Description
Information Technology and Infrastructure Leader
Experienced IT Technical Architect with a history of increasing profitability and driving business strategy through technology, processes, and human resources. Track record of reducing long term spend in the ITIO portfolios and producing savings by redesigning infrastructure. Skilled in coordination of cross-functional teams, designing solutions that drive the Enterprise Strategy.
· Strategic Planning
· Technology Assessment
· Capacity Planning
· Fiscal Governance
· Business Continuity
· Technical Engineering
· IT Stabilization
· Budget Forecasting
· Hardware Management
Career Highlights & Key Accomplishments
Strategic Planning
· Led project management of the annual ITIO strategy refresh, including coordination of research with cross functional teams, SMEs, and architects. Coordinated production of the ITIO strategic presentation, and dissemination of strategy to IT Management.
· Created and maintained the 3-year strategic roadmaps for server, storage, data center, and disaster recovery. Roadmaps were utilized during lifecycle refresh to advance strategic direction and for introduction of new technical capabilities.
· Coordinated quarterly, semi-annual, and annual meetings with hardware and software vendors. Merged the vendor strategic direction and new capabilities, into the 3-year strategic roadmaps for server, storage, and data center.
Fiscal Governance
· Oversaw ITIO ROOM level project estimation capability, providing estimates of ITIO costs at Project conception, giving accurate total cost of ownership. ROOM level estimates provided TCO within a 50% variance.
· Provided governance over infrastructure solutions and capacity sizing for IT projects. Maintained standards and followed reference patterns with a flexible approach to implementation. This allowed for conservative allocations of resources that could be quickly increased if needed.
· Created and maintained a detailed infrastructure estimating tool providing accurate TCO estimates of all ITIO resources to be consumed by a project. Estimations were accurate within 10% of actual costs, covering all hardware, software, and infrastructure licensing.
IT Stabilization & Standardization
· Created reference patterns and standards across each technology silo. This reduced incidents, and increased automation of server builds, deployment times reduced by 50% and improving security stance with standard gold images.
· Created new database hardware standard, allowing for a uniform implementation of the DBMS. Converting to the new standard reduced license purchases, software maintenance, and hardware costs by $2M.
· Introduced a new server compute platform that reduced data center footprint for compute by 80%. The new standard saved $1.5M for compute resources that utilized the new technology.
Professional Experience
Cognizant Technology Solutions, Topeka, KS 2017-Present
Infrastructure Architect
Oversee the strategic planning, design, and implementation of infrastructure hardware and software, to include technical standards, reference patterns, roadmaps, and governance. Provide assessments, and strategic recommendations for ITIO capabilities. Work with client to drive the client’s annual ITIO project portfolio and budget.
· Ensure resources are allocated to projects, meeting all client project and support SLAs.
· Created organization’s Disaster Recovery plan, linking and prioritizing infrastructure with critical business functions.
· Worked with vendors to fix or replace failed data center hardware across all domains.
· Responsible for the administration of 300 Linux and AIX servers, including OS installation, patching, diagnostics, performance tuning, and backups.
· Utilize VMware for the build and maintenance of X86 virtual images, including Linux and Windows Server.
· Built AIX servers via IBM PowerVM virtualization and traditional LPAR methodology.
· Knowledgeable with Unix shell and Perl scripting, and administer backup solutions including VMware VDP and IBM TSM.
Payless Shoesource, Topeka, KS 1990-2017
Lead Technical Architect – Technical Architecture (2010-2017)
Led strategic planning, design, and implementation of infrastructure hardware and software. Responsibilities included technical standards, reference patterns, roadmaps, and governance. Lead the design team, providing infrastructure solutions for strategic projects.
· Redesigned Logistics Systems infrastructure resulting in $2.5 million save to project.
· Designed an alternative mainframe Business Continuity environment, achieving $2.2 million reduction in CAPEX and OPEX over 5 years.
· Assessment, strategic implementation of new technologies, and refresh of EOL systems contributed to $15 million reduction in long-term spend.
· Led design team for all projects requiring infrastructure resources.
Senior Technology Engineer – Server Team (2001-2010)
Responsibilities include server builds, OS installation and patching, diagnostics and performance management. Supported 300+ physical and virtual machines. Utilized VMware for virtualization of Linux images.
· Supported up to 60 AIX servers, running on IBM Power and PowerVM virtualization software.
· Performed capacity planning and design for x86 and IBM Power solutions.
· Mentored to new associates to support the Linux, AIX, and Mainframe platforms.
· Responsible for Infrastructure hardware, software and labor estimates for strategic projects.
Technology Engineer – Mainframe and Storage Team (1990-2001)
Responsible for z/OS and z/VM administration on the mainframe. Provided diagnostics and performance tuning of these systems, including Installation and support of management tools across all platforms.
· Performed capacity planning and lifecycle management of distributed hardware systems, including IBM Power, x86 platforms, and zSeries mainframes.
Education
· Kent State University, Kent, OH, BS, Applied Mathematics, Operating Systems.