JOHN SANKARALINGAM

 

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

·   Over 16 plus years of diversified experience in Information Technology and proven expertise in Systems Engineering, Systems Administration, Cloud Technologies, Data Center Operations, IT Management, Systems Integration, Project Management, Storage and SAN Analytics.

·   Certified ITIL and IBM Certified Systems Expert.

·   Strong experience in Amazon Web Services/Microsoft Azure/VMware vCloud

·   Proven and strong experience in IT Infrastructure Automation.

·   Hands on Experience in Linux (RHEL, SLES, Debian), VMWare vSphere 4/5, vCloud Director 1.5/5.1, HP Blade System Matrix/Cloud System Matrix, HPUX, IBM AIX, Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Stacks.

·   Proven leadership skills in leading over Server Tower and Storage Towers.

·   Successful in Implementing Private Cloud Projects including Disaster Recovery for more than 10 Clients.

·   Provided Solution Design for multiple clients in US and overseas.

·   P2V conversion projects implementation with 100% success rate.

·   Experience in implementation of Nagios Monitoring Tools.

·   Strong analytical and Technical Troubleshooting skills.

·   Solid understanding of Information Security policies.

·   Successfully deployed Solarwinds NPM and Virtual Wisdom monitoring platform for a multiple clients in US and in Europe.

·   Extensive and Strong Implementation knowledge in future technologies like Big Data and IoT (Internet of Things).

·   Recognized for ability to partner with business leaders and technical teams to plan, integrate and execute complex project plans on time and within budget.

 

SKILLS PROFILE

Functional:

Systems Engineering, Systems Design, Cloud Computing Service, Data Center Operations, Project Management, Strategic Planning, Staffing, Client Engagement, Planning & Budget Management, Scope Management, Negotiations, Enterprise Support, Change Management, Best Practices.

 

Technical:

OS: Linux (RedHat, CentOS, SuSe, Ubuntu), Windows, IBM-AIX, Solaris, HP-UX 10

Virtualization:VmWare vSphere, vSphere Replication, KVM, Cisco UCS, IBM PowerVM, IBM Softlayer, Solaris Containers, LDoms, Oracle VM

Hardware: HP Blades, Dell, IBM xSeries, Lenovo, IBM p-Series Power, Sun SPARC, HMC, EMC Symmetrix, VPLEX, VirtualWisdom 4.x

Cloud:Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), RackSpace

Storage: EMC Symmetrix, Clarion, Powerpath, MPIO, VNX, Hitachi, HP EVA, 3PAR, NetApp, Brocade SAN Switch, Cisco MDS

Automation:BMC BladeLogic, Marimba, Puppet, Chef

Security Tools:Qualys, Tenable Nessus, Guardium, Imperva, Firewalls

Security Standards:SOX, PCI, PKI, GxP, HIPAA

Protocols:TCP/IP, HTTPS, SSH, SSL, SCP, SFTP, FCoE, SMTP

Monitoring/Analytics:VirtualWisdom, Load Dynamix, SevOne, Nagios, Netforensics, SolarWinds, Splunk

Project Tools:Agile, SCRUM, HP PPM, SharePoint, MS Office, MS Project, MS Visio, Excel, Confluence, JIIRA, Clarity.

 

 

EDUCATION

·   MS in Computer Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Expected Graduation, Dec’2017

·   B.E., in Computer Science & Engineering, University of Madras, April’1999

 

CERTIFICATIONS

·               IBM Certified Systems Expert -  IBM System p5 Virtualization Technical Support

·               IBM Certified Systems Expert - eServer p5 and pSeries Enterprise Technical Support

·               IBM eServer Certified Systems Expert - pSeries Enterprise Technical Support

·               IBM Certified Specialist - eServer p5 and pSeries Administration and Support for AIX

·               Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

·               ITIL IT Service Management Essentials

 

TRAINING

·   ITIL IT Service Management Essentials/Foundations, Practitioner

·   Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions

·   Server Virtualization with Windows Hyper-V and System Center Specialist

·   AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate Level training

·   VCA-WM – VMware Certified Associate – Workforce Mobility  training

·   VCA-C – VMware Certified Associate – Cloud  training

·   VCA5-DCV – VMware Certified Associate – Datacenter Virtualization  training

·   VCP4 - VMware Certified Professional

·   DCSNS - (Designing Cisco Storage Network Solutions)

·   RedHat Enterprise Linux 6.3 RHCSA Rapid Track Course

·   VMWare vSphere (Configure, Manage, Install) VCP 4.1

·   AWS Bootcamp - Seattle

·   Splunk 6 – Bootcamp – San Francisco

·   New Relic Application Monitoring

·   Veritas Storage Foundation 5.1 for UNIX

·   Veritas Cluster Services and Cluster File System 5.1

·   IBM System P POWER 5+ to POWER 6 system migration workshop

·   System p LPAR and Virtualization III: Virtualization Performance Management

·   System p LPAR and Virtualization II: Implementing Advanced Configurations

·   HACMP System Administration I: Planning and Implementation

·   Sun Solaris platform Administration and Support v8

·   IBM Advanced POWER Virtualization Presales Workshop

·   Critical Thinking and Problem Solving; Business Skills for Technical and Specialized Professionals

·   PM Crash Course - Real-World Tools for Real-World Projects

·   Building and Managing Virtual Teams

 

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

 

Virtual Instruments Corporation, Morristown, NJ / New York, NY: March 2015 – till date

Sr. Resident Technology Liaison

·   Working as Senior Resident Technology Liaison in the Infrastructure Performance Management (IPM) area for Data center operational efficiency, predictive and proactive problem management and data center services 99.9999 uptime and availability.

·   Advisory role for the clients in cost savings and optimal resources utilization with the help of VI’s VirtualWisdom and proprietary analytics tools for server and storage capacity planning and utilization.

·   Utilizing VI’s proprietary Hardware, Software and patented technologies to monitor client’s SAN and Network traffic to identify response times, latencies and potential bottle necks for Applications, Storage and Server’s to predict the problems in advance and alerting the customer thereby avoiding any downtime and systems down and making them to run their data centers efficiently.

·   Advisory, design and overseeing implementation of Public Cloud services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google GCE, Microsoft Azure, VMWare, SharePoint, Office/Exchange, Lync, Rackspace and IBM Softlayer for different clients.

·   Analyzed the workloads across physical servers in data center and came up with an appropriate Public Cloud solution in line with business requirements to eliminate the complexity and overhead in managing the highly heterogeneous physical infrastructure and improve the availability and resilience.

·   Migrated 500+ physical servers to Public Cloud and encouraged the adoption of Amazon Web Services resulting in 30 to 40% of savings in the organization’s IT Capex and Opex spending.

·   Design and implementation of client infrastructure on Amazon AWS/Microsoft Azure/Google GCE.

·   Implementation of Big Data Analytics Infrastructure.

·   Implementation of Internet of Things (IoT) Infrastructure

·   Design and Implementation of Next generation Infrastructure services (Infrastructure as a Code).

·   Engaging appropriate resources for customer and resolved multiple SEV 1 issues impacting SLAs for mission critical applications.

·   Predictive and proactive problem management utilizing VI’s Analytics tool and monitoring to identify issues before it becomes a problem thus avoiding downtimes, catastrophes and potential financial loss.

·   Assisting customer in managing multi-vendor environment by identifying and engaging the necessary only resources, technical inputs/advise, architectural designs, problem/issue follow-up, RCA, capacity needs/planning and solutions implementation

 

Employer: Y & L Consulting Inc., San Antonio, TX: March 2010 – March 2015

Sr. Systems Integration Manager - Specialist

-          Client assignment at MetLife Group Inc, Somerset, NJ

-          Lead Consultant Distributed Infrastructure Engineer

-          Worked as Lead Distributed Infrastructure Engineer – consultant for the Mid-range engineering and architecture group

-          Systems engineering and planning data center consolidations and migration of current running Compaq, Dell and IBM x86 on VMWare to new HP Blades on VMWare, power5 & 6 frames to power7/8 (P780 & P770’s, 870, 880) in intranet, web, DMZ/Bastion environment with appropriate Systems and Network Security profiles, Firewall settings and Vulnerability fixes.

-          Project Management and co-ordination around Data center refresh and consolidation projects involving Compaq, IBM xSeries x86’s, 595 frames retirement, refresh, off-lease, relocation and migrations.

-          Migration planning and pre-requisite matrix on VMWare (RedHat, SuSe), AIX and Solaris for OS and Powerpath.

-          Designed, Planned and Implemented HACMP, RedHat Enterprise Linux Cluster, HADR, AutoStart for high availability of Systems, applications and Databases.

-          Disaster Recovery Planning and Implementation using VMware vSphere Replication, InMage DR Suite.

-          Evaluation of the new products (vSphere 5, VMware vCloud Director, RHEV 3, Celestica Hardware, Sanovi, Cloupia, InMage DR Suite)

-          Utilized Qualys and Nessus scans extensively for Security Hardening and fixing Vulnerability, gaps and back doors for Network Security, Systems Security, Asset and Compliance monitoring.

-          Documentation of Project Plan, Project LifeCycle, Solution Design and Plan.

-          Planned, designed and administered the full deployment/conversion to Microsoft Stack from IBM Lotus, SameTime and legacy internal document repository based on Lotus.

-          Solarwinds Monitoring Platform Implementation and Auditing.

-          Implemented HP BladeSystem C7000.

-          Created Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 2012 Templates for easy deployments.

-          Implemented VMware vCloud Suite 5.1 and vCNS (vCloud Network and Security).

-          Reports on Quarterly Security scans for Systems and Network vulnerabilities.

-          Responsible for the Capacity Data Collector feed scripts and database that feeds data to all MetLife Enterprise group and Capacity Management with the Server and Storage inventory.

-          Evangelized advantages of moving to cloud solutions to various business units by presenting advantages of reduced CapEx, increased scalability, reduced foot print and less maintenance.

-          Utilized vMotion for VMWare and LPM (Live Partition Mobility) extensively for Blade/ESX/frame maintenance and evacuations.

-          Utilizing NPIV’s for SAN adapter load balancing and VIO’s for network (SEA based) load balancing.

-          Planning , Implementing and managing the new Server Builds (AIX, IOS, Linux-RHEL, SuSe), Server Builds standards, Server migrations, OS upgrades, VSCSI to NPIV conversions and Storage migrations..

-          Requirement specifications and Capacity Planning for CPU, Memory, Storage builds and migrations.

-          SME for Storage technologies on AIX/Linux and HACMP/RHCS.

 

-          Client assignment at McGraw Hill Companies, New York, NY

-          IT Project Manager

-          Worked as Lead IT Infrastructure Project Manager for Atos N.A., IDEA (Implementation Design Engineering and Architecture) group for client engagement at McGraw Hill Companies.

-          Projects area include data center moves, relocations, cloud migrations, AWS implementation and migrations, consolidations, server builds, application refresh, migrations and test site set-ups for the Education division’s CTB and Higher Education business segments.

-          Program progress tracking and Project tracking through the project cycles. Utilized HP PPM extensively for tracking purpose.

-          Managed SharePoint and Lync conversion implementation.

-          Prepared project guidelines, plans, intakes, schedules and weekly, monthly project status reports for the management on the project status.

-          Managed various IT projects ranging from $ 200K to $ 2.5 million USD.

-          Implemented and utilized PMI standards through the project life cycles.

-          Co-ordinated various projects that include data center moves, AWS cloud migrations, relocations, consolidations, server builds, application refresh, migrations, test site set ups and resources allocations (onshore/off-shore/onsite/remote).

-          Prepared project guidelines, plans, intakes, schedules and weekly, monthly project status reports for management on the project status.

 

-          Client assignment at CVS Caremark Corporation / Dell Perot Services, Woonsocket, RI

-          Service Delivery Manager / Systems Integration Manager

-          Worked as a Service Delivery Director and Systems Integration Manager on a client assignment at CVS Caremark Corporation through Dell Services, managing five teams of administrators and engineers in UNIX, VMWare/Windows/Linux, Storage, Middleware, DataBase and Monitoring areas supporting a highly business critical RxConnect application in a heterogeneous environment.

-          Tower Lead for Servers, Storage and Backup.

-          Responsible for Systems Security Audits, IT compliance standards implementation - PCI, PKI, HIPAA and SOX, OS kernel hardening and password hardening.

-          Implemented enterprise wide security fixes and vulnerability fixes that came out of Qualys scan including Network, Systems, Compliance and Cloud.

-          Developed strategies for Cloud migrations.

-          Accountable for setting the server and storage tower’s direction, priorities, and goals for the customer.

-          Managed teams to meet financial targets without compromising customer satisfaction and SLAs.

-          Assisted with contract renewal and extension with customer and third party vendors.

-          Overseen Physical Servers conversion to Virtual Machines using VMware vCenter Converter.

-          Management of 24x7 Data Center operations, including 8,000 discrete and virtual Wintel, AIX, AS400, Mainframe and Linux servers.

-          Management of backups across 8,000 servers; Management of SAN infrastructure across 4 data centers.

-          Worked closely with customers to develop internal and external escalation procedures for server environments.

-          Implementation of ITIL best practice service delivery processes for incident and problem management.

-          Actively managed 120 on and off-shore engineers and 6 managers for performance and development with appropriate training and performance metrics.

-          Planned and executed the Oracle OLTP, ODS and PnP environments running Oracle and Oracle RAC Clusters from POWER5 Hardware to POWER7 hardware and POWER5 570 server migrations to POWER7 780, POWER7 770 & 740’s, between data centers.

-          Managing and executing multiple projects that include Data Center moves, migration of off-lease frames and servers, Storage migrations.

-          Handled projects with various functions like systems migration, security compliances, data refresh, server and blade/frame retirements, application deployments, OS upgrades, TL upgrades, DR tests, data center moves and migrations.

-          Lead the transition team that transferred the functions of Production Support, PT lab, Builds, PoC, Monitoring, DB support and Middleware back to CVS and Tata Consulting Services from Dell Perot services at the end of service contract.

 

Employer: Siemens IT Solutions & Services Inc: June 2009 – March 2010

Lead Systems and Storage Specialist

·   Worked as Lead Systems and Storage Specialist leading Server Tower and Storage Tower supporting over 2500+ UNIX/Linux systems (RHEL/SuSe on VMWare/x86 & POWER, AIX virtualized on POWER, Sun Solaris on SPARC) and Storage environment (both Unix/Linux & Wintel).

·   Project Lead on various systems and application projects that includes builds, operations support, tuning and enhancements for various Application Development, Database, Middleware, Engineering and Networking groups within the account and with external vendors.

·   Set-up, Lead and Managed a team of 16 members in US (4) & offshore (12) for 24x7 support, supporting customers from all LOB’s that are running Oracle, DB2, SAP, WebSphere, WebLogic, WebMethods, Informix, Informatica and various applications on Unix/Linux environment and Storage Operations.

·   Responsibility includes day-to-day operations support & maintenance of Enterprise wide servers running Windows/RHEL6, 7 running on VMWare, AIX 5.3 and 6.1, Solaris 8,9 and EMC Symmetrix.

·   Converted existing Physical Servers to Virtual Machines using VMware vCenter Converter.

·   VMWare builds, IBM Virtualization builds, HACMP upgrades, OS upgrades, patch implementation, security enhancements, perf tuning, Software installs, migration planning on systems & storage.

 

Employer: MetLife Group Inc., Clarks Summit, PA: March 2007 – May 2009

Senior UNIX Administrator / Storage Operations Engineer

·   Worked as Senior UNIX Systems Administrator supporting 2000+ UNIX systems.

·   Project Lead for various systems and application projects that includes builds, operations support, tuning/enhancements for App development, Database, Middleware, Engineering and Networking groups within MetLife and external vendors for Engineering and Implementation within Data Center.

·   Designed and implemented various POC’s on vMotion, Live Partition Mobility and Manual mobility.

·   Worked additional function as Storage Operations Engineer for the Enterprise Infrastructure migration.

·   Responsibility includes day-to-day operations support & maintenance of Enterprise wide servers running RedHat, SuSe Linux AIX, Solaris 8, VMWare and VIO’s, Virtualization Planning, Implementation, server builds (RHEL/SuSe on VMWare/x86, AIX, VIO), HACMP upgrades, Hardware upgrades, CuoD activation’s, OS cloning and re-imaging, SOX and HIPAA compliance.

·   OS upgrades on AIX 4.3 to 5.1/5/2/5/3/6.1 (on Power 4, 5, 6, 7), RHEL 6 to 7 (on VMWare/x86) and Solaris 7 to 8/9 (on 280R, v440 v880, 15k, 25k)

 

UNIX Systems Consultant: Y & L Consulting Inc., San Antonio., TX: March 05 – March 07 and January 03 – November 04) Various on-shore and offshore client projects at MetLife, BankOne, JP Morgan, ADP Dealer Services, Chrysler, Akibia, Schering Plough, Pharmacia and Pfizer.

Computer Hardware Technician and Admin: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ: August 00 – December 02 and December 04 – March 05

System Administrator: Victory Software Solutions: Madras, India: November 98 – July 00

 

REFERENCES: Will be provided upon request.

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John Sankaralingam                  jss_4@yahoo.com