Vmware Engineer Technology Specialist

Gregory Thompson

Principal-level VMware Engineer Virtualization Solution Expert

VMware Certified Professional (VCP): vSphere 7. x – Datacenter VMware vExpert 2024

Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): R2 Virtual Machine Manager

Citrix Certified Expert – Virtualization (CCE - V)

** Previously provided cutting-edge solutions to Fortune–500 clients such as Shell, TechnipFMC, Canrig Drilling Technology Ltd. (Nabors), Microsoft, BHP Billiton, BJ Energy Solutions, CenterPoint Energy, Duke Energy Corporation, and the City of Houston **

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY:

Principal-level VMware Engineer with over a decade of experience in transforming and administrating server infrastructures on Linux/Windows, Azure Cloud, and hybrid cloud environments. Known for implementing robust Disaster Recovery (DR) Backup processes, monitoring enterprise-wide virtual servers, and configuring server applications across various platforms like vShpere & Hyper – V. Showcased expertise in creating detailed documentation and proof of concepts for comprehensive analysis, providing clear references that guide infrastructure teams and related IT – staff i.e. developers, helpdesk, and production support teams.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS:

Successfully, completed more than 10+ projects in the capacity of VMware Server Infrastructure Administration for versions encompassing from ESX 2.54 to ESXi 8.0. x for enterprise-level clients.

City of Houston: Expertly orchestrated paths for the upgrade of Microsoft Hyper – V 2012 to VMware 6.7.x to 7.0.3.x, and created DRaaS solutions in Azure for the SAP Disaster Recovery (DR) processes, added with full SQL Always-On support for High Availability (HA). Sr. Solutions Architect for applications & voice solutions (SAP, Voice, Call Manager, Ricoh Printing, Azure HCX, VMware Aria Operations & Aria Operations for Logs & Veeam Backup and Replication.

Duke Energy: Skillfully implemented Veeam 9.0/9.5 Backup and Replication for virtual machines & automated recovery processes for Nuclear Power Plants during the VMware 6. x infrastructure transition.

CenterPoint Energy: Skillfully conducted Health Check Analysis, Upgrade VMware environments from 5.5 to 6.0, Design & Implement Citrix XenApp 7.6 Environment. Created detail documentation for virtual infrastructures and Installed and Configured vRealize Operation Manager.

FyrSoft (Premier US Microsoft Managed Partner): Extensively documented a Microsoft Exchange 2010 Configuration Concept for 10,000 Windows Servers and the implementation processes for the virtual-to-virtual migrations - VMware VMDK’s to Hyper-V VHDs.

Canrig Drilling Technology Ltd. (Nabors): Redesigned ESX Hosts (HP Blades 460c) with custom partition mounts, configured to boot from SAN (30GB partition) to optimize VMware Cloud design.

City of Houston: Efficiently utilized VMware vRealize Suite (vRealize Operations Manager/Log Insight) for providing Analytical Reporting to the stakeholders and created PowerShell/PowerCLI scripts to perform configuration process automation for up to 1500 Servers. Provided OPEX & CAPEX Planning for OS, Application, Hardware & Cloud Migration with Sr. Management.

Auccdata Systems Inc: Provide technical support and implementation services for Fortune 500 clients in the Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Dallas & Oklahoma regions managing VMware Environments, Citrix & Microsoft Hyper-V & VMware vRealize Operations Manager.

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregory-b-thompson-969360102/

PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATIONS:

VMware vExpert in 2024 – VMware (5x)

VMware vSphere 7. x VCP Datacenter in 2022 – VMware

VMware vSphere 6.5 VCP in 2016 – VMware

XenDesktop 7x CCE-V in 2015 – Citrix

XenDesktop 7x CCA-V & CCP-V in 2014 – Citrix

Microsoft Certificated Technology Specialist, VMM & Systems Center in 2012 – Microsoft

CompTIA Security+ & Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP)

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Senior Solutions Architect (Contractual) Jan 2017 – Apr 2024

City of Houston, Houston, TX

Planned Maintenance for VMware OS/Firmware upgrades for Cisco UCS & NetApp hardware.

Provided detailed Health Check Reports/virtual Inventory Reports and used VMware vRealize Suite Tools (vRealize Operations Manager, Log Insight) for providing Analytical Reporting and creating PowerShell / PowerCLI scripts to perform automated tasks.

Planned & designed, the SAP Infrastructure (Hardware/Software) migrations from existing HP/NetApp Hardware to Cisco UCS FlexPod & virtual machine migration from Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 r2 to vSphere 6.7.

Created DRaaS solution in Azure Cloud for the SAP Disaster Recovery (DR) environment along with full SQL Always-On support for HA Database design during the VMware Upgrade from vSphere 6.7 to 7.0.3. Provided upgrade paths for Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 r2 to VMware 6.7.

Planned/designed, VMware Monitoring solutions using VMware vRealize Operations 8.1 to 8.6 in integrations with vCenter and Log Insight with custom Dashboards for Management & IT Staff to reference.

Upgraded vRealize Appliances to VMware Aria Operations.

Provided upgrade paths for Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 r2 to VMware 6.7.

Deployed New Green Field environments and transferred VMs using VMware Converter or Application Migrations tools.

Planned & designed, Backup Solution Hardware/Software solution replacing Symantec NetBackup/Tape with Veeam Backup & Replication 9.1 and then upgrading the environments (data centers) from 9.1 to 12.0 with Centralize design using Cisco UCS 3260 & C240 Appliances with Air Gapping Integrations.

Provided architecture design documents (High- & Low-Level Designs) for all the projects and created custom detailed MS Visio Diagrams for full visibility.

Analyzed & assessed the environment such as SAP, CSMART (Court System) environment, VOIP & Call Manager, NetMotion (Fire & Ambulance), HITS Enterprise environments, and Ricoh (Printing) environment.

Worked on architecture design & implementation of vSphere 6.7 & 7.0.3 Environments Upgrades (Microsoft ADFS Integrations).

Worked on architecture design & implementation of Microsoft ADFS Integration with vSphere Environments.

Involved in architecture design & implementation of vRealize Suite (Life Cycle Manager, Operations Manager, Log Insight).

Architecture Design & Implementation of Necus Network, Server & Application Monitoring Tool.

Involved in architecture design & implementation of Veeam Backup and Replication 9.5 Update 4 migration to Veeam 12.

Worked on architecture design & implementation of SAP (Financial) Hardware Solution (Cisco FlexPod).

Involved in architecture design & implementation of CSMART (Court System) Hardware Solution (Cisco FlexPod).

Worked on Architecture Design & Implementation of VOIP Voice & Call Manager Hardware Solution (Cisco HyperFlex).

Involved in architecture design & implementation of Ricoh (Printing Solution) Hardware Solution (Cisco HyperFlex).

Involved in architecture design & implementation of Microsoft BitLocker Windows Desktop Encryption.

Worked on architecture design & implementation of Azure AVS with HCX and On-Premise migrations.

Planned migration from Microsoft Hyper-V to vSphere 6.7 On-Premise and Cloud Solution (CyrusOne & Amazon AWS).

Planned & designed Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.18 POC.

Assisted with Day to day-to-day troubleshooting and Support with HITS Infrastructure Teams (Network, Desktop Application).

Met with various Vendors (Microsoft, SAP, Cisco, NetApp, Citrix, VMware, Symantec, Veeam & VAR, etc.)

Planned & designed OS upgrade from Windows 2012 r2 to Windows 2016 / Windows 2019 for SAP Environment.

Planned & designed Security Hardening Policies for Windows 2019 Servers (Work with HITS AD & Security Teams).

Planned & designed Maintenance Configurations for Cisco UCS SD to MSATA disk Swap & VMware 7.0.3 upgrades.

Provided technical support for analyzing the SAP ERP infrastructure & HITS Enterprise Infrastructures.

Worked with Project Managers and Vendors for a complete deployment of end-to-end solutions.

Provided training materials and documentation to internal staff to ensure full transparency.

Provided Step by step-by-step details on OS Upgrades from Microsoft Windows 2012 r2 to Windows 2016 & Windows 2016 to Windows 2019.

Worked with Senior Management with IT Budgets to provide long-term solutions for the City of Houston creating a Smart City foundation for its infrastructures.

Provided complete details on building a Lab Environment for Infrastructure Teams.

VMware & Systems Engineer (Contractual) Sep 2016 – Feb 2017

Duke Energy, Houston, TX

Involved in the design, Installation/Support of VMware 6. x Environment (Production, Simulator, and Development Environments).

Worked on Veeam 9.5 Update 3 Backup & Replication.

Worked on Active Directory (AD) 2012 R2 Implementation and Support.

Involved in RDS 2012 R2 Implementation and Support.

Provided technical support and implementation for VMware 6 .x Virtual Infrastructure for Nuclear Power Plants (Automation & Recovery).

Provided details regarding migration processes, identified risk areas, and created MS Visio’s diagrams.

Created technical documentation for Nuclear Energy deployments.

Configured Dell Wyse 5010 Thin Clients to connect to the systems via HTTPS.

Worked with Application developers to implement Control Displays into the virtual environment.

Implemented Veeam 9 Backup and Replication to back up virtual machines into the environment.

Senior VMware Consultant (Contractual) Jun 2015 – Sep 2016

CenterPoint Energy, Houston, TX

Worked on the installation and support of VMware 5.5. x & 6.0. x Environments.

Involved in the design, installation/support of VMware 6 Environment (Test and Production).

Worked on installation and support monitoring technologies (vRealize) (New Installation & Upgrades) v.6.2.

Conducted Health Check Analysis via PowerShell & PowerCLI & VMware Custom Tools (Citrix & VMware).

Worked on design, installation, and support for Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 R2 with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2.

Provided technical support and implementation for virtual infrastructure.

Provided details regarding migration processes, identified risk areas, and created MS Visio’s of before/afterward infrastructure configurations.

Created checklist tasks for Server & Storage implementation and configuration.

Installed/configured monitoring appliance solution to review the virtual infrastructure to provide day-to-day analysis (vRealize Operation Manager) for Help Desktop and Infrastructure Team to review data via custom dashboards.

Implemented POC for Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 R2 with System Center 2012 R2 products.

VMware & Hyper – V Consultant (Contractual) May 2014 – May 2015

Accudata Systems Inc., Houston, TX

Provided installation/support of Hyper-V Windows 2012 R2 environments.

Worked on installation and support of VMware 4, 5.0, 5.1 & 5.5. x environments.

Provided installation and support of vRealize Operations Manager.

Worked on the installation and support of Citrix XenApp & XenDesktop 7.5 & 7.6 environments.

Provided technical support and implementation for customers across multiple regions of Texas which included Houston, Austin, San Antonio & Dallas.

Provided details regarding migration processes, identified risk areas, and created MS Visio’s of before & afterward infrastructure configurations.

Created checklist tasks for Server & Storage implementation and configuration.

Senior System Engineer (Contractual) Feb 2014 – May 2014

Worley, Houston, TX

Provided support for Hyper-V Windows 2008 ENT, R2 & 2012.

Provided technical support as a Senior System Engineer supporting EMC SAN Storage for remote sites preparing Data collection activities and statistics to replace Off Lease SAN Storage (EMC Celera/Clarion) with a comfortable pricing model for the site.

Supported Dell Compellent and Power Vault (iSCSi & Fiber Channel).

Worked with Dell to get product presented, price, and order for customer.

Provided details regarding migration processes, and identified risk areas.

Created MS Visio’s of before and afterward infrastructure configurations.

Created checklist tasks for Server & Storage implementation and configuration.

Conducted SAN-to-SAN migrations using Dell Secure Copy/compared the differences with Beyond Compare for folder and file structures.

Senior System Engineer (Contractual) Apr 2013 – Feb 2014

Victory Healthcare, Houston, TX

Supported/upgraded VMware vSphere 4.1 to 5.0 & 5.1 migrations (vCenter 5.0 to 5.1 upgrades).

Supported Exchange 2010 for 1100 users with Single DAG & 2 Nodes Server solution.

Provided technical support as a Senior System Engineer supporting Citrix XenApp 6.5, VMware 4.1, 5.0 & 5.1 environments, Active Directory, SQL Server, etc.

Supported Active Directory 2008 R2 (Domain cleanup – DNS, Replication for LAN/WAN).

Worked on SQL 2008 R2 & SQL 2012 (Implementation and Configuration).

Provided Installation/support SharePoint 2013 (Proof of Concept Design, Implementation, and Configuration Only).

Provided support for Dell EqualLogic iSCSi SAN Storage (Re-Purpose for Backup Repository).

Worked on the installation and support of NEW Compellent SAN Storage to support Virtual Infrastructure (8GB FC Backplane).

Worked on the installation/support Symantec Backup Exec 2012 SP2 (Windows and Linux Agent Backups – Redesign the backup strategy) Offsite Backups.

Provided installation & support to Veeam Backup and Replication (Virtual Machine Backups – File Level & Full VMDK Restores).

Implemented & supported Radiology Infrastructure with Scimage PAKS Gateways & Cloud Solutions.

Created detailed documentation for Network, Windows, Virtual, Citrix & Exchange Messaging environments.

Supported Meraki Wireless Infrastructure for LAN & WAN (3 Different SSIDs).

Worked on Datacenter Management (COLO) at CyrusOne Southwest location (Hardware Reconfiguration).

Created detailed documentation for Citrix & Virtual environments for company audit.

Provided technical support as a Tier 4 engineer for other engineers such as Tier 2 & 3.

Managed Radiology PAK’s implementation/deployment using Scimage Picom Cloud services, implementation and deployment of High-Tech Video on Demand Services using Stryker Connect Suite & Studio 3 applications.

Provided a Proof of Concept design & deployment and configuration for VeeamOne Monitoring, SharePoint 2013 & XenDesktop 7.1 with the virtual infrastructure. Much more.

PRIOR CONSULTING EXPERIENCE

Senior Infrastructure Consultant (Contractual) Sep 2012 – Apr 2013

Technip USA, Houston, TX

Senior Infrastructure Consultant – Hyper V (Contractual) Mar 2012 – Sep 2012

FyrSoft, Houston, TX

Network Infrastructure Design Lead (Contractual) Dec 2009 – Mar 2012

Allied Home Mortgage/First Lenders Alliance, Houston, TX

Senior System Engineer (Contractual) Sep 2009 – Dec 2009

Shell, Houston, TX

Senior System Engineer (Contractual) Jun 2009 – Sep 2009

Canrig Drilling Technology Ltd. (Nabors), Houston, TX

Senior System Engineer (Contractual) Nov 2008 – May 2009

FMC Technologies, Houston, TX

Senior Systems Engineer - Team Lead (Contractual) Nov 2007 – Nov 2008

Medidata Solutions, Houston, TX

Datacenter LAN Administrator (Contractual) Jan 2007 – Nov 2007

TeleCheck, Houston, TX

Network Administrator (Contractual) Sep 2006 – Dec 2006

T H Hill Associates, Houston, TX

Global Datacenter LAN Administrator (Contractual) Jun 2006 – Sep 2006

Grant Prideco, Woodlands, TX

Network Infrastructure Administrator (Contractual) Jan 2006 – Jun 2006

Frontier Oil Tools - Frontier Drilling, Houston, TX

Datacenter LAN Administrator Jan 2005 – Jan 2006

BJ Energy Solutions, Tomball, TX

TECHNICAL SKILLS:

Software Applications Support Tools:

VMware Versions 2.54 to 8. X

Windows 7, 8, 10, 11 (Desktop)

Windows 2008 R2, to 2022 (Server Roles & Features)

Remote Desktop Services 2008 to 2019 (RDS Web Configurations)

Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2 to 2019

Veeam One Monitoring & Veeam Backup and Replication 12.0

VMware Aira Operations & Aria Operations for Logs

Active Directory Tools, Microsoft Systems Tools, and Health Check Discovery & Troubleshooting

Citrix Versions 5.0 to 7. x (XenApp & XenDesktop)

HP Thin Clients T610, T620 (HP Device Manager)

Dell Secure Copy, and Robocopy 5.1 & Beyond Compare (Copy & Compare Tools)

Hardware Networking & Support:

Server Technologies (Cisco UCS Flex Pod & HX, HP Server & Blade, Dell Server and Blade & IBM Servers and Blades)

SAN Storage Configuration (RAID Configurations) Mirroring, CIFS, NFS (EqualLogic, Compellent, HP, EMC Hitachi, NetApp)

SNMP Configurations (OpManager, What’s Up Gold 12 & Solar Winds)

Symantec Endpoint Server Protection, Trend Micro & ESET Server Security

Auditing Account Management (Policy Changes) Change Control Documents & Group Policies

Sniffer Analyzer, ClearSight Analyzer Forensic Toolkit, Fluke Network & NetIQ Analyzers

MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Successful Implementations of VMware vSphere 2.54 thru 8.0 environments & Monitoring Solutions

Successful Implementations of Aria Operations Suite (Aria Operations, Aria Operations for Logs, Life Cycle)

Successful Implementations of Citrix XenApp & XenDesktop 5.6 thru 7.18 environments & Monitoring Solutions

Successful Implementations of Microsoft Hyper-V 2008, 2012 R2, 2016 & 2022 environments & Monitoring Solutions

Successful Implementations of SAN Storage (IBM Lenovo, HP, Dell, Hitachi, Compellent, NetApp, FreeNAS)

Successful Implementations of Cisco 3260 and Veeam Backup and Replication 12 (Air Gap Solutions)

Orchestrated several data center infrastructure upgrades and relocations and technical architecture redesigns

PROEFFIONSAL SOCIETIES:

VMware Communities Member’s Group (US & Europe) - 2005

Citrix Communities Member’s Group (US & Europe) - 2005

Microsoft Hyper-V Communities Member’s Group (US & Europe) - 2008

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND:

Associate of Applied Science from the DeVry Institute of Technology in Irving, TX

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