Darren Taylor

darren.taylor.m@gmail.com

Miami FL
305-775-1393

 

SUMMARY

 

With 20-year IT professional with extensive Unix System Administration and Project Management skills and experience within the Fortune 500 industry arena: Some of his areas of proficiency are as follows: 

 

Project management: Successfully lead and completed several projects which meet timeline deadline and budget requirements.

 

Technology: Serve as Senior UNIX System Administrator for top leading companies in the industry of retail, government, financial, and banking.? Heavily involved in design, configuration, implementation, quality assured, administrate, and support of large to medium sized UNIX servers in variety of market segments – retail, medical, airlines, banking, telecommunications, government, and commercial.

 

Communications: Noted by colleagues as a persuasive team member with solid employee relation’s skills.?

 

 

Skills and Keywords

Operating systems:

  Red Hat (RH 5 to RHEL 6), Suse (9-10), Debian, IBM AIX (5.3/6.1/7.1)

 

Virtualization:

   VMware (ESX, GSX, Workstation), KVM, RHEV, Solaris Zones.

 

High Availability:

  Sun Cluster, Red Hat Cluster, Big IP F5, Heartbeat 2, System Mirror, HACMP

Hardware:

  HP, IBM, and SUN chassis and blades.

 

Coding:

  Perl, Shell, Sed, Awk, Make, SQL, HTML, CSS.

 

Monitoring Products:

  Openview, IBM TIVOLI, Insight Manager, SNMP, NetCool

 

Web and Middle Services:

  Apache, Tomcat, Wordpress, Jboss, Websphere

 

Network Services:

   DNS/Bind, NFS, IPV6, TSM, LDAP, SSH, DHCP, TFTP, iSCSI, NPIV.

 

Databases:

   MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, DB2, Oracle, TeraData

 

Email Services:

   Postfix, Sendmail,

 

Security Products:

   SELinux, Iptables, Tcpdump, Wireshark, Snort, Ipfilter, SSL.

 

Perl, Bash, Shell, syslog, Cobbler, Kickstart, Func, VMWare, Citrix, Xen, RPM, RSA, SecurID, CPAN, IBM AIX, CentOS, Scientific Linux, RedHat Enterprise Linux, RHEL, Red Hat Linux, Fedora, Yum, RedHat Kickstart, DBI, mod_perl, Template Toolkit, Catalyst, TCP/IP, Wordpress, DRAC, SunOS, QFS, XFS, NetApp, qmail, sendmail, apache, bind, Tomcat, vpopmail, postfix, Courier-IMAP, dovecot, memcached, SNMP, DJBDNS, Xymon, Netcool, Cacti, Zenoss, Certmaster, Certmonger, CFengine, Puppet, HA Heartbeat, Perforce/P4 (deployment), Subversion, CVS, RCS, MS Office, MySQL, MSSQL, GNUPG

 

 

EXPERIENCE

 

 

IBM – Miami Florida 2009  to  present

Sr UNIX System Engineer

 

·               4000+ Red Hat, AIX, and Solaris Servers

·               Migrated LPARs from Power5, Power6, Power7, to Power8 systems

·               Evaluate and beta test Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization / AIX Servers

·               Provided support to offshore team in the OS upgrade process from AIX 6.1x to AIX7.1x

·               Proficient with NetApp storage creation, Brocade zoning and LUN creation on OS

·               Experienced in installation, configuration, tuning, security, backup, recovery and upgrades of IBM AIX

·               Experienced in configuring and supporting Logical Partitions/Micro Partitions (LPAR/DLPAR), via HMC (Hardware Management Console).

·               Experienced in implementing the Workload Management (WLM)

·               Installation of VIO Server on IBM 

·               Strong technical background in Storage, Disk Management and Logical Volume Management (LVM) on P-series hardware.

·               Installation, administration, configuration and testing of VIO Server and VIO client LPAR’S.

·               Extensive experience with Virtualization

·               Extensive experience with PowerVM

·               Extensive experience with Live Partition Mobility - LPM

·               Experienced in installation, configuration of Tivoli Storage Manager TSM Server Client running on multiple platforms on AIX, HP-UX, Sun Solaris, Windows 2000/ NT, and Linux.

·               Experience in manipulating UFS (Solaris), GPFS (AIX), JFS (AIX) filesystems includes creation/modification/deletion. Knowledge of various backup tools such as tar, cpio, mksysb, savevg, ufsdump, ufsrestore, dd, backup and restore.

·               Strong technical support background includes troubleshooting and repair of networks, hardware and software.

·               Experience in supporting and monitoring high availability (HA) system based on IBM HACMP.

·               Exposed in corporate disaster recovery planning and procedures.

·               Experienced with Tivoli Monitoring Environment.

·               Hands-on experience in setting up network environment using NFS and NIS

·               Experienced in Installation, configuration, maintenance and troubleshooting of HACMP 4.3.1, 4.5, 5.1, & 5.2.

·               Expertise in migration from HACMP V4.4 to HACMP V4.5. And PowerHA SystemMirror 7.1

·               Experienced in monitoring and Configuration of IBM Web Sphere Application server V3.5/4.0/5.0, IBM HTTP Server on AIX, Solaris, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Windows platforms.

·               Proven ability to define System requirements, recommending solutions, analyze capacity and make appropriate modifications.

·               Proficient in support coverage to accommodate client requirements.

·               Experienced in SAN technologies and SAN switches.

·               Proficient in created TSM profiles

·               Proficient in creating and maintaining project plans using MS Excel

·               Solid understanding of backup schedules and TCP/IP process

·               Excellent documentation skills of ongoing activities within the project and specific detailed documentation of each and every servers functions and application configuration.

·               Made recommendations of hardware depending on current resource usage and future forecasting of an application with the use of Sun Management Center

·               Planned and executed Solaris/AIX/RHEL Patching and Package Management

·               Mentor junior team members

 

 

TekSystems - California                                                                                                             2013  (6 months)

Hyundia America (Contactor)

Sr. Unix System Administrator

 

·   Engineer solid solutions for Hyundia infrastructure environment, including physical standalone servers, AIX partitioning

·   Analyze and evaluate business project’s server and system requirements, Power/pSeries resource capacity, HA, GPFS

·   Deploy new pSeries hardware infrastructure with redundant VIO servers for virtualization.

·   Update NIM environment with new SPOTs and LPPs as they are available from IBM.

·   Build and provision servers and systems using standard deployment procedures and automation based on project requirements and design analysis.

·   Develop and maintain inventory and lifecycle plans.

·   Provide performance monitoring during all phases of the project’s cycle.

·   Responsible for trouble shooting server or system layer issues.

·   Maintain a common documentation library of standardized procedures and configurations.

·   Work with business representatives, IT Management, IT development, support teams and vendors to ensure on time, on budget, and quality delivery of technical solutions that support the strategic direction of the business and IT.

·   Collaborate across Operations and Implementation teams to determine best solutions for support.

 

 

LPL San Diego, CA2008 - 2009

Environment: IBM AIX 5.2-6.1

Unix System Administrator

·               Manage 250+ servers in a mixed AIX/Linux environment.

·               Tivoli HACMP, NIM, HMC install / patch build servers as required for projects

·               Troubleshoot problems with server hardware, and Operating System.

·               Maintain a broad knowledge of operating systems, and hardware

·               Monitor system logs and activity on all servers and devices.

·               Attend and actively participate in weekly meetings.

·               Assist with weekly scheduled releases of software updates.

·               Linux and UNIX infrastructure design and management.

 

·               Affected change in Red Hat’s RHEV while working closely with Red Hat management and engineering teams

·               Designed and deployed automated configuration management service, using CFEngine 3, to satisfy security auditor reporting needs. This solution scaled beyond reporting to solve issues impacting production and regular maintenance activities

·               Advanced provisioning and automation.

 

·               Advanced virtual host solutions.

 

·               Deployed auditor approved enterprise password repository

·               Security strategy, hardening and remediation.

 

 

 

MEMEX INC.  Irvine, CA 06/06 to 2008

Environment: AIX / Solaris

Leader of Law Enforcement Software with clients worldwide

 

Consultant, Professional Service US Western Region, 07 – Present

·Gather customer requirements and develop code to accomplish request?

·Implement new solutions and enhancements to current software?

·Maintain common documentation library of standardized procedures and configurations.

·Travel as required ensuring the success of the organization

·Provide 24x7 level support for all products and delivered solutions.

·Develop new strategies for state wide intelligence solution?

·Interact with all levels of management and state officials?

·Provide remote system administration for DEA, FBI, LA Sheriff, LAPD, LAFD

·Provide first level support to all intelligence system?

·Provide software user and administration training?

 

Support Engineer Customer Service US Western Region, 06 –07

·Analysis and resolution of problems with Memex Software?

·Gathering of data related to system problem?

·Reproduction of reported bugs?

·Installation and upgrade software

·Implement intelligence software to government agencies?

·Develop migration procedures for legacy systems?

·Maintain and develop scripting for custom environments?

·Provide onsite training and enhancement to customer existing systems?

 

NCR Corp. San Diego, CA   04/05 to 06/06

Environment: NCR –AIX / Solaris

Technical Support Engineer

 

·Troubleshoot technical problems reported by the customer?

·Analyzes and troubleshoot and resolve client, system, software/hardware, and basic network issues?

·Interface with 3 Tier Technical Support, Engineer, Product Management, and other departments to address customers issues in the most effective manner?

·Developed process and procedures of reoccurrence problems

·Provide training to new employees on process and procedures

·Provide remote support and administration

·Provide onsite troubleshooting when required?

·Participate in the process of product improvement

·Provide technical materials to co workers and customers?

 

 

Think Tank Systems

American Honda, Torrance, CA                             07/01 to 04/05

Environment: IBM RS/6000 pSeries

AIX UNIX System Administrator

 

·> 350 IBM RS/6000 Servers with > 10,000 users?

·Performed system administration on IBM AIX based servers in a large multi domain environment?

·Provided expert level technical support services to vendors?

·Provided project management on several high level secret projects

·Installed and maintain EMC client/server software

·Installed and configured HACMP Servers

·Provide 24x7 oncall support

·Maintained, monitor, and tuned production systems and applications?

·Involved in the implementation of new technologies and major software releases to mission critical enterprise?

·Work with vendors, IT staff / management, and network engineers to troubleshoot problems?

 

First American Credco, Poway CA 12/00 –    07/01

Environment: IBM RS/6000 PSeries - HACMP

AIX System Administrator / DBA 

 

·Assisted with planning, design, installation and support of servers

·Performed routine system administration of IBM RS/6000 and Sun servers

·Performed software and hardware upgrade

·Installed and configured HACMP Servers

·Assisted in problem resolution, failure recovery, performance tuning, configuration and optimization

·Project lead for failure recovery

·Involved with the installation and configuration of a mirrored data center

·Interact with development on new software releases

·Trained and supported computer operators on batch processing jobs

 

BLUEBIRD SYSTEMS, Carlsbad CA   06/97 –  12/00

Environment: IBM RS/6000  HACMP

Technical Support Engineer                          

· Performed frontline support of Imaging software

· Provided remote administration on Informix, Oracle, and Sybase databases

· Developed standard operating procedures for customer system

· Assisted in the configuration of HACMP systems

· Reproduce customer reported errors

· Assisted development in the resolution of report problems

· Installation / upgrade of customer software

· Travel 25% to customer sites to assist with upgrades / new installations

 

 

EDUCATION

 

Southern Illinois University Carbondale, San Marcos CA - Bachelor of Science Degree

Palomar College, San Marcos, CA – Associates Degree

IBM Professional Certification Program - Certified AIX System Administrator 

University of California San Diego, CA - Certified UNIX System Administrator