PROFILE OF

BENOIT BOURQUE

Benoit Bourque is an IT specialist with over 20 years of diversified expertise in enterprise architecture and IT security. He has hands-on experience in multiple Information technology fields such as architecture, system administration, security and cloud technologies. He worked for big corporations and banks for most of his career either as a permanent employee or as a contractor. He holds 10 years of experience in system administration and 10 years of enterprise architecture and IT security. As the Information technology field transformed in the past 5 years, he got to develop additional skills in cloud technologies, working as a security consultant for banking institutions. He knows how to design complex cloud enterprise solutions. He has relevant experience helping businesses migrate their enterprise and applications to the cloud. He brings an innovative and pragmatic approach to analyzing complex business needs, enabling him to conceptualize, design and implement cutting edge solutions based on the latest virtualization, storage, and cloud technologies. Benoit has extensive experience developing detailed engineering solutions, procedures, policies, technical data, executive briefings and exiting Power Point presentations. He is a persuasive negotiator and an engaging speaker who brings high-value visibility to an organization and builds strong partnerships.

Areas of Expertise:

Cloud architecture, Cyber Defense, Internet Security, Cloud security, Cloud Solutions, Azure, AWS, Microsoft Azure AD Connect, ADFS, Service Now, Network Security, ERP, AIM, SOA, Active Directory Design, Office 365, SaaS, SIEM, Splunk, Pen testing, Intrusion Detection, Big data, Data Science, Administration of Network Directory Services, Automation, Orchestration, IAM, DLP, Mobility solutions, Mobile devices integration, VPN, Application Deployment, Business Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, Oracle Server, Linux Servers, Windows Servers, DNS, VMware, VMware NSX, Cisco, Firepower, Akamai WAF, SailPoint, Certificate Authority, Symantec Cloud Security, Nexpose, Nessus, Darktrace, Check Point, Tanium, CyberArk, ArcSight, Vectra, Windows Defender ATP, Sentinel, BIGIP, Infoblox, System Integration, Control Access Security Systems, Data Architecture, Enterprise Architecture, IT Management, OBIEE, Hyperion, Microsoft Exchange, Systems Hardening, Microsoft Exchange, Messaging Solutions, Network Administration, Network Architecture, Network Architecture, Warehouse Builder, Network Management, Network Planning, RSA, Network Support, Performance Analysis, Performance Management and Capacity Planning, Performance Testing, Problem Management, Production Environment, Project Administrator, Project Analysis, Project Management, Discoverer, Proposal Writing, Router Configuration, SAN, SAN Management, Scripting, Secure messaging with exchange server, Security Administration, Security Assessment, Security Audits, Security Infrastructure Design/Analysis, Security Policies & Procedures Development, Senior Team Leader, Server Migration, Server Rationalization and Consolidation, Simulation, System Administrator, System Architecture, System Audit, System Maintenance, System Migration and Integration, Systems administration, Systems Security, Team Leadership, Team Management, Technical Analysis, Technical Documentation, Wireless Applications, Workstation Migration

Security Clearance: level II – secret (File No: 95-86-2189)

Language: English / French

SELECTED ASSIGNMENTS

Government of Canada - Shared Services

Cloud Architect

November 2019 to now

Working as a consultant for Shared Services

Part of a team called FCM under Directory Services which is responsible for migrating the federal government departments to the Microsoft Azure cloud.

Raising an environment to host Azure AD Connect and ADFS servers where the government employees will authenticate.

Configuring the Active Directory servers to synchronize user identities with their respective Azure tenants.

Establishing an authentication methodology with single sign-on and two-factor authentication capabilities.

Planning the migration of multiple desktop applications to the Azure cloud such as Office 365

Technical Environment:

Microsoft, Linux, Unix, Azure, AWS, Office 365, Service Now, Windows Defender, Azure sentinel VMware, Cisco, Firepower, Check Point, BIGIP, INFOBLOX, Cyber Ark, Tanium, Cisco ISE, Splunk, SailPoint, Akamai, Nexpose, Nessus, Juniper, RSA, Darktrace, Vectra, FireEye, IronPort, RSA, PSRA, Symantec CASB, Symantec Cloud Security,

Bank of Canada

Principal Consultant

July 2017 to November 2019

Working as a principal consultant for the ITS department at the Bank of Canada.

oThe principal consultant assignment consists of being a liaison between the direction of the Bank and different business units which are often referred to as clients. Our work involves directly dealing with the client to clearly understand its needs, and to provide possible solutions for their consideration. We are in the senior management bracket of the firm, controlling most of the day to day activities. We oversee several leads consultants’ teams such as CGI and Bell to which we delegate projects. We hold the client's hand from the beginning to the end of the project by ensuring that the team addresses the client’s needs as a key part of their job. We also oversee and guide consultant teams during projects as part of our daily doings.

Currently assigned to the Cyber Defense program as a security architect.

oAfter the first year of my mandate, my engineering team dissolved, and I was reassigned to an active program called Cyber Defense where we focus on modernizing the security tools of the enterprise. I will list a few of the application and tech that were part of my roadmap; HP ArcSight, Cisco FirePower, VMware NSX, Check Point, Windows Defender, Nexpose, DarkTrace, CyberArk, BIGIP F5 and many more.

Responsible of the security tools roadmap for the Cyber Defense program.

oThe bank is using many application solutions to cater to their security requirements. Through the years, high level management and business intelligence realized that most of the applications were used at a very small percentage and that their specialists lacked experience and training to work behind the management consoles. The lack of expertise and insufficient number of analysts resulted in most security applications to be unable to achieve their main security objectives by providing the appropriate features. Sometimes the implementation projects were aborted before the necessary prerequisites were even put in place and encountered showstopper limitation due to the layout of the infrastructure. I was asked to conduct a full assessment and create a security tools catalog which would eventually be dawned into a security tools roadmap. From the foundation of those documents, the Bank would then be able to take a decision on what application should be preserved and enhanced, and which application should be evergreened or sunset. After all those decisions will be taken, it will be time to plan for hiring and training level 2 and level 3 analysts to whom will be handed off the control and governance of these tools and solutions.

Security advisor for the SIEM implementation project of Splunk.

oThe current SIEM solution is HP ArcSight and it does not meet the requirement that the business is after. It cost too much annually, it would require a considerable investment to modernize and bring up to date. The bank does not want to renew this solution because it does not have the knowledge to implement advanced functionalities into the solution. The business is also seeking threat detection capabilities which can be developed in Splunk.

Participated in the project Cloud Center of Excellence to evaluate Azure and AWS capabilities.

oWe erected a large cloud infrastructure with Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services where we tested the integration of network devices and applications to prepare for a migration of our application to the cloud. At that point the bank did not foresee the need to bring all their applications into the cloud because of a Cloud datacenter project that was running in parallel for a few years. It gave us the opportunity to build many new cloud tenants where we could test everything from IP configuration to advanced application automation. We did eventually migrate and bought some applications, some of them served us well and were so well implemented that we decided to adopt them permanently and are still relevant to this day.

Responsible for an Active Directory project in a Dell/EMC hyper converged infrastructure.

oUpon my arrival at the bank, I was in charge of the creation of a new Active Directory based on my expertise with Microsoft directory services. We needed a separate environment to allow external contractors and resources to login and authenticate on a virtual desktop infrastructure propelled by VMware technologies. From there, they could run their tasks such as hardware maintenance, application upgrades and new tools deployment, without compromising the integrity and security of the bank’s local area network. The infrastructure was built on VMware VSAN technology. The Bank made a considerable investment in Dell EMC VXRail product, because it believed that most of our infrastructure could benefit from a hyper converged infrastructure. We put that infrastructure together in a matter of months and it is now standing as the zone where all our VXRail clusters take roots.

Participated in an IPAM/DNS/DHCP project based on INFOBLOX.

oI Participated in the implementation project of a new DNS service solution. The business migrated its DNS services from a Microsoft Active Directory solution to an Infoblox solution. The primary goal of this migration was to use the advanced features in Infoblox to overcome some limitations encountered with the Microsoft product. The highly complex micro segmentation of the new environment made it difficult and sometimes impossible to propagate DNS services company wide using our Microsoft technology. The rise of a new command and control fault isolation domain was also a factor that made us decide on a new vendor to help us achieve our objective.

Technical Environment:

Microsoft, Linux, Unix, Azure, AWS, Service Now, Office 365, Windows Defender, Azure sentinel VMware, Cisco, Firepower, Check Point, BIGIP, INFOBLOX, Cyber Ark, Tanium, Cisco ISE, Splunk, SailPoint, Akamai, Nexpose, Nessus, Juniper, RSA, Darktrace, Vectra, FireEye, IronPort, RSA, PSRA, Symantec CASB, Symantec Cloud Security

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (IBM)

Solution Architect

February 2017 to March 2019

Created an IT security technical reference architecture and documented current state security capabilities, current state gaps and future state roadmap aligned with IT and business strategies.

Perform impact assessments on how the changes to the Enterprise will impact people, processes and tools.

Ensuring that the deliverables are met as the projects evolve

Meets work standards by following production, productivity, quality, and customer-service standards, resolving operational problems, identifying work process improvements

Managing successful process of critical production and contingency servers with no impact to business.

Meets cost standards by monitoring expenses, implementing cost-saving actions

Deploying security patches and monitoring applications on targeted servers in the test, development and production environment.

Technical Environment:

Microsoft Server 2000,2003,2008,2008R2, 2012, 2012 R2, Microsoft Exchange 2003,2007,2010, Microsoft SQL 2005, 2008, 2012, Microsoft SMS, SCCM 2012 R2, Forefront, WSUS, VMware ESX 3.5, 4.1, 5.0, 5.1, Citrix Xen 5.0, Citrix NetScaler, Citrix Edge Sight JBoss, Oracle, IBM Tivoli, IBM Domino, CyberArk

Manitoba Public insurance company (IBM)

Solution Architect

February 2016 to February 2017

Solution architect responsible for the administration of thousands of servers for the Manitoba Public Insurance Company.

Managing infrastructure and applications servers and providing support and expertise to the middleware teams.

Perform design, implementation, installations, upgrades, and migration projects utilizing Microsoft’s suite of server products such as Hyper-V, SCCM 2012 R2, SQL server, VMWare, Citrix, and other Infrastructure solutions.

Perform impact assessments on how the changes to the Enterprise will impact people, processes and tools.

Attending key meeting with software vendors such as Microsoft and VMware

Responsible for the implementation and maintenance of the automated server deployment appliances.

Managing successful process of critical production and contingency servers with no impact to business.

Responsible for redesign of large VMware environment enabling high availability for production and DR location with zero down time

Optimizing data center consolidation by employing various management strategies, such as virtualization and server consolidation.

Deploying security and monitoring applications on targeted servers in the production environment.

Providing 24/7 on-call support as part of a monthly support rotation.

Technical Environment:

Microsoft Server 2000,2003,2008,2008R2, 2012, 2012 R2, Microsoft Exchange 2003,2007,2010, Microsoft SQL 2005, 2008, 2012, Microsoft SMS, SCCM 2012 R2, Forefront, WSUS, VMware ESX 3.5, 4.1, 5.0, 5.1, Citrix Xen 5.0, Citrix NetScaler, Citrix Edge Sight JBoss, Oracle, IBM Tivoli, IBM Domino

Elections Canada (IBM)

Infrastructure specialist

August 2014 to November 2015

Member of the infrastructure team (ROTC) at Elections Canada in preparation of the 42nd federal election.

Engineering the field offices and their deployment Canada wide.

Providing an application-based infrastructure for working environments in the field.

Provided systems programming support to branch offices across multiple geographic locations.

Orchestrating the Deployment of Fortinet UTM devices and modems from local internet service providers such as Bell, TELUS, SaskTel, Manitoba Telecom Services.

Worked alongside SSC Data Center and infrastructure following SSC service and change management processes

Provided technical support to the application support and technical support teams to ensuring existing and new infrastructure met application needs

Prepared an assessment of the current state of the technical architecture and detailed the technical requirements for the department manager.

Engineering Microsoft Server 2012 with Hyper-V and Microsoft Windows 8.1 operating system images.

Responsible for technical planning, architecture design, security analysis and reviews, extensive and build book documentation following the standards, policies, guidelines and principles of Information Technology Architecture

Wrote business needs and requirements traceability documents, documenting safeguards for IT systems and infrastructure to meet Government of Canada policies and standards.

Wrote function and technical design specifications documents including detailed system and interface requirements

Conducted security assessments, creating a gap analysis ensuring no application or infrastructure vulnerabilities.

Developed technology architecture roadmaps for the business applications and conducted technology architecture functional/technical reviews and assessments including providing the recommended MAP activities for the Canada wide infrastructure deployment.

Analyzed, evaluated and documented alternative technology solutions to meet the business and technical requirements

Deploying Microsoft Server 2012 and Microsoft Windows 8.1 workstations

Developed and defined the architecture roadmap to demonstrate the effectiveness of solution options and evolve the existing infrastructure

Designing and engineering a complete monitoring solution from the ground up using software such as Nagios XI 2014 to monitor 7000 devices countrywide.

Prepared briefings and presentations at the Manager and Director level.

Identified business and technology trends and evaluated alternative solutions that created opportunities to improve business processes

Developed the technical architecture, frameworks, strategies and operating models for this public-sector organization for the integrated the Elections applications with the existing environment to ensure business, function and application requirements were met.

Provided a cost benefit and impact analysis of new processes and solutions for the application infrastructure for the Election

Supported the data center architecture including designing the infrastructure for the Nagios monitoring platform.

Creating a helpdesk and providing support throughout the event from the deployment to the decommissioning of all 600 offices Canada wide.

Analyzed, designed, developed, tested and provided capacity planning for the Election applications

The election was one of the longest events in all Canadian history and we rolled it out with great success.

Technical Environment:

Microsoft Server 2008R2, 2012, 2012 R2, Microsoft Windows 8.1, Microsoft SQL 2008, 2012, Hyper-V, VMware ESX 5.0, 5.1, Fortinet, Sierra Wireless, Nagios XI 2014

Desjardins (CGI) - Server migration Project

Solution Architect

April 2014 to August 2014

Responsible for the migration of thousands of servers for Desjardins consisting of Microsoft Server 2000,2003,2008, Microsoft Exchange 2003,2007,2010, Microsoft SQL 2005, 2008, 2012, 2012 R2, Microsoft SMS, SCCM, Forefront, WSUS, VMware ESX 3.5, 4.1, 5.0, 5.1, Citrix Metaframe, Xen, and IBM Domino, etc.

Coordination of project documentation, plans and reports

Perform impact assessments on how the changes to the Enterprise will impact people, processes and tools.

Ensuring that the deliverables are met as the projects evolve

Managing successful migration of critical production and contingency servers with no impact to business.

Develop architecture roadmaps and present architecture framework recommendations to management

Optimizing data center consolidation by employing various migration strategies; such as virtualization, cut-over migration, fork-lift migration and server consolidation.

Deploying security and monitoring applications on targeted servers in the production environment and proceeding to some extensive verification in to render the migration as efficient as possible.

Successfully managed migration of very complex infrastructure and critical production environments.

Technical Environment:

Microsoft Server 2000,2003,2008,2008 R2 Microsoft Exchange 2003,2007,2010, Microsoft SQL 2005, 2008, 2012, Microsoft SMS, SCCM 2012 R2, Forefront, WSUS, VMware ESX 3.5, 4.1, 5.0, 5.1, Citrix Xen 5.0, Citrix NetScaler, Citrix Edge Sight JBoss, Oracle, IBM Domino

Laurentian Bank (CGI)

Solution Architect

May 2012 to April 2014

Attending key meetings and capturing minutes and issues.

Negotiating with software vendors such as Microsoft, VMware, NetApp, Citrix, Dell, Wyse, Cisco, SAS, etc.

Assistance in the preparation and facilitation of team meetings and workshops

Perform impact assessments on how the changes to the Enterprise will impact people, processes and tools.

Ensuring that the deliverables are met as the projects evolve

Senior system administrator and architect consultant responsible of the software engineering and packaging in a VDI infrastructure for the project Metro Next Generation.

Deploying App-V based applications with SCCM 2012R2 into the VDI environment of the bank.

Supporting the application infrastructure middleware on a scripting and analysis

Managing the network and the Virtualization infrastructure in a Microsoft and VMware environment.

Analysis of all applications, middleware software and operating systems used by the employees of the bank to create Thinapps packages that will be integrated into the VDI infrastructure.

Deploying virtualized applications into the production environment and proceeding to some extensive testing to adapt them to the required specifications of the client.

Responsible of the head office and the corporative staff. In charge of the testing and communications with the employees of the bank.

Build and maintain relationships with product teams, and internal/external Subject Matter Experts and stakeholders.

Established and maintained excellent rapport with vendors.

Technical Environment:

Microsoft Server 2003,2008 R2, Microsoft Exchange 2003,2007,2010, Microsoft SQL 2005, 2008, 2012, Microsoft SMS, SCCM 2012, WSUS, Citrix Xen 5.0, Citrix NetScaler, Citrix Edge Sight, VMware ESX 5.0, 5.1, View, VMware ThinApp 4, 5, SOAP, B2B, WebSphere ESB, Oracle Fusion, Oracle Business Activity Monitoring, Clustered JBoss Application Server, PowerShell, VBS.

National Bank (CGI)

Enterprise Architect

May 2012 to April 2013

Attending key meetings and capturing minutes and issues.

Negotiating with software vendors and application teams to implement the deployment strategy and work on problem resolution.

Assistance in the preparation and facilitation of team meetings and workshops

Responsible for the migration of hundreds of Microsoft/Unix servers and thousands of Windows 7 and Windows XP desktops

Administering middleware applications.

Analyzing the current network environment and elaborating a deployment strategy to accommodate all the required business applications to remain functional during and after the migration.

Design and elaboration of a new network infrastructure, with the mission to modernize and benefit the applications used by the members of the development team.

Build and coordinate build of desktop and tablet images as required

Adapt certain processing tasks and mechanics relative to the network commodities to optimize the performance and reliability of the applications.

Assist the Enterprise Architecture team to support the corporate vision which includes the following: business architecture, data architecture, application architecture and technology architecture.

Responsible for the communications with the members of the staff and the client throughout the migration process.

Training the helpdesk team with the different tasks relative to the migration. Assist the programs team to identify core audiences and their training needs.

Writing of the required technical documentation and the how-to guides.

Technical Environment:

Microsoft Server 2000,2003,2008, Microsoft Exchange 2003,2007,2010, Microsoft SQL 2005, 2008, 2012, Microsoft SMS, SCCM, Forefront, WSUS, Citrix Xen, Citrix NetScaler, Citrix Edge Sight, VMware ESX 3.5, 4.1, 5.0, 5.1, IBM WebSphere, Sybase

Laurentian Bank (CGI)

Solution Architect

February 2012 to May 2012

Coordinator of the network optimization project for the Laurentian Bank.

Negotiating with software vendors such as Microsoft, VMware, NetApp, Citrix, Dell, Wyse, Cisco, etc.

Attending key meetings and capturing minutes and issues.

Assistance in the preparation and facilitation of team meetings and workshops

Maintenance and Administration of project documentation and document repositories in Microsoft SharePoint including monitoring compliance with structure and use of shared document repositories.

Administrative support for various member management functions including:

Maintenance of org charts and team contact lists

On-boarding of new team members including space assignments, ID request forms, asset assignments, access requests, and team distribution list management.

Responsible for handling the project’s operations calendar.

Reconciliation of the project team’s timesheets to ensure accurate time recording

Specify architecture requirements that meet the architectural priorities of the organization with a focus on desktop and other devices.

Perform impact assessments on how the changes to the Enterprise will impact people, processes and tools.

Providing and managing an infrastructure for development.

Orchestrating database migration.

Assisting and supporting the Project Manager in their daily duties.

Ensuring that relevant management information is captured and analyzed.

Providing project support to senior Project Managers.

Reviewing the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery.

Acting as administrative support to Project Managers and Directors.

Synchronizing the interventions and making sure that they evolve as planned.

Technical Environment:

Microsoft Server 2003,2008, 2012, Microsoft Exchange 2003,2007,2010, Microsoft SQL 2005, 2008, 2012, Microsoft SMS, SCCM, Citrix Xen, Citrix NetScaler, Citrix Edge Sight, WSUS, Microsoft Project, SOAP, B2B, WebSphere ESB, SAP

CSSS du Sud-Ouest de Verdun

Solution Architect

July 2011 to October 2011

Senior system administrator and architect consultant responsible for the migration of hundreds of Microsoft/Unix servers and thousands of Windows 7 desktops for the government of Quebec.

Assist the Enterprise Architecture team to support the corporate vision which includes the following: business architecture, data architecture, application architecture and technology architecture.

Analyzing the current network environment and elaborating a deployment strategy to accommodate all the required business applications to remain functional during and after the migration.

Perform impact assessments on how the changes to the Enterprise will impact the enterprise.

Design and build the test environment to simulate the production network and test all the steps of the migration and report results to the deployment team.

Adapting the deployment strategy to generate minimal down time or impact, for the systems and applications during the migration process.

Participating in the configuration and integration of the new servers and telecom equipment.

Analyzing the scripts and GPOs and proceed to extensive testing to facilitate the transition and adapt the automations to the new environment.

Technical Environment:

Microsoft Server 2000,2003,2008, Microsoft Exchange 2003,2007,2010, Microsoft SQL 2005, 2008, Microsoft SMS, SCCM, Forefront, WSUS, VMware ESX 3.5, 4.1, Citrix Metaframe, Xen, Citrix NetScaler, Citrix Edge Sight, IBM Domino

Just for Laughs Inc.

IT Director

April 2008 to June 2011

Directing the IT department and managing the helpdesk team.

Negotiating with vendors such as Microsoft, VMware, Blue Arc, Citrix, Hewlett Packard, Wyse, Extreme Networks, Bell, Videotron, etc.

Creating and maintaining technical administration documentation and training the helpdesk personnel.

Attending key meetings and capturing minutes and issues.

Assistance in the preparation and facilitation of team meetings and workshops

Maintenance and Administration of project documentation and document repositories

Administering the enterprise network and telecom environments.

Develop and/or apply methodologies for the development of architectures.

Supporting call center technologies.

Providing and managing an infrastructure for development

Acting as a technical advisor of all technology related projects throughout the company.

Establishing the company’s technical vision and leading all aspects of the company’s technological development.

Working in a consultative fashion with other department heads, such as marketing, production and operations as an advisor of technologies that may improve their efficiency and effectiveness.

Providing leadership to department heads using an approach that supports the company’s culture, mission and values.

Conducting research and case studies on leading edge technologies and make determinations on the probability of implementation.

Microsoft Server 2003,2008 R2, Microsoft Exchange 2003,2007,2010, Microsoft SQL 2005, 2008, 2012, Microsoft SMS, SCCM 2012, WSUS, Citrix Xen 5.0, Citrix NetScaler, Citrix Edge Sight, VMware ESX 5.0, 5.1, View, VMware Thinapp 4, 5, SOAP, B2B, WebSphere ESB, Oracle Fusion, Oracle Business Activity Monitoring, Clustered JBoss Application Server, PowerShell, VBS.

Multi clients Consultation

Information technology consultant

January 2001 to April 2008

Offering my technical services as a contractor, mostly as a solution architect and a network administrator.

Meeting with clients to define the scope and the requirements of a project, per example, a migration project or a virtualization project.

Negotiating with hardware and software vendors for purchases and troubleshooting.

Providing technical customer support and offering training seminars to the IT staff members remotely and locally.

Creating and setting up an application infrastructure middleware environment

Deploying and monitoring server updates, service pack, antivirus definition, intrusion detection mechanics and other software via tools such as WSUS, SCCM and CA Autosys.

Offering disaster recovery services for backup solution products such as Tivoli, Hitachi Commvault, CA Spectrum, and Symantec Backup Exec.

Offering my recommendations for hardware and software modernization, purchase and replacement for devices and products such as; mass storage units, blade servers, network appliances etc.

Migrating Microsoft domains, servers and desktops by automation, scripts and GPOs.

Organizing software deployment with Microsoft deployment services.

Analyzing networking equipment; switches, routers, cabling, telco cabinet overhaul, etc.

Planning the network infrastructure to integrate technologies such as Cloud computing, Middleware Applications, Data Warehousing, development environments.

Designing, testing, installing and monitoring servers and development environments. Testing network connectivity, performance, backup’s reliability, data management etc.

Preparing documentation and presenting reports to customers in the case of a network audit or persistent security monitoring.

Being involved in

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