Security Clearance Solution Architect

Azhar Akbari

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

Mississauga/ Toronto, Ontario, Canada • 647-***-**** • *****@*****.**

Senior Architect

A multi-talented Sr. Architect with extensive experience in Solution Architecture on large complex projects.

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

Core Competencies:

Enterprise/ Cloud Architecture

Stakeholder Management

Multi-Platform (Software) Integration

Process Automation

TOGAF/ Zachman

Project Management (Agile, Scrum, XP)

Performance Engineering

Application Modernization

End to End Architecture Solution

Business Intelligence Solutions

Professional Experience

Solution Architect (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) - July 2024 – November 2024

Leading the team for enhancing three business critical applications for the department, used across all regions in Canada.

Key Achievements:

Understand the current state at the department for all three systems, lead the enhancements and support of the three applications from architecture perspective.

Successfully created transition plan for architecture migration of all three systems.

Collaborated with key stake holders for the requirements and plan.

Technology Stack:

Visio, Azure Services, Azure Functions, Azure SQL, Oracle DB, Sencha EXT JS, Azure Entra ID, Azure Services, API, REST, Micro Services, CI/CD, GIT

Sr. Solution Architect – Enterprise Architecture (Intact Financial Corporation)- May 2022 – July 2024

Involved in multiple large complex projects including Commercial/ Specialty Lines of business, as well as Group Benefits and Travel (GB&T) Lines of Businesses platform migration from acquisition (from RSA and Johnson Insurance), while designing roadmap for future acquisitions.

Key Achievements:

Understand the current state at RSA and Johnson Insurance, as well as the IFC for critical portfolios including GB&T Digital, GB&T Document Management portfolio, and Logging and Monitoring domain.

Prioritizing and planning the architecture in agile environment covering all aspects of document management for Group Benefits and Travel LOBs.

Reviewed current state, business needs, requirements, and business architecture information (with key stakeholders) to analyze design and develop application architecture outputs and artefacts including Solutions Architecture Document, Solution Requirements Document.

Involved as a major contributor to the technology capability modeling, for GB&T LOB landscape, identifying the new Policy Admin System, Claims Adjudication System as well as integrating the new landscape within Intact environment.

Presented critical artifacts to the steering and executive committees (including C-level) for alignment with the organization goals and securing approvals for creating/ updating roadmaps in each business domain.

Integrated on-prem, as well as Azure hosted services/ APIs with Salesforce Financial Services Cloud (CRM), as well as Digital Insurance Platform, with compliance of DOM v7.

Successfully created strategy (leveraging Lean Conceptual Architecture) for migrating the policy administration from the legacy and other on-prem systems over to the new cloud-based Salesforce Vlocity platform. Integration with other systems, custom UI and API designing in Salesforce.

Lead the architecture designing and roadmap for document management domain to ingest documents using Optical Character Recognition tools like AD’DOC Capture Pro. The document generation using Opentext Exstream and Engage One.

Designed architecture for automating quote document ingestion through IBM CCM, IBM Notes, automated through UI Path and Control-M for interacting with the email workflow systems and ingesting into the quote management system.

Designed a solution to ingest policy files through S3 bucket, leveraging AWS APIs for malware scanning and ingestion into the Policy Admin System.

Designed AI based solution for Intelligent Document Processing, as well as smart defaulting during the conversion processes.

Leveraged Snowflake for the Data Analytics for policy onboarding and claims statistics, including data security and integration, and costing.

Designed automation on IBM Dominos based CMS to extract information and attachments and inject into the PAS for automated quote ingestion for Commercial Line.

Presented Architecture artifacts to the Architecture Review Board (ARB) for review and approval ensuring compliance with Intact architecture governance and standards.

Technology Stack & Standards:

Visio, Enterprise Architect, Power Designer, iServer, Sharepoint, JIRA, Miro Board, Confluence, Precisely EngageOne, OpenText Exstream, Salesforce Digital Insurance Platform/ Vlocity, Salesforce Experience Cloud, Salesforce Financial Service (CRM) Cloud (FSC), TOGAF, Agile, Guidewire Billing Centre, Guidewire Claims Centre, Dynatrace. AD’DOC Capture Pro (OCR), Control-M, UI Path, IBM Enterprise Content Management (ECM), UI Path (RPA), API, Micro Services, Data Lake, Vendor hosting solution (Guidewire), Java, JEE, Security (PCI-DSS, Application, Data, IAM), JIRA, Confluence, CI/CD, GIT, AWS, Azure, Snowflake, PCI-DSS compliance, Azure (platform), AWS (S3), COTS (assessments)

Solution Architect (Bell Canada) - Aug 2020 – May 2022

Involved in Digital Customer Experience initiatives, automating self-serve features offered on Bell.ca for mobility products – Rate Plans, Devices as well as Accessories. The initiatives (agile) included mobility as well as entertainment portfolios for offering services through mobility with hard timelines due to COVID related initiatives.

Key Achievements:

Created Solution Architecture Document, including Solution Requirements Document to align with Business Architecture.

Reviewed Business needs and requirements (JAD sessions with key stakeholders), and Business Architecture to analyze, design and develop application architecture outputs (artefacts) – Solution Architecture Document, Solution Requirements Document.

Designed and lead implementation of architecture roadmap for the digital customer experience line of business to integrate TV service with mobility.

Leveraged Informatica for sending data from AMDOCS to the In-house Data Analytics and Reporting.

Designed self-serve order fulfillment automation, creating and leveraging a suite of APIs and downstream systems.

Application modernization, re-architecting modules into micro-services, migrating to cloud serverless computing.

Technology Stack & Standards:

.Net Core, Widgets, API, ESB (OSB), AMDOCS, Cleargoals (Proffer), SOAP-UI, Visio,, Informatica, Openshift Cloud, CSS, HTML5, Docker (.Net Core), KAFKA, NM1 (AMDOCS), TOGAF, Agile, JIRA, CI/CD, GIT, Openshift cloud, Docker

Loblaw (through Procom)

Sr Solution Architect, Feb 2020 – Aug 2020

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 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

Key contributor to the cloud migration strategy for SHN and SDM systems.

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.

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

Designed RPA (Control-M) for work-day enterprise automation for the LCL employees (Workday), and other data flows.

Designed multiple Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Business Analytics 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.

Leveraged the IA principles, Data Classifications, YoY Growth/ Planning, Disclosure while designing solution for employee and SHN systems.

Presented architecture views and documents to the Architecture Review Board to secure approval for implementation.

Technology Stack:

Google Cloud Platform (GCP), GKE (Kubernetes), Openshift, Springboot, Visio, MS Project, Nginx, Tomcat, Informatica, Micorservices, RESTFul API, APIGee, QuickSense, MicroStrategy, Teradata (Warehouse), KAFKA, SaaS, PaaS (DB setup – No SQL), IaaS (environment provisioning), TOGAF, SAP Ariba (integration), Control-M, Moneris, GIT, Open Source (LINUX, MySQL), PCI-DSS (processing, tokenization), COTS (assessments/ implementation)

Enterprise Architect (IBM Canada (Air Canada Account)) - Mar 2018 – Feb 2020

Lead designing and implementation of several initiatives to migrate enterprise-wide business critical systems from on-prem/ legacy to cloud systems. Managing vendors and collaborating with third parties like Brock Solutions, Amadeus (Altéa), 2nd Watch, Oracle. Air Canada office expansions and relocations without impacting the operations.

Key Achievements:

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

Conducted sessions with the business to review Business Requirements and Business Architecture to analyze, design and develop application architecture outputs and artefacts (Solutions Architecture Document) including architectural views.

Designed and implemented $MM initiative to migrate storage from legacy to modern storage with HA and DR architecture, 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. Implemented systems on Kubernetes platform for scalability requirements.

Leveraged PCI-DSS standards in the solution designed for kiosk updates at international locations.

Designed and lead the implementation of data lake-based analytics platform for the operations department.

Technology Stack:

Visio, Azure Cloud, Data Lake, Datapower, Visio, MS Project, Informatica, Micorservices, RESTFul API, ICP – Kubernetes, HA, DR, Websphere, Oracle DB, Performance Tuning, Linux Shell Scripting, IaaS, PaaS, BURaaS, ZenWorks (Management System)

Enterprise Solution Architect (HP/ DXC Canada -CIBC Account) - Jan 2017 – March 2018

Strategic and tactical planning for the Online/Mobile Banking platforms. Managed 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 Achievements:

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

Designed and implemented the BI based on Google Bigquery for SHN data patterns.

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

Leveraged Informatica for integrating data across multiple platforms; SHN systems to Loblaw system for data warehousing.

Implemented platforms for digital transformation initiatives to improve reporting at each branch.

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

Technology Stack & Standards:

Visio, Webloigc, JBOSS, Oracle DB, J2EE, Eclipse, Restful, JSON, Linux KSH Scripting, Artifactory, Jenkins, HP IDOL, MS Project, TOGAF, Open Source (LINUX, MySQL), CI/CD, Libman, MKS, HP Autonomy (IDOL) Elastic Search, Data governance, Informatica.

Solutions Architect (CIBC) - 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 Achievements:

Reverse engineered the existing systems and databases and identified opportunities to stabilize the environment.

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.

Designed and developed Pega based work-flow automation incorporating AI on the customer credit product purchasing patterns.

Technology Stack:

Weblogic (HA/ DR), Oracle (HA/ DR), Pega, Performance Analysis and Tuning, Dynatrace, HP Diagnostics

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

Technology Stack:

Visio, Websphere, DB2, My SQL, J2EE, Eclipse, SPA, SOA – SOAP, BDAT architecture framework

Hewlett Packard (HP) Canada

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.

Key Challenges:

Migrate architecture from legacy to new technology stack, create a roadmap with transition architecture for tactical achievements.

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.

Reviewed business needs and requirements and Business Architecture Information to analyze, design and develop application architecture outputs and artefacts (Solutions Architecture Document).

Created of alignment of Solution Architecture Document to the Business Architecture Document.

Created Contextual, Conceptual, Logical, Technical Architecture views and artefacts.

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

Lead the GO-ITS based architecture framework (OPS Enterprise Architecture, Security Requirements) designing and implementation to facilitate partner level automation.

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

Leveraged the IA principles, Object, Data Classification, YoY Growth/ Planning, Disclosure while designing solution for the Partners as well as the OTMPC Portal.

Presented architecture views to the ARB and CAMT (executive ARB) to show the design, planned milestones and obtain approval for next steps in the program for OTMPC from MGC.

Technology Stack & Standards:

Enterprise Architect, Weblogic (Clustering), Oracle (RAC), High Availability, Disaster Recovery, J2EE, Eclipse, RESTful, Linux scripting, Performance Tuning, PL/ SQL, MS Project, SaaS, ZACHMAN/ GO-ITS, Node.js, NPM Server, COTS (assessments/ implementation), Data Governance.

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 (SOA, SOAP, Restful), provided on-site and off-site end-user training, and published job aid documents

Used Visio for creating the architecture blueprints for the program and created enterprise standards and template standards.

Involved in Business Process Automation and Digital Transformation of the operations, designed and lead implementation of the multiple automated processes at the station as well as ramp areas.

Designed and implemented TOGAF based architecture framework to facilitate Automation and Transformation projects.

Leveraged TIBCO for ESB integration, Informatica for the ETL.

Technology Stack:

iRise, Visio, Weblogic (Clustering), Oracle (RAC), My SQL, Java, JEE, Eclipse, SOAP, RESTful, Linux scripting, XML (Object serialization/ deserialization, third party integration), Performance Tuning, TOGAF, Informatica

Additional Experience

Cloud Designing and Implementation (Jan 2022 – Jul 2024) – ANA IT Solutions Inc

Designed and implemented Azure infrastructure in multi-zone implementation including Azure SQL as a Service (PaaS).

Design, lead implementation of the SaaS application and deployed in Azure cloud infrastructure.

Leveraged Stripe payment processing and tokenization (for pre-auth payments), as well as subscriptions.

Cloud Implementation (Jun 2020 – Nov 2020) – Questrade

Designed, developed and executed Terraform scripts to create resources in the Google Cloud Platform.

Solutions Consultant (Apr 2009 – May 2020) – 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.

Technology Stack:

Rational Rose, J2EE, Eclipse, SOAP, HA Architecture (Weblogic clustering), Unix scripting, XML/ XSLT processing, Tomcat, Oracle DB, PL/ SQL

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.

Technology Stack:

Visio, Websphere, J2EE, Eclipse, SOAP, Oracle DB, Data modeling using Visio

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.

Technology Stack:

Visio, .Net – VB .Net, C#, Weblogic, J2EE, Eclipse, JBOSS, XML (Object Serialization), SOAP, MS SQL, Oracle DB, Data Modeling using Visio.

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. Used Rational Rose for creating the project blueprints.

Technology Stack:

Visio, Oracle DB (designing and administration), PL/ SQL, Magic, Weblogic, J2EE, Eclipse, Magic Report Generator

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.

Technology Stack:

Rational Rose, Tomcat, Weblogic, J2EE, JBuilder

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

Technologies:

Java/JEE frameworks, GIS Enterprise tools, APIs, Micro Services, Data Marts, Data Lakes, Vendor Packaged and/or hosted solutions (SaaS), Workflow Management (Pega, BPMN), Business Intelligence, Machine Learning (IBM ECM AI), Data Science Workflows, Security (IAM, Data, TRA, PCI-DSS, HIPAA), 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, COTS

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, iServer, Archimate.

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

Google Cloud Platform – Professional Cloud Architect (PCA)

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