) on Cisco UCS servers with Symmetrix storage and Virtual Server Infrastructure (VSI) on UCS Servers with in VBlock 350 and 720.

Manage and support VDI environment using VMware Horizon View.

Creating and implementing App pools, App Stack, AppVolumes and Writable Volumes

Install and configure VMware View Connection Server

Configure and manage VMware View Client systems

Create and manage pools of full-Clone Virtual Machines and Linked-Clone Machines

Create and manage RDS and Application pools

Configure Secure access to RDS desktops and applications

Manage User Profiles

Follow change management principles to ensure all the infrastructure changes were performed with in the specified change management policies and guidelines in ITIL driven controlled environments.

Participate in the 24x7 On-call support rotation.

CVS Health – Scottsdale AZ March 2014 – August 2015

VMware/ Infrastructure Engineer

Install, configure and deploy ESXi Hosts and Add them to appropriate clusters in vCenter

Manage HA and DRS clusters for resource sharing and availability.

Updating patches using VMware Update Manager.

Performed P2V Hot conversions using VMware converter enterprise 4, 5 and also the P2V cold conversion using VMware Converter Boot CD.

Complete Physical-to-Virtual (P2V), Virtual-to-Virtual (V2V) and Virtual-to-Physical (V2P) migration of Windows 2008 as well as Linux servers.

Administration of Cisco UCS B200 M3 blades hosting ESX 5.0

Configuring vNetwork Distributed switches and migrating the networks from VNetwork standard switches to vNetwork Distributed switches.

Build Windows 2008 Servers on standalone and blade servers based on application design in a blended Virtual/physical environment.

Upgrade VMware vSphere from 5.0 to 5.5.

Engage hardware and software vendors to assist in improvement of current VMware environment.

Work on incidents and alerts related to Cisco UCSM and VMware infrastructure.

Manage VDI infrastructure using VMware Horizon View

Install the App Volumes Manager.

Configure the App Volumes Manager.

Install the App Volumes Agent on desktops.

Build a provisioning virtual machine.

Create AppStacks and writable volumes.

Follow change management principles to ensure all the infrastructure changes were performed with in the specified change management policies and guidelines in ITIL driven controlled environments.

Participate in Disaster recovery tests using VMware SRM and ensure DR policy run books are updated.

IBM – India June 2012 – February 2014

Client - The Hartford Insurance Group – Hartford – CT

Subject Matter Expert

Upgrade from VMware Infrastructure 3.5 to vSphere 4.1/4.0

Implementation of VMware vSphere 4.1/4.0 with Enterprise Plus Features of vDistributed Switch and Host Profiles.

Windows Server 2008R2 administration in a blended Virtual/physical environment.

Supported ongoing server consolidation to migrate physical servers to virtual environment

Created virtual machine templates & configured sysprep files for customizing operating system deployment.

Configured and managed security permissions in virtual center management for access to virtual machines.

Performed physical to virtual (P2V) and virtual to virtual (V2V) migrations using VMware converter.

VMware tools upgrading and Windows patch updates.

Creating and Managing resource pools for Virtual Machine.

Taking up Escalations and Performing RCA on Escalated issues

Participated in the 24x7 On-call support rotation.

Writing documentation for standard operating procedures of troubleshooting, configuring, and setting up virtual servers.

Plan, redesign and test DR Strategies using Double-Take 5.3 and 6.0

Primary focal For DR planning and testing.

Installing, Managing and Monitoring Active Directory and DNS Servers.

Supporting on multi forest environment,

Assessed and performed Group Policy (GPO) and OU re-architecture

Designed Active Directory and its resources.

As a Subject Matter Expert, need to train peers on emerging technology and project requirements.

Taking up new initiatives in the project and performing Proof of Concept before implementation.

EMC - Bangalore India November 2010 – May 2012

Client - JP Morgan Chase

Senior Systems Engineer (Wintel – VMware)

Upgrade ESX hosts from 3.5 to 4.0

Configure and manage ESX 4.0 hosts and Virtual Machines using vCenter.

Add ESX hosts to client specific Clusters configured with HA and DRS

Develop, test, and maintain a disaster recovery plan for critical VMs and application data.

Physical-to-Virtual (P2V), Virtual-to-Virtual (V2V) and Virtual-to-Physical (V2P) migration of Windows 2008 & 2003 as well as Linux servers from VMware.

Monitor and managed the performance and the load balancing of the Servers.

System Administration, Level 3 support for all Windows 2008 and Windows 2003 Servers

Create User Accounts, Configured User Profiles, local and Global Groups and implemented Group Policies.

Perform system monitoring and performance tuning for 2008/2003 Servers.

Install and update Windows Patches and Hot Fixes using shavlik.

Maintain File Servers, Application Servers and Print Servers.

Expertise in remote control, patch management, software distribution, operating system deployment, network access protection, and hardware and software inventory using System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM).

Work on production issues and fix them ensuring that SLA is met all the times.

Follow change management principles to ensure all the infrastructure changes were performed with in the specified change management policies and guidelines in ITIL driven controlled environments.

Co-ordinates with Wintel, Planning and Management, Backup and storage, ESX teams to ensure incidents are correctly addressed over Bridge calls in case of P1 issues.

Provided project support by configuring DNS, DHCP, SNMP, GPOs, Active Directory changes and

Implementation as needed.

Perform Windows OS/HW administration (HP, DELL, IBM), VMWare administration

Mentors experienced system administrator to ensure policies and process is followed accurately

CA Technologies – India February 2007– November 2010

Support Engineer (Enterprise Data Backup and Recovery)

Provide technical support for Medium and Enterprise clients located in NA on CA ARCserve Backup, CA ARCserve D2D & CA ARCserve RHA.

Support includes Planning, Deployment, configuring and troubleshooting Backup and Recovery Strategies using CVA ArcServe Backup and RHA.

Assist Customers with issues related to Backup and recovery, Bare metal recovery, replication and High availability on File Servers, Exchange Servers, Share Point Servers, SQL, Oracle servers, OS and application Clusters, Virtual Machines on VMware, Hyper-V.

Ensuring SLA is met accurately by managing the Incident Queue and resources.

Training New Hires on the Product and Product related applications.

Handling escalations and driving them towards resolution with customer satisfaction.

Publish technical documents to increase usability of support and Knowledge base.

Assisting team on critical issues (Technically and people management).

As a lead reviews aged issues within the team and assisting team with technical suggestions.

Member of Business Continuity Plan so as to assist clients on critical cases during Disaster Recovery and emergency situations.

Co-ordinates with APJ, EMEA and NA teams to ensure resources are utilized based on expertise levels and business needs.

HP Globalsoft Ltd - India June 2006 – February 2007

Sr. Systems Engineer (Industry Standard Server Support)

Supporting Enterprise customers to resolve issues related to HP Server Hardware (OEM) and OS Compatibility issues.

Ensure all the customers are served with high levels of commitment, technical expertise and adhere to service policies.

Handles Priority 1 issues to ensure there is not business disruption and service is restored within agreed SLA.

Expertise in assisting customers to rack HP chassis, HP Blades, upgrade firmware, drivers, NIC teaming and load balancing.

Maintain MTTR, SLA CSAT metrics on all the issues.

Adhere to Process Documentation and ensure best practices are always implemented.

HSBC – India June 2005 – June 2006

Information Security Analyst & LAN Administrator

Managing about 50,000 NT&2k User accounts & file and shared resources management with complex permissions and resource access rights across domains.

Mainframe Security Administration using RACF and ACF2. Creating TSO accounts. Running Automated Scripts using Hyper-Station.

Configuring & troubleshooting of various applications like CITRIX, HUMMINGBIRD and various IBM Client tools, iPlanet User end administration, secure id administration using RSA ACE Server5.0.

Creation of home folders for the users locating the correct home server, Give remote access to the users working remotely through Citrix ICA Client

Problem ticket resolution using UniCenter Service Desk 6.0 and Knowledge of UniCenter Service Desk product on features like managing group members, Paging & Escalation, Problems, Change orders, Work orders, Configuration Items, Knowledge tools.

NIIT – India June 2003 – June 2005

Systems Administrator

Troubleshooting hardware and software related issues on HP Compaq Desktops and IBM Servers.

Provide support for Windows 98/Me/NT4.0/2000.

Replacement and upgrade of hardware peripherals for better performance

System recovery using Backup and Restore in emergency situations.

Maintain Leased lines and ISDN lines for Continual Data Connectivity.

Maintain Asset Management System to ensure that the entire asset related information is Tracked and maintained centrally.

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