BASIL BENJAMIN

Exchange/Lync Engineer

845-***-**** adha63@r.postjobfree.com

Highly motivated and positive Exchange Engineer with 12+ Years of experience in Microsoft Exchange, Lync, Skype-for-Business, and Windows Server.

Lead migration of mailboxes and resources from Microsoft Exchange 2013 to Microsoft Exchange 2016/Exchange Online with Office 365.

Tested OWA, ActiveSync and protocol functionality for Exchange environments.

Used built-in message trace to find failed emails.

Coordinated and cutover name spacing for Exchange connections.

Experienced with using PowerShell to manage Lync/Skype for Business and Exchange

Experienced in writing technical documentation for use in operations

Managed connection within server coexistence of messaging environment.

Critical thinker who addresses support issues quickly and who consistently exceeds performance standards.

Virtualization using Microsoft Hyper-V in Exchange migrations and client-side apps.

Vast experience with Microsoft Windows operating systems and applications including Active Directory, Exchange, SQL Serv Used BPA, Exchange calculator, and PowerShell to gather and assess metrics on the environment and calculate needs and scope.

Configured DAG configuration for Microsoft Exchange 2013 and distributed database copies.

Ensured users access to shared resources and calendaring.

Used Remote Connectivity Analyzer to test mailbox connectivity, auto discover connectivity, etc.

Strong understanding of Windows Servers 2003, 2008, 2012

Vast experience with virtualization concepts with Microsoft Hyper-V and VMWare ESXi in a High Availability environment.

Proficient in using IronPort for email security in Exchange email system to stop spam, viruses, and other threats

Project management of project issues, budget concerns, and auditing as they arose.

Strong diagnostic and problem-solving skills applied to troubleshooting Exchange mail problems and server load balancing solutions.

In-depth knowledge of network captures and network troubleshooting

Coordinated mailbox moves to Microsoft Exchange 2013 databases for users and ensured continued connectivity.

Skilled in virtualization for testing, deployment and migration of Exchange on premise and Exchange online and migration of user mailboxes in Exchange.

Experienced with routing and switching protocols, TCP/IP, QoS, VLANs, DNS and WAN protocols related to voice technologies

Adept at the integration of Lync/Skype systems within a Cisco IP telephony infrastructure

Skilled in Exchange, Lync, network engineering, planning and implementation.

Used BPA, Exchange calculator, and PowerShell to calculate metrics to scale environment from three to five to accommodate expansion of users.

Discussed transition plan, resources, timeline, and plan of action with team members and business management to finalize plans.

Readied Microsoft Exchange 2010 environment for eventual coexistence by patching servers and applying updates.

Deployed virtual server environment for Microsoft Exchange 2013 servers.

Exchange 2003/2007/2010/2013, Exchange 2016 on premise, Exchange Online/Office 365, Lync 2010/2013, Lync Server 2015/Skype-for-Business server, and Skype-for-Business online, Cisco IOS, Cisco Nexus 7000 series switches, Cisco Routers, Cisco L2/L3 Switches, Cisco USC Servers, Cisco Wireless Controllers, Dell Servers, Dell/EqualLogic iSCSI SAN, Dell Open Manage, DHCP, DNS, HP Servers, HP Insight Manager, IPsec, IPv4, iSCSI, MS Active Directory 2000/2003/2008 R2, MS Dynamics Great Plains, MS Office 2000/2003/2007/2010/2013/365, MS Terminal Services 2000/2003/2008 R2, MS Visio 2000/2003/2007/2010/2013, MS Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10, MS Windows Server 2003/2008 R2/2012, Routing protocols (NAT, RIP), Salesforce Desk, SSH, Symantec Backup Exec, Symantec End-Point Protection, Symantec NetBackup Appliance, Symantec NetBackup, Symantec Norton Antivirus, Symantec Norton Ghost, TCP/IP, TELNET, VMware, ESX/ESXi, VMware, vCenter, VoIP, VPN

Microsoft 0365 Generalist and Solutions Engineer

Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp

Poughkeepsie, NY

January 2021 to Current

I entered this ongoing project shortly after the client had completed its migration from on-prem Exchange (2016) to Exchange OnLine. Currently, the main focus of this project is migrating from its ECM structure into SharePoint; this is a component of the greater goal of modernizing the environment and fully adopting M365. My role is currently that of M365 Generalist and Solutions Engineer.

Created ADFS login page.

Hardened Azure environment by creating conditional access rules.

Created licensing groups for M365 and MS tools such as Visio and MSProject.

Provisioned mailboxes, shared mailboxes, and distribution groups in a hybrid M365 environment.

Created dynamic distribution groups.

Provisioned OneDrive and Teams.

Managed Gimmal and connected it to SharePoint.

Updated the Service Connection Point (SCP) using the old Exchange server name using the Exchange Management Shell.

Created PowerShell scripts to change the UPN for multiple groups of users on the Active Directory.

Used Azure AD connect to sync the Active Directory credentials to the cloud.

Worked with Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager.

Worked with Microsoft Power BI interactive data visualization software,

Implemented and configured VMWare.

Tested Azure and ADFS connectivity and remedied any issues that arose.

Solved critical issues in the ServiceNow support ticketing platform.

Utilized Postman Google Chrome plug-in,

Utilized Microsoft Flow, Microsoft E-discovery, and Microsoft Cloud Defender.

eDiscovery Architect

Honda/WiPRO

Marysville, OH

July 2020 to January 2021

eDiscovery Project: Architected the eDiscovery solution for Honda, implemented by Wipro, to address their compliance and data retention and integrity needs. Reviewed plans and need, created deployment initiative according to stakeholder needs. In addition, I provided guidance on O365 application stack (Exchange Online, OneDrive for Business, Teams, SharePoint, Azure)

Cross-team communication with client to obtain project enablers

Drafted a Technical Document about the functionalities available in Microsoft 365 Advanced eDiscovery

Project estimation and gathering of requirements related to Advanced eDiscovery

Tested and Validated end-to-end workflow of case management in Advanced eDiscovery consistent with the EDRM model

Validated and documented relevance module and search conditions per company requirements

Conducted sprints to review, plan, test, and implement procedures and policies for eDiscovery.

Reviewed and created review sets, added appropriate data for both O365 and non-O365 data components.

Conducted bulk queries in review sets.

Ran analytics and generated reports.

Tested review sets based on data uploads to O365

Implemented retention labels and initiated planning for data import and export.

Ran analytics against data sets for review, replicated sample queries for Honda, tested tagging functionality.

Designed placement timeline workflow

Designed components for the SharePoint landing page via PowerShell.

Reviewed errors related to Advanced eDiscovery and remediated accordingly.

Reviewed sharing policies in OneDrive and SharePoint

Audited retention policies enabled within Exchange and recommended additions and modifications.

Implemented Azure Threat Protection policies for data protection in transit.

Deployed Advanced Azure features such as safe-links, safe-attachments, and cloud app security.

Conducted reconnaissance investigations, compromised credentials, at risk accounts and over all security and data health

Principal Microsoft Cloud Migration Engineer

New York Life

Lebanon, NJ

September 2019 to June 2020

Migration from on-prem to Office 365 Cloud

NYL is migrating data from their home drives and C-drives on premise to a cloud environment using Office 365. The project involved various subprojects such as moving data to OneDrive for Business accounts that were already deployed. We also transitioned Lotus Notes to Exchange 2013.

Migration from Homeshares to OneDrive

Following this NYL wanted to migrate data from their homeshares to their OneDrive sites, and decommission the homeshares. An estimated 200-300 TB was stored in the homeshares. There were already 3.6MM files and 7.7 TB already stored in the OneDrive sites; those numbers are steadily increasing. The biggest technical hurdle to this project is New York Life’s homeshare environment being non-centralized. There was no one account in the environment that has admin access to all the fileshares. Any migration tool that is used will need admin access over the fileshares it’s migrating. Therefore, NYL will need to create an account (that may be temporary) that has the required access.

On-Prem to Office 365 Migration:

Planned and documented requirements and risks.

Conducted design study and provided documentation to shareholders and management.

Ensured NIST 88-171/DFRAS compliance for deployment and company.

Performed analysis of data in home drives and Groove.exe/OneDrive.exe inventory already deployed.

Created and tested group policy to be used during implementation.

Coordinated with FastTrack to complete pilot migration, verify data and resolve any issues.

Coordinate with FastTrack to complete velocity migrations

Troubleshooting of issues.

Decommissioning of home drives.

Troubleshot existing Autodiscover issues and free/busy connectivity with Office 365.

One of the biggest challenges to this project was the minimal network bandwidth, so the migration must be done in a way that would not take down the network.

OneDrive was already deployed, but with only approximately 2k out 12k in use.

User-education was necessary, so I put together a training program for the end-users.

Migrated from Groove.exe (old sync client) to OneDrive.exe (current sync client).

Implemented Microsoft FastTrack and NetSkope as well as IronPort

Created a FAQ knowledge base to address common OneDrive issues and operations.

Spearheaded the transition of OneDrive support tickets from Messaging L3 to the L2 team.

Created a strategy document for the migration.

Successfully migrated smaller child domain of 500 users to main tenant.

Configured ProofPoint gateway policies for mail filtering and routing.

Configured large receive quotas for the cloud tenant.

Created SPF record for the domain for protection.

Environment: Microsoft Office 365, OneDrive for Business, Exchange 2013

Homeshares to OneDrive Migration:

Participated in each step in a migration, including prep and post

Set up and configured OneDrive, verified user licenses, and destination environment is creation and configuration.

Identified early adopters and pilot users and planned migration and OneDrive Sync client deployment.

Ran SharePoint Migration Tool assessment and prepared velocity migration schedule, pilot test migration, and validation and remediation

Created a new admin account to provide admin access to both Inventory Manager and SharePoint Migration tool allowing access to each fileshare scanned/migrated.

Used CyberArk, Inventory Manager, SharePoint Manager and SkySync to facilitate the migration of data to OneDrive.

Used the Information Rights Management (IRM) function as its security solution for OneDrive and restricted to disallow external sharing.

Used the Inventory Manager from FastTrack for analysis and reporting.

Involved in Data Loss Prevention, Data Management, Data Transfer, Data Analysis and Reporting.

Reduced volume of OneDrive support tickets escalated to L3 to prevent excess load on network during and post migration by users by using OneDrive GPOs to restrict upload and download speeds in the sync client.

Reduced volume of OneDrive support tickets escalated to L3 by creating OneDrive troubleshooting documentation with scenarios and procedures and performing Knowledge Transfer (KT) session with the L2 team. I was able to hand-off responsibility for OneDrive tickets to the L2 support team by creating a service account in CyberArk. Virtually no OneDrive tickets have been escalated to the L3 queue since.

Created a Strategy/Deployment document that outlines processes, risks, requirements for OneDrive migration

Created a FAQ and had KT session with Office 365 L2 team. This reduced the number of OneDrive tickets being escalated to Messaging L3 team (my team).

Worked with MS to create a script that scans all of the OneDrive sites in the tenant and removes a chosen account from any site that the account is a site collections admin of. A CSV is produced as validation.

Environment: Microsoft Office 365, OneDrive, SharePoint, SharePoint Manager, SkySync CyberArk, GPOs, FastTrack Inventory Manager from, Involved in Data Loss Prevention, Data Management, Data Transfer, Data Analysis and Reporting, Information Rights Management (IRM)

Microsoft Exchange Engineer

Pulte Group

Atlanta, GA

January 2015 to September 2019

Planned, implemented and administered all networking equipment including Cisco, Lync 2013, and Exchange 2013. Migrated Exchange 2013 on premises to Exchange 2016/Exchange Online with Office 365.

Accomplishments:

Architected, implemented and primarily supported Lync 2013/Skype for Business Messaging and Exchange 2013 solutions

Planned, architected and implemented Exchange 2016/Exchange online enterprise messaging solution with Office 365 leading a 4-man team.

Designed, built and implemented company conferencing solutions using Lync 2013/Skype-for-Business 2015 running alongside Exchange 2016 hybrid environment.

Interacted with internal customers to ensure continuity and customer satisfaction with the Exchange/Skype messaging service.

Contributed to operational models, processes, and procedures for the enterprise messaging system based in Exchange and Skype.

Responsible for deliverables of technical projects relating to Lync/Skype for Business and Exchange messaging systems, collaborating with enterprise solutions design to deliver build diagrams and run documentation for operations.

Tier III support for Microsoft server Platform technologies: Skype for Business 2015/Lyc 2013, Exchange 2016/Exchange Online/Exchange 2013/Office 365, Exchange Unified Messaging, Active Directory

Provided Tier III support for Lync 2013/Skype for Business and Exchange 2013 client systems

Rendered VoIP/telephony management for users with PBX integration deployed with the intent to handle voice communications; including the ability to make inbound and outbound PSTN voice calls via PBX, gateway or SIP Trunk

Plan, design, and implement Salesforce Desk helpdesk ticketing system.

Create and maintain all system critical backups for Microsoft Exchange server, Windows server, Lync server and corresponding databases.

Salesforce Desk helpdesk ticketing system used for issue tracking and service.

Implemented VMware ESXi server infrastructure. Manager for all network rack buildouts for the CCIE Collaboration, CCIE Datacenter, CCIE route/switch, CCIE Security, and CCIE Wireless curriculum.

Office 365 Administrator

AbbVie

Chicago, IL

March 2013 to December 2014

Installed and troubleshot all provided services within the environment.

Maintain standards within the organization between the users and the cloud connectivity.

Accomplishments:

Investigated user problems and identified their source, determined possible solutions then tested and implemented solutions in Exchange/Linc/Office 365.

Performed diagnostics to troubleshoot and resolve problems within Active Directory in Exchange system prior to Office 365 migration

Performed and oversaw software and application installation and upgrades related to Office 365

Troubleshoot services offered in Office 365 applications and identified and corrected malfunctions and other operational difficulties

Developed and conducted various training and instruction for system users on Office 365 services and other applications

Helped with the migration to Office 365 cloud-based solutions including moving critical data, processes, and workflows

Implemented DirSync services for directory service synchronization

Deployed ADFS server for single sign-on functionality

Utilized the administration portal to manage users accounts and mailboxes

Troubleshoot all issues in an efficient and timely manner.

Exchange/Lync Administrator

AECOM

Chantilly, VA

May 2010 to February 2013

Provided remote support for all offices and staff. Troubleshoot and maintain all related software and included platforms. Support platforms included, but were not limited to, Microsoft Server operating systems, Microsoft desktop operating systems, and other general software.

Accomplishments:

Provided Tier 2/3 support for the Messaging infrastructure in a highly available (Exchange 2010 DAG) environment

Worked with other group members while taking appropriate actions to assure appropriate and prompt solutions to system, application, and customer problems.

Made recommendations regarding hardware and software acquisition

Prepared/maintained documentation (both operational and troubleshooting) on systems/services/applications

Installed, configured, maintained, documented, troubleshoot and upgraded hardware, firmware, peripherals, operating systems, and applications as required.

Implemented and Administered Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Directory Services Infrastructure

Designed Security for a Microsoft Windows 2008 Network

Successfully implemented hardening of the server infrastructure in appropriate Exchange server roles

Designed and Implemented Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure

Provided consultation in regards to best practices for Active Directory and LDAP technologies on Windows

Utilized server monitoring tools, and thorough understanding of Active Directory DC design, Schema, OU design, AD replication topology, and DC backup/restore procedures

Created and managed shared mailboxes, distribution lists, mail contacts etc

Assisted with the deployment of Microsoft Lync 2010 from POC to production.

Implemented a Front-End Lync Pool and a SQL clustering to provide High Availability to user base.

Deployed Lync Edge server for remote connectivity, mobility, and Web Services.

Integrated Polycom devices into the Lync topology and tested connectivity.

Provided training to users on Lync functionality, as well as provided scripts to Service Desk on how to resolve most common issues with Lync.

Tested federation with partner organizations to provide presence and IM functionality.

Utilized Lync Monitoring Server to provide usage statistics as well as conferencing call details.

Planned and implemented patches with cumulative updates for the Lync environment

IT Support Technician

Rehmann

Troy, MI

August 2008 to May 2010

Provide technical support to all employees including those working from remote locations.

Accomplishments:

Assisted in resolving service requests submitted via email ticket, helpdesk phone or walk up.

Supported new hire and termination processes, software installations/troubleshooting and other related IT Technician functions.

Collaborated with a highly motivated team that strived for World-Class Customer Service.

Use the helpdesk system to interact and assist customers as needed.

Ensure the functionality of all office PC/MAC desktops

Bachelors of Arts

University of South Florida

Certifications

CompTIA: Security+, A+, & Network+, Microsoft Technology Associate: Security, Networking, Windows OS, & Windows Server Administration Fundamentals

SKILLS

PROFILE

EXPERIENCE

EDUCATION

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