Principal Systems Engineer/Principal Tech Architect

Ram Iyer – Principal Systems Engineer

Hoffman Estates

Summary of Experience: Currently serving as a Principal System Engineer at ATT (Mobility). Previous experiences include serving as an Architect with a rich experience on various enterprise technologies / applications combined with good communication skills and team leading experience.

Current Primary Role: Serving as a Principal System Engineer at ATT (Mobility) in Performance Management functional area for Mobility (PMOSS Mobility). PMOSS Mobility stores performance metrics of Mobility network elements in Vertica and Teradata. General responsibilities include providing design, development and testing requirements for collection and storing of PM data.

The responsibilities require me to interact with our clients, vendors, project management teams, development teams, testing teams and various other entities as projects demand.

Technologies & Skills

Applications and Application Domains

DCAE-PM, PMOSS-Optima, INSTAR PA, GCAS, CTT MOW

Programming Languages

Java / J2EE (10 yrs), MFC/C++ (8 yrs), SQL (5 yrs)

Databases

Vertica, SQL Server 2000, Oracle 10i/9i/8i

Operating Systems

Windows (XP/2000/NT 4.0/3.1) (15 yrs), Unix / Linux / Sun Solaris (7 yrs)

Tools

Visio, IBM RAD 7.0/6.0 (4 yrs), IBM WSAD 4/5 (3 yrs), IBM VAJ 3.5 (2 yrs), Eclipse 3.1/2.1 (5 years), CVS, ChangeMan, Ant, JUnit, STRUTS, Tiles, ReqPro (6 mos), Rational Rose, Motive Inc. Overlay Builder, Model Builder, Composite Software’s Composite Studio 4.5, SQL Query Analyzer 8.0, SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Manager 8.0, SAP Enterprise Portal 5.0, Express, ExpressOne, ITUP, Agile tools & methodologies (JIRA)

Web Development

Servlets, JSP (2 yrs), ASP (2 yrs), HTML (5 yrs), IBM WebSphere 6.0, 5.1 / 4.0 (5 yrs), IBM Portal Server (6mos), JBOSS 3.2 (3 yrs), Tomcat 4.0 (3 yrs), IIS 6.0, EJB, WebServices

Requirements Engineering Deliverables

Business Requirements (2 years), HLD, AID, AD, RTM

Recent Certification(s)

Microsoft Certified on Azure Fundamentals

Leadership/Managerial skills

Team Leader, Principal/Lead Tech Architect with several years of experience leading development teams

Work Experience

AT&T

MCData and MCVideo Samsung Rel 2.0 and Rel 2.5 – Mar 2020 – Present

This is a FirstNet project in 2 phases, Rel 2.0 and Rel 2.5 where the MCPTT VNFs are upgraded. Worked with the ATT Lab partners to (1) identify affected VNFs (2) identify the new/modified/deleted PM counters. Used ATT tools to deploy project in an Agile fashion. Used JIRA to write User Stories; review with DEV and Test teams. Projects are to be deployed Aug and Oct 2020.

SGd / S6c Interfaces to reduce VLR capacity demand on MSC/MGCF Platform - Aug 2019 – Present

This project had PM (Performance Management) impacts on MME, vMME, HSS and SMSC. Worked with Solution Architects to assess impacts on the named network elements.

Ericsson MME Continuous Development - June 2018 – Present

These projects are D1 (physical) MMEs in ATT network. From 2018, I worked on 2 upgrades for our team; new performance counters added to collection, aggregation. MME 1.20 (delivered Nov 2018), MME 1.29 (delivered July 2019).

Virtual SILB – Jan 2019 – Aug 2019

SUPL Server Load Balancer is an application layer, location protocol specific load balancer. Its primary function is to load balance and direct NI (Network Initiated) and SI (SUPL enabled Terminal) SUPL message to the available SUPL Servers in the AT&T National Pool. SILB also supports AT&T big data platform, such as, NELOS by providing NELOS initiated location data. Currently, there are 5 SI-LB HW platforms in the Network. SUPL Traffic is growing, as such a Virtualized SI-LB solution running on agnostic hardware, is an attractive solution, for handling this future growth and considerable capital and operating savings to AT&T.

Worked with vendor to get the PM self-serve VES spec’d PM YAML and sample files and worked with ATT architecture teams and development teams to deploy application to Production by Aug 2019.

vMME Upgrade 1.20 – Oct 2018 to Feb 2019

This project addressed the new counters added since the original deployment of virtualized MME. As a Systems Engineer I verified new counters for documentation, type, aggregation requirements and provided my requirements to the VEC (Virtual Equipment Collector) teams of ATT. The counters are housed in ATT’s Vertica databases for network engineers’ reporting purposes.

NIMBUS 3 (D2, Virtualized EPC of Consumer Network) – Aug 2017 to Jan 2018

Nimbus 3 introduced vOCG (Virtual Offline Charging Gateway from Openet) and FNCR (an SGi firewall VNF). PM statistics, Guest OS and Ceilometer data were collected and stored in Vertica. Edge Alerting was extended to the new VNFs.

NIMBUS 2 (D2, Virtualized EPC of Consumer Network) – May 2017 to Aug 2018

Nimbus 2 addressed software updates to the various VNFs. No new VNFs were introduced for collection/monitoring.

NIMBUS (D2, Virtualized EPC of Consumer Network) – Mar 2016 to Sep 2017

Nimbus project was virtualization of the Neo consumer 7.0/8.0 network of the EPC on the AIC (ATT Integrated Cloud). A bunch of new VNFs were introduced. PM statistics, Guest OS parameters, Ceilometer data were collected for the following VNFs and stored in Vertica: Cisco CGWY w/ CPS 10.x, Cisco PCRF, Ericsson PXMC, PXTC, ATT mDNS, F5 FCGI, FCMD, FNAT, FDNT, LMSP, SSDR. Also, certain tooling and logging VNFs were introduced in this project: Juniper LOGS, IXLT, IXLA from Ixia, MOBT (ATT homegrown).

A new GUI was introduced to provide reporting capabilities for all the above VNFs. Reporting capability was redesigned to provide soft alerting at the Edge. In order to accomplish Edge alerts, Alerting modules subscribed to data as would Vertica (database). But instead of depending on database, the Alerting module would act on the PM data and the rules provided by the new GUI.

HPE Home Subscriber Server (HSS) Virtualization – Oct 2016 to Sep 2017

The HP Enterprises (HPE) HSS virtualization was done via this project. vHSS consisted of multiple VNFs that together contributes the HSS functionality. As a Systems Engineer for PM collection, my design addressed the collection from the VNF (a VM type) of vHSS to collect PM data at 24-hour interval. This project collected HSS PM data, Guest OS data. A GUI provides for PM monitoring.

MME Virtualization – Aug 2015 to May 2016

With ATT’s move towards virtualization of packet core, and a target date of 2016 for stopping ongoing investments on legacy hardware, this project deployed Ericsson virtualized MME/SGSN on th ATT Integrated Cloud (AIC). My role as Systems Engineer for PM collection, worked with Lab partners and the VEC (Virtual Equipment Collector) teams of ATT to deploy this project in 3 phases between Sep 2016 and May 2016. This project deployment addressed PM alerting via a dedicated GUI for network engineers to maintain the equipment. PM data gets stored in Vertica database for network engineers’ reporting purposes.

Adaptive AntiSpam – Mar 2015 to Dec 2015

Mobility Spam Filters project is to implement messaging spam filters and subscriber policy enforcement to control abusive SMS, MMS and CPM messaging on the AT&T Mobility network. It will deploy new Spam filter systems offered by Adaptive Mobile in the NDCs to monitor, alarm, and filter the Mobility message streams. My role was a Systems Engineer in this project. Coordinated with lab partners for documentation, sample PM files and interacted with ATT Dev teams (PEC) that did the code development, testing and Production deployment.

Neo Consumer 5.0 – Mar 2015 to Aug 2015

This project migrated Cisco PCRF CPM to Cisco PCRF QPS (virtualized) and enhanced PM collection due to software upgrades on Ericsson MSP and Juniper SDG routers. PM Alerting functionality was provided for the network elements addressed here. As a Systems Engineer I had to create Design documents for the high level changes on the network, specify data collection design and alerting design to the developments based on my meetings/specification from ATT Lab partners.

OnStar Automotive Services Europe vEPC – June 2014 to Aug 2015

This project deployed 5 vEPC devices on ATT’s Network Virtualization Platform (NVP). The devices were (1) GGSN/PGW/PCF from Cisco (2) Ericsson MSP (3) Cisco PCRF (4) F5 Big-IP LB (5) F5 Big-IP FW/NAT. The sites were in the following cities: Paris, Frankfurt, Vienna, Milan, Woking and Madrid. This was an extensive project that included a new architecture to inventory, configure and collect PM and provide for alarms and ticketing. My role as a Systems Engineer was focused on PM collection from the various virtual devices using different protocols (sFTP, SNMP etc) and sending it to Vertica database. PM soft alerting GUI was provided to network engineers for monitoring.

Ericsson mMGW - Aug 2013 – Aug 2014

Ericsson mMGW was introduced into ATT network during this timeframe. My role was a Systems Engineer in this project. Coordinated with network lab partners for documentation, sample PM files and interacted with Aircom that did the code development, testing and Production deployment.

LPP – INSTAR Port Assignment – Jan 2012 to June 2012

Worked as a Designer/Developer for LPP (Logical Provisioning Platform) INSTAR PA team. Designed / Developed solution for processing Mobility files from InfoHunter into PA for creating PE-CE associations for June ’12 release. Presently working on several projects slated for Oct ’12 release.

The Development environment is Java 1.6, Eclipse Platform 3.5, SCME, Oracle 11g, Toad v 10.0

PMOSS Optima - Requirements Engineer, Vendor Engagement – April 2010 to December 2011

Developed and supported migration of VCIDDB, DART and IMT from NDR/Vision to Optima. (Apr 2010 till Dec 2010)

From Jan 2011: Working to support Emergency Cell broadcast (ECB), IPV6 LTE transport Plane enhancements to Optima and provide design / requirements support for Optima Phase III.

Support migration of SONUS, ALU DSDN/EAG, Cingular, LogicaCMG, Kodiak, Cisco Femtocell, NSN MMS, Nortel Cap 100 interfaces from NDR/Proj1 into Optima. These interfaces were part of Optima Phase III.

Created requirements for design of Aircom’s Optima enhancement for periodic database extracts and push to clients over SFTP.

Vendor Engagement is one of my primary tasks during 2011. Aircom (ATT’s vendor) for Optima product and support. I served as liaison between CDT client’s clients and the vendor ensuring requirement and design accuracy.

GCAS Install & Repair Application - Technical Architect – May 2009 to March 2010

GCAS is a tool for the Techs of AT&T that perform POTS, DSL & LS Installations and Repairs.

Design the Bulk Close functionality for the upcoming release. This will allow the Techs on service calls to close multiple jobs at the same time.

LightSpeed R10 Uverse Store Front MyWorld – November 2008 to April 2009

USF MyWorld is a customer-facing Web based application allowing customers to browse and purchase content for TV, PC, Mobile devices and other PMPs.

Designed and developed a core multi-threading framework for this project. This framework was developed using JDK 1.5 leveraging the new multi-threading classes and generics. Also designed and developed Search and Advanced Search modules on the server side, for USF users to search for movies and other videos.

CARAT – Controls and Revenue Assurance Tool – August 2008 to October 2008

Led a team of 3 people to provide design and Java development support. Application used Java, Struts and Oracle database. Design deliverables based on EXPRESS One

eCon – Electronic Contracts Automation and Data Migration – April 2008 to August 2008

Led a team of 4 to develop and test web services for eCon. Separately, I was also leading a team of 3 people on a Data Migration project for Contract Automation. Web Services build using Java/WebSphere platform.

CPE RESALE – Feb 2008 to April 2008

This is a business integration project around DataCommerce (DC). DC is a B2B, internet application used by AT&T business clients and sales people. The original scope of the project was to enhance DC to handle CPE products and make it part of an integrated data flow from the CRM through Ordering, Contracts, Provisioning, Customer Financials and Billing systems.

My role was to gather technical requirements for CDT WorX and lead a team of 4 people to work on deliverables starting from S&FD and lead up to coding/deployment.

ISAAC R7 – October 2007 to Jan 2008

This is a diagnostic tool. Worked on release 7 design. ISAAC provides for several sets of tests to diagnose AT&T customer’s network problems. The test sets are organized for every broad category of problems that customers normally report.

My role was to work on design components for LS R7 – Update workflow to support IPDSLAM customers with ADSL transport.

CTT MOW – July 2006 to October 2007

PHASE I - This is an ASP / SQL Server 2000 based, international application to help Collection agents to interact with business customers of AT&T who default on their payments. Application features: work-lists, follow-ups for agents, automatic/manual collection letters for Customers, daily synch up with billing systems for accurate A/R and Payments, international character set (Unicode) for storage and web display, search accounts, reports etc.

Phase I of this application was for the EMEA region.

PHASE II – For project description see next below. This implementation enhanced CTT MOW from Phase I to support Asia Pacific and Japan regions.

My role was to lead a team of about 7 resources to develop the above application, co-ordinate with the Testing team and work towards deployment. Deliverables followed Express documentation to provide HLD, DD, RTM etc.

DUE DATE BOARD – Jan 2006 to June 2006

This was a Session EJB project – part of an Ordering application to make it easy for AT&T customers to fix DSL service appointments. This EJB further makes out calls to an Enterprise EJB to set and retrieve calendar appointments depending upon the Product to be installed (DSL/POTS), zip code of the client etc. During retrieval, all calendar days available for a possible appointment are displayed on the web application. The chosen date of appointment is recorded in the Enterprise systems. This increased the business efficiency for DSL appointments.

My role was to design and develop the interface between the Ordering (front end) and the enterprise WFM-BIS layer (back end).

OFFSHORE TRANSITION – June 2005 to December 2005

Our business division within SBC went on a major offshore transition. Several applications were migrated for production support and code support.

My role was to lead the transition effort for about 10 applications.

TERMINATION CHARGE CALCULATOR – August 2004 to May 2005

SBC maintains contracts with its business contracts for providing services. Most or all services come with an early termination clause. When customers cancel, due to the complex nature of calculating the termination charges, many customers were let go by the CSRs. TCC does the calculation for the chosen product for the region it is installed and for the date that they want to cancel thus making it easier for the CSR.

My role was to provide for initial estimates, lead a team of 5 people, create HLD, DD and develop the application. The project was delivered on time and budget and was received with great enthusiasm by the clients.

CONTRACT MANAGEMENT (WIN-NDS PROJECT) – January 2004 to July 2004

Contract Management group of SBC were wanting to replace ECATS 3.0 with a market product. This was part of the WIN-NDS project. Vendors Nextance, diCarta and Documentum were invited for RFP. diCarta’s project was finally chosen.

My role as an Architect was to participate in all vendor meetings, understand their technology, meet with our business clients, assess if the requirements were met by the vendors and provide for inputs so IT Leadership were able to able to make strategic decisions.

ECATS 3.0 – July 2003 to December 2003

ECATS application was used for managing SBC contracts with SBC business customers. Application allowed for manually entering and managing the contract data and provided for search capabilities. It integrated with a FAX server to receive and store contract images.

My role was a development lead to lead about 10 IT folks. The environment was Java / IBM WSAD 5.1 with JSP and Struts.

DASHBOARD (SBC Call Centers) – September 2000 to September 2002

DASHBOARD – SOUTHWESTERN BELL - This is a strategic call center application for SBC. This is a web application that goes to a variety of legacy systems in multi-threaded server framework.

Higher efficiencies on customer contact were to be achieved by pre-fetching the customer data. This was done by IVRs calling the Dashboard server prior to the call being dispatched to the customer service representative.

My role was to architect the application close to the corporate requirements, model our application based on MVC, convey the design to the development team (size 15+) and mentor the team through the development cycle. Coded framework pieces of the application. Documentation of architecture was a major responsibility. Team responsibility included design and code walk throughs.

DASHBOARD – PACIFIC BELL - This was phase 2 of Dashboard application.

My role was a Senior Java Architect to lead a group of about 14 Java developers. Responsibilities included creating a development environment, configuring class and package structures for both Southwestern Bell & Pacific Bell in a single code-base, making design/coding changes to framework components, participate design and code walk throughs and design/coding some application components. All design documents included test plans. Most design documents included UML diagrams.

Education

College

Degree

Major

Year

Institute of Electronics & TeleComm. Engineers, New Delhi, India

Graduate Degree

Electronics

1987

Contact this candidate