Azhar Akbari

(TOGAF, PMP, PMI-ACP, ITIL, SCEA, Mini-MBA)

Mississauga/ Toronto, Ontario, Canada • 647-***-**** • add15w@r.postjobfree.com

Enterprise/ Senior Solutions Architect

Enterprise/ Sr. Solutions Architect with over 22 years of leadership experience in designing innovative business solutions

Multi-talented Sr. Solutions/ Cloud Architect with extensive experience leading strategic technology framework development, capacity mapping, and operating model as well as cloud development projects. Successful background partnering with stakeholders to develop architecture frameworks that align strategy, processes, people and technology with overall business objectives.

Possess Secret (Level 2) and Reliability security clearance from Government of Canada.

Core Competencies:

Application/ Cloud Architecture

Requirements Specifications & Analysis

Multi-Platform Integration/Migration/Testing

Applications Development

Cloud Computing Technologies (SaaS, IaaS, PaaS)

High Availability/ Disaster Recovery

TOGAF/ Zachman

Project Management (Agile, Scrum, XP)

Analytical and Problem Solving

Performance Engineering

Professional Experience

Loblaw

Sr Architect, Feb 2020 – Present

Leading designing and implementation of several SAP and Cloud initiatives. Managing vendors and collaborating with third parties like Deloitte, Accenture, Zuora, Sales Force and SAP.

Key Challenges:

Design and deliver all critical projects while keeping the same hard deadlines.

Evaluate technologies and recommend the best option for the program/ projects.

Key Achievements:

Designed loyalty, Specialty Health Network and pharmacy systems as well as internal purchasing systems leveraging Pivotal Cloud Foundry, Open Text Content Storage, Google Cloud Storage, Sales Force Cloud as well as SAP cloud – Ariba integration using Cloud Integration Gateway

Designed and delivered multiple on-prem as well as cloud environments with Pivotal Cloud Foundry – PCF on Google Cloud Platform with Ansible and Puppet container management. Leveraged APIGee for the integration between On-Prem and Cloud based systems.

Designed the system on GCP with Openshift platform for web portal application for vendors/ suppliers.

Involved in analysis on the existing applications inventory and plan modernization and rationalization (APR).

Involved in vendor assessment for the supporting systems like Experian Data Quality, PCIPal, Chronos and ADE OCR solutions.

Involved in analysis on the existing applications inventory and plan modernization and rationalization (APR).

Designing multiple systems using cross platform architecture, integrating on-prem systems with private cloud as well as SaaS systems (SOA – RESTful services) ensuring Availability, Performance and Security SLAs/ requirements.

IBM Canada (Air Canada Account)

Sr Solutions Architect, Mar 2018 – Feb 2020

Leading designing and implementation of several initiatives to migrate enterprise wide business critical systems from on-prem/ legacy to cloud systems. Managing project resources for planning and implementation. Managing vendors and collaborating with third parties like Brock Solutions, Amadeus, 2nd Watch, Oracle.

Key Challenges:

Enterprise wide changes on the workstations to migrate from legacy system to new Altea system.

Delivery complex architecture on video streaming solution covering all Air Canada locations.

Enterprise wide storage solution migration while keeping the established SLAs.

Air Canada office expansions and relocations without impacting the operations.

Design and deliver all critical projects while keeping the same hard deadline.

Key Achievements:

Successfully implemented numerous projects to migrate over 10,000 workstations, kiosks, handheld devices and printers from legacy/ on-prem to cloud based systems around the globe at all airport locations with Air Canada presence.

Successfully designed and delivered $MM initiative to migrate storage from legacy to modern storage with HA and DR architecture.

Designed and implemented kiosk check-in applications to leverage cloud services in order to enhance user check-in experience.

Involved in the business and mission critical enterprise level programs to migrate all airline critical systems from legacy to cloud (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, IaaC, Azure, AWS) and design integration between various systems.

Designed and implemented video streaming solution based on SOA – SOAP as well as RESTful services.

HP/ DXC Canada (CIBC Account)

Enterprise Solution Architect, Jan 2017 – March 2018

Strategic and tactical planning for the Online/Mobile Banking platforms. Manage 10 project team members, and collaborate with CIBC architects on on-going projects and design activities. Design system architecture based on Service Request Response projects amounting to more than $7 Million

Key Challenges:

Migrate utility level applications and tools to cloud environment without impacting CI/ CD SLAs.

Design and deliver the CI and deployment tools without impacting the non-production environments.

Scale up the production environments while maintaining the production availability of the critical online banking systems.

Design and deliver the elastic search based search engine on cibc.com portal.

Key Achievements:

Design and implement Libman/ MKS based code staging automation projects (based on Unix shell scripting) to save CIBC the overhead and quality issues related to code staging in all testing and production environments.

Design and implement HP Autonomy IDOL based search engine system for cibc.com and new infrastructure build costing over $2MM.

Design and implement Mobile banking transaction processing systems.

Designed and lead implementation of technology infrastructure, network, compute, virtualization using ESX clustering for HA and DR systems.

Designed integration of on-prem online banking systems with SaaS based third party systems.

CIBC

Solutions Architect, May 2015 - Jan 2017

Revamped Capacity Planning processes to address on-going issues and focus on proactive approach. Collaborated with Pega, Oracle, and HP consultants for capacity planning and to solidify project plan and budgeting expectations. Customized integration layer and application adapters for external system integration. Managed a team of three technical analysts, and collaborate with on-site and off-shore vendors on design activities.

Key Challenges:

Stabilize the production as well as testing environments based on Pega systems that were crashing, resulting in outages in production as well as DR.

Analyze and improve Database stability and performance.

Key Achievements:

Reverse engineer the existing systems and databases and identified opportunities to stabilize the production systems.

Successfully implemented system enhancements to stabilize the PTE and PROD environments (99.7% HA-SLA) for Pega based workflow management system, along with significant performance improvements.

Designed and lead implemented integration of COMPASS (Pega) with cross application context; DSM, Customer Management and Credit Card Management systems.

TD Canada Trust

Solution Architect, Aug 2014 — May 2015

Oversaw research and development for new initiatives to deploy NoSQL based solutions for the Consolidated Credit Protection Information System. Collaborated with project teams to construct the Business Requirements Document, System Requirements Specifications, Architectural Blue Prints and System Design Specifications. Managed project teams and worked with vendor consultants to coordinate project activities, schedule releases and provide directions on architecture design and governance. Created and deployed Capacity Management and Performance Enhancement processes.

Key Challenges:

Deliver business critical systems within given time and resource constraints while adhering to TD enterprise standards.

Key Achievement:

Lead architecture side of multi-million dollar initiatives including new business channels, new credit protection products and reconciliation of processes

Hewlett Packard (HP) Canada

Lead Enterprise Architect – Mar 2013 — Aug 2014

Responsible for architecture design and governance activities on multiple project releases for multi-million dollars complex program initiative taken by Government of Ontario (Ontario Public Sector - OPS) – Tourism Ministry. Offered marketing web portals with 24x7 SLA with public facing websites (AODA/ WCAG compliant) and secured administrative consoles. Managed a project team of 16 members which included business analysts, architects, testers and developers. Lead enterprise architecture design and governance activities and translating business requirements into system and application design. Collaborated with clients to plan release schedules based on prioritized deliverables and scope changes. Oversaw a third party project component which included integrating with SaaS - Google Search Appliance, YouTube, Online Chat Solution and Google Maps. Performed Data Center Migration with swing gear approach to keep the SLA.

Key Challenges:

Migrate architecture from legacy to new technology stack.

Migrate datacenter while not impacting SLAs.

Key Achievements:

Lead operations activities including capacity planning, architecture framework migration as well as data center move (DCM) based on Swing-gear approach and server refresh program.

Collaborated with UX designing organization, Draft-FCB for responsive designing and front end guidelines in compliance with WCAG requirements.

Lead Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) and Threat Risk Assessment (TRA) compliance activities, working closely with ministry personnel final analysis.

FedEx Canada

Architecture Consultant – Jul 2007 – Mar 2013

Consolidated and automated business processes to reduce administrative overheads by 40%. Implemented the guidelines leveraging TOGAF for BDAT architecture governance by holding JAD sessions with key business users and IT experts, evolving business processes and re-organizing the architecture & frameworks in order to provide unified processes and custom methodologies within the company. Collaborated with Sr. Enterprise Database Administrators on data modeling and management initiatives. Provided additional application support and continuous system improvement for post-production release enhancements.

Key Challenges:

Redesign business architecture and automate manual processes.

Migrate all users to automated systems, requiring extensive training activities.

Perform technical analysis on the existing applications and plan rationalization (APR).

Key Achievements:

Streamlined and automated business processes which reduced vehicle management costs from $1 Million to less than $500,000

Designed and developed new business processes and applications, provided on-site and off-site end-user training, and published job aid documents

Designed and implemented SOA based application systems based on SOAP as well as RESTful services.

Additional Experience

Solutions Consultant (Apr 2009 – Present) – Alfa Laval

Designed and developed time management system for the employees and the contractors. Created Reporting portal using SSRS-Crystal Reports.

Java Architect (Jun 2006 - Jul 2007) – Rogers Inc.

Restructured and automated Quality of Service monitoring and enhancements for back-bone network services provided to major clients

Application Architect (Feb 2005 – May 2006) – Canadian Tire Corp

Created the Roadside Assistance Management System by designing and developing web services and new functional units.

Technical Lead/Solutions Architect (Jan 2003 – Feb 2005) – Accenture Inc.

Led designing and project lifecycle activities by researching project specifications, evaluating code and performing reverse engineering

Team Lead (Oct 2001 – Jan 2003) – Qlogix Inc.

Led solution customization and implementation by conducing analysis, and designing walk-through sessions in order to ensure successful solution delivery and an increase in business volume

Sr. Software Engineer (Feb 2000 – Sep 2001) – Sofpak

Designed and built the intelligent application to gather information from third party websites and application interfaces by implementing a fuzzy logic algorithm to crawl through sites in order to gather information for the e-commerce solution.

Software Engineer (Jul 1998 – Feb 2000) – SalTec Powerlink

Designed and built the real time operating system by researching and evaluating techniques and micro-processors including PIC 16C73 and PIC 16F877 in order to implement state of the art UPS systems with computer management

Technical Proficiencies

Platforms:

Java, JQuery, Java Script, My Faces, ICE Faces, Spring, Hibernate, Magic, JSP/Servlet, Web Services, Representational State Transfer (REST), BEA WebLogic/Portal, Internal Information Server (IIS), WebSphere, Tomcat, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), Data Transformation Services (DTS) / Integration Services, Pega PRPC v6.2/7.1 Environment, Cloud-SAAS, IAAS, PAAS, Unix, Linux, Solaris, Win 2k Servers, DOS, VB, VB.Net, C#, ASP, PL/SQL, TSQL, HTML, DHTML, JSF, XML, SEO, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), SOAP, EJB, JMS, Azure Cloud, VMWare, IBM Cloud, Dell/ EMC STaaS, Azure Cloud, BIG IP-F5, GCP, GCS, SAP 4HANA, SAP Ariba Cloud, SAP CIG

Tools:

Team Forge, Source Forge, Visual Source Safe (Server/ Client), CCC Harvest, MS Project, Sybase Power Designer, Rational Rose, ERWin, Visio, Enterprise Architect, TOAD Pro, Enterprise Project Management, Share Point Portal, ANT, MS Analysis Services, Jasper Reports, iRise Studio, SSIS, DTS, SSRS, UML, CVS, PVCS, RIM Blackberry JDE Toolkit, BEA Workshop, Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, JBuilder, Visual Studio .Net, Mobile .Net Toolkit, Sun One, Rational Application Developer, MS Word, MS Power Point, MS Excel, MS Access, HP BSM, HP Diagnostics, Dynatrace.

Methodologies & Framework

Agile (Scrum, XP) Development, Waterfall, Government of Ontario IT Standards (GO-ITS), ZACHMAN, TOGAF, Design Patterns, Anti Patterns, Application Portfolio Rationalization (APR), Software Configuration Management Patterns, Capability and Maturity Modeling Implementation (CMMI), Application Architecture, Data Architecture, Solutions Architecture, Enterprise Architecture and Architecture Governance, Capacity Planning and Performance Enhancements

Education and Credentials

Mini-MBA

Rutgers Business School

Bachelor of Science Software Engineering

National University of Emerging Sciences (Assessed by University of Toronto)

Project Management Diploma Certificate

Humber College of Applied Sciences

Business Communications

University of Toronto

Certifications

TOGAF Certified Enterprise Architect

Project Management Professional (PMP)

Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)

ITIL v3 Foundation

SUN - Sun Certified Enterprise Architect

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