Active Directory Systems Administrator

CHRISTOPHER J. WINNE.

**** ****** *****, *********, ** 80126 303-***-**** ******@***********.***

ABOUT ME.

IT professional with over 15 years of experience in managing and optimizing IT infrastructures, with a specialization in cloud automation, virtualization, and system reliability improvements. Proven ability to streamline complex technical processes, automate workflows, and enhance infrastructure resilience through strategic implementation of VMware, Kubernetes, Ansible, and Powershell. Expertise includes disaster recovery, data protection, security, and collaboration with cross-functional teams to deliver scalable solutions.

Technical Skills:

Virtualization & Cloud Platforms: VMware vSphere, VMware Cloud, vCloud Director, Kubernetes, AWS, Cisco UCS, Hyperconverged systems, M365, Azure Active Directory.

Automation & Scripting: Ansible, PowerShell, Bash, PowerCli, GitLab, SCCM.

Networking & Security: Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, Brocade & Cisco MDS Fiber, Wazuh, Duo Mobile, Golden Image Management.

Tools & Frameworks: Slack, GitLab, Telco Automation.

Professional Experience:

Systems Administrator Smoking Cave – Highlands Ranch, CO 4/2024-Present

Managed the current On-Prem environment supporting 6 store locations.

Managed and Administered M365 Tenant for all employees including Shared Mailboxes and Groups.

Migrated some On-Prem systems into Azure VMs for cost savings.

Utilized MECM for patching all servers, On-Prem and Azure.

Managed Azure AD after migrating user accounts to cloud and M365.

Automation Engineer III Charter (Contract) – Greenwood Village, CO 10/2022-12/2023.

Collaborated with the Private Cloud team to automate critical infrastructure processes. Orchestrated the migration of 5,000+ templates, saving 72 hours weekly.

Used Ansible on CentOS servers to automate among other things, our Linux Golden Image

Automated VMware license updates, reducing time-per-change by 12 seconds and collectively saving 125 man-hours.

Automated threat detection and server tag updates, driving process efficiency through Ansible automation.

Technology Engineer PNC Bank – Remote 03/2022-10/2022.

Conducted detailed analysis of physical/virtual infrastructure, utilizing vRealize Ops Manager, Plato, Dynatrace, and Foglight.

Led rightsizing efforts for environment alignment and provided final feedback to engineering teams.

Systems Engineer III Charter (Contract) – Greenwood Village, CO 06/2021-11/2021.

Deployed and managed multiple VMWare environments for Voice applications.

Developed scripts for automation and standardization.

Created Active Directory domain for authentication and collaboration.

I took charge on helping my small team understand Linux better.

Deployed vCloud Director instances for vendor application deployments.

Collaborated on the design of compliance logging solutions.

Senior VMWare Engineer Dish Network (Contract) – Littleton, CO 01/2021-06/2021.

Managed a large-scale VMware infrastructure across five datacenters and an AWS environment, supporting 50 Kubernetes clusters on RedHat.

Automated the deployment of network functions using VMware Telco Automation. .

Implemented security solutions, including Wazuh appliances and centralized Active Directory authentication, ensuring consistent access control and policy enforcement.

Managed “Golden Images” used for deployment of new Linux Servers.

Manager, Cloud Systems Engineering zColo by Zayo – Highlands Ranch, CO 12/2019-10/2020.

Managed a team of 5 Systems Engineers across the US and EU.

Developed a culture of automation and scripting.

Migrated Cloud Engineering to Slack for improved communication.

Oversaw the implementation of initiatives to secure the Cloud environment, involving tools such as Ansible and Powershell.

Had the opportunity to mentor a new Jr Engineer who had just left the support desk. Nine months later he was my right hand and promoted to a Sr Engineer role. I learned quite a bit myself in this process and consider it a highlight of my entire career.

Cloud Systems Engineer zColo by Zayo – Highlands Ranch, CO 10/2018-12/2019.

Managed vCenter and vCloud environments for corporate and customer clouds.

Monitored security threats and took action on the Cloud environment.

Implemented FortiSIEM solution for Security and Compliance Monitoring.

Created and maintained “Golden Images” to be deployed for new builds.

Administered Linux systems to troubleshoot problems other users were experiencing.

Sr. Systems Administrator Hitachi Vantara – Highlands Ranch, CO 8/2017-8/2018.

Managed worldwide VMWare vSphere environment and approximately 1000 Windows servers.

Implemented SCCM for patch management and desired state configuration.

Worked closely with the IT Security team to identify and remove security vulnerabilities.

Developed PowerShell scripts for automation.

Utilized Ansible for Linux patch management.

Infrastructure Analyst Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck – Denver, CO 11/2016-07/2017.

Handled day-to-day maintenance of VMWare Environment.

Managed Exchange 2010 environment and implemented Duo Mobile for 2-factor access.

I took ownership of AD, DNS, DHCP, and GPO issues.

Wrote PowerShell scripts for automation and daily health reporting.

Infrastructure Engineer II Nelnet, Inc. – HIGHLANDS RANCH, CO 10/2013-8/2016.

Member of the SVR (Security Vulnerability Remediation) project, which drove the total number of vulnerabilities in the corporate infrastructure from 65,000+ to below 7,000 over one year using a combination of SCCM packaging, PowerShell scripting, and some manual intervention when needed.

Became the “Linux Owner” of the team, as no one else had experience with it.

Managed day-to-day server administration for approximately 1500 Windows servers, 45 Linux servers, and 90 ESXi Hosts.

Took ownership of a large-scale VMWare environment including 7 vCenters total, upgrading each from 5.0 to 5.1 to 5.5, as well as patching hosts quarterly and upgrading VM Hardware and Tools as needed.

Utilized VMWare vRealize to gather metrics on newly built servers in the environment to ensure they were running with “Right-Sized” vCPU and RAM, to reduce and eliminate excess RAM usage on hosts and CPU ready time on VMs.

Built and managed remote site ESX environments running on Dell VRTX Hyperconverged systems and Cisco UCS standalone rack servers.

Handled advanced Active Directory/DNS and Group Policy management for items that could not be resolved by other teams, including multi-domain and multi-forest trust management and creation.

Integrated Server Build process into SCCM 2012R2 OSD in order to standardize all new builds and reduce the amount of time needed to add new servers into the environment.

Managed a total of 9 Dell Compellent and 2 Nimble SANs.

Provisioned port configurations on Brocade and Cisco MDS fiber switches.

Created and maintained scripting and automation solutions for Windows, VMWare, and Linux using PowerShell, PowerCli, and Bash.

Participated in the weekly Architecture Review Board to discuss new solutions and systems being integrated into the environment and assess capacity and system build/run operations.

CERTIFICATIONS & TRAINING.

ITIL Foundations v3.

VMWare Cloud on AWS – Trained Professional.

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