Systems Administrator

Ali Syed

Email: adkebq@r.postjobfree.com

Contact Number: 571-***-****

Location: Chicago, IL

Summary:

IT Professional experienced in Azure Cloud, VMware Administration and Windows Administration and it’s various other modules like VM and workstation build and deploy, apply timely OS/Software patches and manage resources of VMs, Azure AD and other resources.

Administered and synchronized on-prem AD objects to Azure Active Directory, for Office 365 management, using Azure AD Connect.

Configured and resolved Azure AD Connect sync issues, various types of Data issues and Attribute issues.

Engineering Office 365 Design with AD Connect, Azure, ADFS, MFA at Microsoft O365 Tenant.

Worked on a project to synchronize On-prem AD with Azure AD and implement Multi Factor Authentication (MFA PingID).

Worked on designing Azure Resource tags naming conventions, subscriptions, and resource groups, enable monitoring (Log Analytics, AppInsight, NSG Flow logs)

Designed NSG (Network Security Groups) in Azure cloud, Virtual Networks, enabled NSG flow log monitoring via Network watcher.

Significant experience in deploying VMs in Azure and following all the steps like selecting correct subscription, resource group, enable Azure monitor and log analytics, enable diagnostics, select correct Vnet and NSG group and assign tags.

Profound experience in Azure Active Directory, manage users and groups, roles and administrators, App integrations and Azure AD Connect.

Strong experience on all the Azure resources like AKS, VMs, Azure Express route, VPN, Hub and Spoke, Vnet peering, Azure Monitor, Security Center, Network Watcher, Logic and function apps.

Experience in Creating ARM templates for Azure Platform.

Ability to create scripts using Azure PowerShell during for automation and build process.

Good working experience in Azure Logic apps, Service Bus, Document DB and SQL Database.

Significant experience and in-depth knowledge in VMware features like High Availability (HA), Storage and Server vMotion, Network Distributed Switch, vSphere API, Virtual Machine build, configure and deploy using templates, OVF and custom ISO images, Snapshot Management, Site Recovery Manager (SRM), DRS and working on assets as VMs, datastores, VMDK files, ESXi hosts and clusters.

Performed Monitoring of VMware hosts and VMs for hardware and OS failures and migrate/restart server on another ESXi host with and without using the HA feature.

Respond to Virtual Machine failure alarms and perform live storage and server vMotion if needed, run compatibility check to ensure vMotion is possible and pro-actively migrate VMs from hosts with issues.

Experience in VMware Distributed Switch create port groups and distributed port groups, schedule port-forwarding for monitoring tools and failover configuration, manage network adapters and add/remove hosts from switch.

Assisted with vSphere Site Recovery Manager Tasks such as assigning privileges and roles, configure replications and mappings, create protection groups, create and regularly test recovery plans.

Perform troubleshooting, diagnosis and root cause analysis of Guest OS and hardware failure issues, performance and resource allocation issues and availability.

Assisted in planning, design and deployment of physical and virtual servers by coordinating with multiple vendors and teams.

Experienced with ITSM principles for Incident and Change management.

Regularly meet with multiple application owners and provide input as efforts, solutions, ideas and best practices and fulfill requirements for new and existing applications

Heavily design solutions and address tickets across Active Directory, GPOs, Domain Users, Users and groups and grant appropriate access to drives, directories and servers, RBAC, Service accounts. (RSAT)

Participate in On-Call rotations with duties involving frequent health checks, respond to incidents, address sev-1 tickets and alerts and send status reports

Active Directory Migration, installation and administration for Microsoft Windows Servers 2008, 2008R2, 2012R2, 2016 and their respective Active Directory Services (WINS, DNS, DHCP).

Profound experience in migrating and integrating AD objects between source and target domain.

Experienced in active directory design support (GPO's, AD Schema, OU's, LDAP, Sites, Replication, etc.).

Experience in Syncing the Objects Users, Groups, Workstation from active directory to Azure active directory.

Expertise in managing the users and objects using Identity Manager.

Conducted all the operational tasks required to provision and de-provision users managed with Identity and Access Management.

Used PowerShell scripting to automate the tasks and processes

Assisted desktop engineering with SCCM Windows desktop OS deployment and automated build processes, including performance tuning.

Working knowledge of SCCM client installation, Software distribution, remote control, and other SCCM issues.

Experience in managing Active Directory Domain Controllers, DNS and DHCP Servers.

Monitoring connectivity, synchronization, replication, net logon, time services, FSMO roles, AD schema, and NTDS database.

Having good knowledge and experience with ADFS & Certificate based SSH authentication.

Working Experience in Migrating Group and Exception Policies from one domain to another domain in AD forest.

Automate the AD reports and health check using PowerShell scripts.

Active Directory Skills

Active Directory Design, Active Directory Replication, Active Directory Maintenance and Troubleshooting, Azure Active Directory, Group Policy Management, Group Policy Design and Structuring, Group Policy, Troubleshooting, DNS Server Management Zone IAM,, IP Address Management, Access Control, Design PowerShell Scripting, ITIL.

VMware Administration Skills

VSphere, VMware ESXI 5.0/5.1/5.5/6.0,6.5, VMware Update Manager, Horizon View 6.x, HA, DRS, DPM, SRM, vCenter Orchester (VCO) vCloud Automation, Hyper-V, Center 6.0 (VCAC), VMware API, vRealize Operations Manager (vRops), vCenter Alarms, virtual Assets configuration, snapshots, templtes, OVF, vMotion and VMotion,

Windows Administration

Windows Server 2008/2012R2, 2016, 2019 WINTEL servers, Windows XP/Vista/7/Windows 10 pro. File Servers, Print Servers, DNS, DHCP, Hyper-V, BitLocker Encryption, Failover Clustering, IIS, Windows Roles and Features, Event Viewer, Perfmon, Services, Task and resource manager

Server Hardware

Dell PowerEdge, HP, VNX, IBM Servers, HPE Storage, Cisco UCS console, HP ILO Console, Dell EMC console

Azure Cloud and Office 365

Azure Active Directory – AD Connect, users and groups, roles, Subscriptions, Resource Groups, Regions, VMs, Tags, Diagnostics, Log Analytics, Azure Monitor, Logic Apps, Function Apps, ARM Templates, VNET, VNET Peering, NSG, vpn, Express Route, AKS, Storage Accounts, Cost and billing, Security Center, Application gateways and load balancer, Mail-enabled security group, Office 365 autodiscover DNS, Office 365 pre- and post-migration.

Backup Softwares

Symantec backup exec, Commvault, Evault.

Applications

MS and MS Visio, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003,2007,2010, SaaS, Office 365, Symantec Ghost, Sharepoint, ServiceNow, BMC Service desk, Zendesk, SolarWinds, Splunk, Nagios, ExtraHop, AppD, New Relic, Datadog, Big Panda ETC.

Professional Experience:

Spica Computers (Client National Fuel Gas), NY Aug 2018- Present

Systems/Network Administrator

Responsibilities:

Maintaining Active Directory Services on Windows Server 2008, 2012 and 2016(Test, Development) Domain controller.

Deployment and support of Multi-Factor Authentication into multiple applications.

Installing, configuring, managing, and troubleshooting multiple Windows 2008/2012/2016/2019 active directory and server system environment.

Creating and managing Active Directory (AD) Organizational Units (OU), Group Policy Objects (GPO), and creating the users providing the Users Permissions, Configuring GPO'S.

Enforce daily, weekly, and monthly Identity and Access Management (IAM) controls

Good at manage hosting plans for Azure Infrastructure, implementing and deploying workloads on Azure virtual machines (VMs)

Expertise in setting up cluster environment for load balancing and high availability of Windows servers.

Experience in Creating ARM templates for Azure Platform.

Ability to create scripts using Azure PowerShell during for automation and build process.

Good working experience in Azure Logic apps, Service Bus, Document DB and SQL Database.

Worked on creating Custom Azure Templates for quick deployments and advanced PowerShell scripting

Development web service using Windows Communication Foundation and to receive and process XML files and deploy on Cloud Service on Confidential Azure.

Verified the domain and prepared on premises Exchange servers with updated, patches and security.

Assigned users licenses for Office 365 and Skype-for-Business,

Created empty mail-enabled security group in Office 365

Connected Office 365 to the on-premises email system through a migration endpoint)

Created cutover migration batch and migrated mailboxes, and then verified the migration.

Configure domain (MX record) to route mail to Office 365 and verified routing.

Deleted the cutover migration batch.

Assisted in building the VMware 6.0 Infrastructure from the base including Vcenter 6.0, ESXi 6.0, Update Manager 6.0, VDP 6.1, External PSC, SRM 6.0.

Expertise in Building Windows 2008 / 2012 R2 /2016 servers based on the company standards and decommissioning the servers.

Responsible for providing appropriate permissions to the users and groups based on the requirements to the VMware VSphere 6.0 environment.

Responsible for creating technical documentation for the infrastructure including V2V conversions, VDP installation and ESXi host patching baselines, SRM layout and Vision Network diagram for VMware networking.

Review and resolve alerts, patches, and upgrade of windows servers.

Provided after hour on-call support for all systems.

Good knowledge of installation of license and activation.

Expertise in new server build and roll-out for multiple server roles like file servers print servers, enable features, VDIs, Physical machines (computers, laptops and tablets), Network configuration, DNS and AD record

Continuously provide technical production support by installing/pushing patches and updates on weekly basis and assist in backups and recovery (TSF and WSUS)

Proactively monitor server performance and availability through 3rd party tools SolarWinds, WhatsUp Gold and vCenter Alerts. Run health-check PowerShell scripts regularly.

Actively use hardware consoles to manage hardware, Dell EMC, Cisco UCS Console, HP ILO and vSphere.

Effectively communicate with multiple teams and staff of all levels, positively address every ticket and stay motivated at all times.

Medline Industries, IL June 2016- Aug 2018

System Administrator II

Responsibilities:

Responsible for Azure Cloud Infrastructure Availability and administration, VMware Administration, Windows Server 2008, 2012, 2016 administration. Active Directory administration change ticket management, end-user helpdesk ticket management.

Experienced in Installation/configure Windows server 2008/ 2012/2012 R2, RHEL 5/6 on physical as well as virtual servers, build, configure Network and IP and assign proper permissions.

Setup Complete Azure Cloud Monitoring using Azure native monitoring tools like AppInsight, Log Analytics, Diagnostics, Azure Monitor and NSG flow logs as well as use 3rd party tool Datadog to setup monitoring.

Worked on designing Azure Resource tags naming conventions, subscriptions and resource groups, enable monitoring (Log Analytics, AppInsight, NSG Flow logs)

Designed NSG (Network Security Groups) in Azure cloud, Virtual Networks, enabled NSG flow log monitoring via Network watcher.

Significant experience in deploying VMs in Azure and following all the steps like selecting correct subscription, resource group, enable Azure monitor and log analytics, enable diagnostics, select correct Vnet and NSG group and assign tags.

Profound experience in Azure Active Directory, manage users and groups, roles and administrators, App integrations and Azure AD Connect.

Strong experience on all the Azure resources like AKS, VMs, Azure Express route, VPN, Hub and Spoke, Vnet peering, Azure Monitor, Security Center, Network Watcher, Logic and function apps.

Experienced in Windows Administrative tools like service management, Disk optimization, DFS, IIS manager, Roles and features.

Upgrade Windows servers to newer versions with Windows Server Updates Services, patch using Ivanti and SolarWinds Patch manager.

Create MOPs (Methods of procedure) documents for team’s everyday tasks and projects ranging from KB articles, troubleshooting documents to project tracking documents.

Utilized AD to create users, new and terminated employee onboarding/off-boarding process, grant access to file path, servers.

Used VMWare extensively to complete new server build, change and manage templates, snapshots and host profiles, vCenter alarms.

Focused on monitoring through multiple tools Nagios, Zabbix, and VMware Network Insights for detailed monitoring and reporting.

Participate in On-Call rotation and assist in maintenance activities.

Perform root cause analysis and troubleshooting of known issues.

Perform other related duties as assigned.

Effectively communicate with multiple teams and staff of all levels, positively address every ticket and stay motivated at all times.

Server/OS hardening methods

Experienced in implementing, migrating, maintaining, and supporting technologies like Citrix, Active Directory, VMware VSphere and VMWare Horizon View.

Windows system builds including 2008/2012 Enterprise, Standard, and R2 and maintained the entire VDI environment by building 40 ESXI servers.

Installing ESX and ESXi servers on HP, DELL, and Lenovo hardware

Deploying VMware Horizon View 5.0/5.5/6 as well implementing Escalation Point for all Citrix Issues and RES Profile Management to replace the legacy Windows with current Running profiles.

Monthly Upgrades in master images deploying the images to Virtual desktops, Xen desktop as per the change management policy.

Troubleshooting user accounts, virtual environments and migration errors.

Provide level high support for ESXi servers running on HP ProLiant BL460's/HP DL 580's/380's and Windows/Linux Virtual Servers.

Involved in Migration project from ESXi 5.0 to 5.5 and complete Migration of Vms.

Deployed large number of VMs/adding Data stores/ VLANs/ adding NFS storage using power shell scripts.

Infosys, India May 2012-Jan 2014

System Administrator

Responsibilities:

Work on production support tickets and provide L1, L2 level support.

Performed all levels of hardware and software systems support

Build more than 300+ servers in waves throughout several months for a new roll-out project.

Support Linux servers LDAP, LVM, RPM packages installations, secure copy/sftp files, provides access with CHMOD to files and directories.

Use SCCM to install agents, anti-virus and admin tasks for desktop support.

Respond and acknowledge heartbeat and SolarWinds alerts.

Experience installing, upgrading and configuring RedHat Linux 4.x, 5.x, 6.x using Kickstart Servers and Interactive Installation.

Responsible for creating and managing user accounts, security, rights, disk space and process monitoring in Solaris, CentOS and Redhat Linux.

Creates Linux Virtual Machines using VMware Virtual Center. Installs, upgrades and manages packages via RPM and YUM package management, Firmware Upgrades, kernel patches, systems configuration, performance tuning on Unix/Linux systems.

Installs, configures and supports Apache on Linux production servers and manages Patches configuration, version control, service pack and reviews connectivity issues regarding security problem, manages systems routine backup, scheduling jobs and enabling cron jobs.

Worked with the Architects on SDLC process being the owner of post development environments.

Experience configuring Linux guest in a VMware ESX environment. Administers VMware Infrastructure Client and VSphere.

Installing, configuring, administration of Windows 2008 servers, Active Directory Services, DNS DHCP, FTP, WSUS, IIS Web Server and SQL Database Server, Ansible, System Management Servers (SMS) servers.

Managing Exchange 2008 servers and troubleshooting issues related to User and group accounts, mail delivery, configuring MX records to enable and disable domain

Active member of the Production 24/7 on-call support teams to support Databases for critical Applications.

Education:

Master of Science in Information Technology – Stratford University

Bachelor of Science, Computer Science and Information System:

JNTU University

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