Curriculum Vitae

Ahmad Abdulaziz Athar

Email: adaihb@r.postjobfree.com

Mobile: - +965********

Professional Summary

A proven IT professional with 20 yrs of experience in design, implementation and operations of IT infrastructure / System engineering / Datacenter operations using VMware, Microsoft, HP & DELL-EMC technologies. Lead IT projects in complex environments and process aware. Good team player with excellent communication skills.

Target job :- Senior/Leadership role in IT infrastructure / Operations

Academic qualification

Bachelor of Science ( IT )

Diploma Electronics & Communication Engineering

IT Certifications

VMware Certified Professional (VCP – DCV 3.5, 5.0, 5.5 & 6.0)

VMware Certified Professional ( VCP 5.5 – Cloud )

Hyper-V Certified

ITIL - Foundation

MCTIP – Exchange 2007

MCSA ( Windows 2012 )

MCTS ( Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist )

MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer - 2003)

MCSA ( Microsoft Certified System Administrator - 2003 )

MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer – 2000)

MCP ( Windows 2000 )

MCP ( Windows NT 4.0 Since 1999 )

Skills

VMware vSphere 6.5/6.0/5.5/5.1/4.1/4.0/3.5

Virtual Center, Update Manger, vROPs, SRM, HA, DRS, vMotion, vDS

VSAN, VMware NSX, VMware Log Insight

Nutanix HCI

Microsoft Azure – Office 365

Amazon Web Services

RSA SecureID Administration

Project Management (Undergone formal PMP Course)

Redhat Linux Administration (7.x) ( Undergone formal RHCSA Training )

Hyper-V Administration

Storage (EMC Clarion/Celerra/Centera, HP 3PAR & P2000 MSA)

EMC VPLEX, Recovery Point Solution

Backup (Veeam, Veritas / BackupExec, EMC Networker with DataDomain)

Blade servers administration (HP BL Series 490, 460 & 465 G7 & G8)

HP C7000 Blade enclosure, Onboard Administrator, Virtual Connect & ILO

Antivirus ( Symantec, MacAfee, Microsoft Forefront )

HP SUM, HP ONEVIEW

Exchange 2010/2007/2003/2000

Active Directory (2000/2003/2008/2012)

Windows Clustering (Physical – VMware based)

System Center Operation Manager (SCOM)

System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM)

Windows 2012/2008/2003/2000/NT/98

DNS, DHCP, File & Print Servers

WSUS, Shavlik Protect

Blackberry Administration

Total working experience and employment profile : - 20th year

Professional Experience

American University Of the Middle East

Period :- Apr 2017 till date

Designation :- IT Infrastructure Manager

Leading the infrastructure team of AUM

Managing the support team to resolve day to day incident cases

Managing the Helpdesk / ServiceDesk team for effective IT services delivery

Ensuring IT services delivery within the defined SLA and periodic review

Asset management of Servers, Desktops, Laptops, Printers etc

Reviewing the user feedback for continual improvement

Responsible for the operations of multiple datacenters covering all facets of datacentre i.e. Racks solution, power, cooling, cabling, FM200 etc

Having HP / Dell server hardware and HP, EMC, IBM & DELL storage, Veeam & Veritas / NetBackup backup solution

Knowledge of hyper-converged platforms like Nutanix, DELL-EMC, HP Simplivity & Microsoft S2D

Utilizing cloud services like Azure & AWS for hosting business applications

Hosting student mailboxes on Microsoft cloud ( Office 365 )

Reviewing KPI’s regularly and working on continual improvement opportunities

Following ITIL practices with focus on change management

Engaging with cross function departments for projects implementation

Preparing yearly budgets requirements

Planning of business solution with TCO & ROI calculations

Meeting internal and external auditor and adhering to compliance requirements of the industry / business

Planning tech refresh, renewal of support and AMC as required

Initiating projects with well-defined scope of work and deliverables

Hosting infrastructure to support 17,000+ students and staff

Using Microsoft Azure cloud services for business needs

Serving business applications like Banner, Moodle, CRM, Exchange, AD & academic software’s and in-house applications

Hosting all business services securely using 2FA / MFA solution

Implementation of Data Loss Prevention ( DLP ) solution ( ForcePoint ) as per organization requirements

Implementation of Data Access Governance solution ( StealthBits ) for review of business-critical data and its access

Hosting security solutions like Gallagher and Genetic CCTV solution for AUM campus

Securing the business data by implementing leading AV / EDR solution to defend against the latest cyber threats like Ransomware and other malware's

Strong focus on Change Management, CMDB, SOP and review of internal processes periodically

Microsoft Hyper-V based environment hosting all the business workloads

Responsible for operations of multiple Data centers for service high availability

Utilizing Veeam Availability suite for business services availability across multiple data canters

Managing desktops using SCCM for deploying security patches, software packages, OSD and software inventory

Disaster recovery planning and periodic testing

Al Elm Information Security Co. – Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Period :- Jan 2013 till Mar 2017

Designation :- IT Infrastructure Consultant

Client :- Ministry Of Interior ( Saudi Arabia )

Senior member of the IT Infrastructure team hosting MOI e-Services (www.moi.gov.sa) and responsible for its operations

Design and plan the compute, storage and network infrastructure to host MOI applications

Planning system design and implementing best practices to improve availability, reliability & performance of business application

Selecting rack solutions suitable to host different hardware like servers and network devices

Evaluating datacenter requirement of power, space and cooling to host new hardware

Installation and configuration of vCenter on Windows and vCenter Appliance

Creating Datacenter, Clusters and configuration of DRS, HA, vMotion

Monitoring of VMware farm with vRealize Operations Manager ( vROPs )

Creating Dashboards, Configuring alert, defining threshold in Vcops / vRealize Operation manager to send email notification

Experience in enterprise class Intel based server hardware including server blades, RAID and SAN Technologies.

Familiarity with storage technologies such as SAN/NAS and Storage Protocols such as iSCSI/NFS.

Lead the implementation of new VMware infrastructure based on HP G8 blades, vSphere 5.5 & EMC VPLEX storage

Lead the migration of complete VMware environment from vSphere 4.1 to 5.5

Implemented 2 factor authentication for enhanced security using RSA SecureID

Managing software and hardware token assignment and day to day support

Evaluated ( POC) VMware NSX for Network Virtualization and achieve micro segmentation

Planning & implementation of DR solution for MOI portal using EMC Recovery Point

Knowledge of HP 3PAR, EMC VMAX and VPLEX solutions

Planning & implementation of backup solution using VEEAM

Framing backup policies as per RPO & RTO defined by business inputs

Good work experience of HP proliant rack and blade servers

Comfortable in performing Driver & Firmware upgrade of HP blade servers, Onboard Administrator & Virtual Connect regularly

Proficient with HP Virtual Connect, ILO & Onboard Administrator

Planning the type of storage connectivity required blade server’s specifications and capacity planning of storage for new infrastructure

Good experience of working with HP support on break & fix issues right from logging the case till the resolution of the issue

Practitioners of ITIL change management process

Assisting IT teams with change management process, preparing change plans, maintaining CMDB and CI’s etc.

Performing Linux server’s administration on day to day basis

Creation of Linux templates, deploying RPM packages, creating LVM & configuring networking

Managing Microsoft infrastructure AD, Group Policies, DNS, DHCP, Exchange 2010, SCCM, File & Print Servers

Dallah Trans Arabia, Jeddah - Saudi Arabia

Period :- November 2010 - December 2012

Designation :- IT Infrastructure Lead

Client :- Ministry Of Interior ( ATVAM - SAHER Project )

SME for managing VMware infrastructure hosting business application for processing of traffic violations

Managed Hyper-V servers hosting QA environment

Managed the VMware farm hosted on rack mount servers

Planned and migrated the VMware farm on to HP c7000 blade enclosure

Creating VMware Clusters, configuration of DRS, High Availability & Vmotion

Implementing standard vSwitch, Distributed vSwitch and Cisco Nexus 1000v

Creating resource pools and delegating application team permissions to manage their VM

Managed Microsoft infrastructure ( AD, Exchange 2010, OCS, SCOM, SCCM, SCDPM, SCVMM, Hyper-V & File Print )

Installation, Configuration and support of SQL 2008 R2 clusters on VMware

Managed Exchange 2010 environment with cluster (DAG) setup and other roles.

Administration of Microsoft Forefront for windows servers and Exchange servers AV protection

Backup of VM’s using EMC Networker and DataDomain appliance

Good understanding and working experience of iSCSI, Fiber Channel based storage

Supporting internal users through ticketing system for day today support requests

To deliver IT services as per agreed SLA's to business users

Following ISO 2000/ 27001 process and ITIL framework for IT operations

Good experience of facing external and internal ISO audit Good at vendor management

Thorough knowledge and implementation experience of ISO standards

Managing various support contract of vendors like Microsoft Premier Support, VMware production support, HP mission critical support and EMC platinum support

Managing shift schedules and vacation schedule of team members.

Process & Standards Awareness

Practitioner of ITIL process and guidelines especially Change Management & Incident management

ISMS & ITMS standards working knowledge

Experience of implemented ISO 27001 & 20000 standards

Successfully faced audits for ISO 27001 & 20000 and achieved certification

Used different tools like Remedy, HP Service Manager and ManageEngine ServiceDesk

Maintaining assets documentation, CMDB & CI’s information for change management

Datacenter Commissioning & Operations Experience

Involved in all aspects of datacenter commissioning & operations

Smart rack solution for datacenter

Antistatic flooring & fire proof mirrors and walls

FM200 solution in place for fire safety

Multiple power sources ( Raw Power, UPS & Generator ) arrangement to have continuous power availability

Having proper switching system like ATS in place

Top of the rack, under the raised floor cable trays design

Labelling of racks and servers efficiently

Magnetic & biometric locks for safety

Al-Falak Electronics Equipment’s & Supplies Co, Al Khobar - Saudi Arabia

Period :- September 2006 till Oct 2010

Designation :- System Administrator

Client :- SABIC

Information & System Technologies, Al Khobar - Saudi Arabia

Period :- September 2002 till Aug 2006

Designation :- Wintel Administrator

Client :- MARAFIQ

Imam-e-Zamana Mission, Hyderabad – India

Period :- April 2000 to July 2002

Designation :- Systems Engineer

All the above mentioned details are true and best of my knowledge.

References will be provided on request.

Regards,

(Ahmad Abdul Aziz Athar)

Contact this candidate