Jimmy Dale Covington
351 Oyster Creek,
Buda, Texas 78610
(512) 312-9176
(Home) / (512) 820-5020 (Cell)
jimmy.covington@yahoo.com
Summary:
I.T.
professional with 35+ years of experience including the past seven years
concentrating on Business Transformation and Infrastructure, Automation &
Cloud Architecture. I’ve demonstrated the ability to lead the architectural
design of small or large enterprise multi-platform environments in both
traditional data centers and the Cloud. I have a solid understanding and
experience using Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Unified Methodology
Framework (UMF) and other methodologies. Information Technology
Infrastructure Library (ITIL) certified. A published author whose work
illustrates solid business acumens coupled with insight and the ability to
ascertain and analyze social, cultural and business needs, define strategic
technical vision, forecast goals, streamline technical operations that lead
to successful delivery and demonstrated business results.
Areas of Expertise:
Executive-level
Organization & Management – Collaborate with executives to bridge
the different organizational business groups to achieve the results expected.
Transformation – Facilitating
change that is driven by mapping the business intentions to technology
capabilities through the assessment of customers, strategies and
compliance/regulatory/governance requirements within the cultural framework
of the organization.
Develop
Strategic Partnerships – Create strategic partnerships from within the
organization as well as with vendors in order to achieve positive business
and I.T. results for their best capabilities and assistance.
Staff
Development/Team Leadership – Create a unique “team spirit” that
brings together people into a cohesive group by proactive leadership and demonstrating
solid team strategies and positive relations.
Subject
Matter Expert
·
Infrastructure
and Enterprise Architect
·
Cloud
Architect (IBM, AWS, Google, Azure)
·
Virtualization
(VMware, LDOM, Zones, LPAR, etc.)
·
Operating
Systems (Solaris, Linux, AIX, HPUX, Windows)
·
IAM (LDAP,
AD)
Experience:
Tata
Consultancy Services (TCS), Sr. Enterprise Architect, Cloud &
Virtualization (Austin, TX) Aug 2014 - Present
Responsibilities
· Oversee applied research or
advanced design in the development of new applications/systems or technical
processes, directs activities required to complete major enterprise projects.
Specify technical design approach and standards; demonstrate deep expertise
in technical design by articulating the strengths and weaknesses associated
with utilizing alternative architecture solutions.
· Recommend architecture upgrades
based on technical trends or changes in the nature of the systems that use
architecture; provide cost/benefit analysis for architecture design; balance
the requirements for quality against development and maintenance costs in
resolving architecture issues. Determine new ways to package existing
technologies in order to produce innovative architectures; suggest new
hardware and software that should be developed to surpass the limitations of
existing equipment.
· Bridge the gap between business
needs and technological solutions; demonstrate an ability to draw on both
business and technical expertise; establish a high level trust among both
business and technical professionals.
· Provide analysis and design using
the company mandated methodology and toolset. Provide high level analysis and
facilitate design sessions. Proficient in design/analysis on a number of software/hardware
platforms.
· Provide roadmap that illustrates
the approach for solution design & delivery that should be undertaken for
complex projects.
·
Responsible
for large infrastructure projects from technical implementation and project
management perspective.
·
Deliver
projects within timelines, quality and within budgets
·
Assume
leadership of client engagements and be able to work without direct
supervision and interface with Customer IT and business functions
·
Enabling
smooth transition of IT operations or clients into a service provider
delivery model
·
Work closely
with the sales and delivery teams during the presales phases
·
Responsible
for project scoping, statement of works, acceptance, test criterion execution
and sign-offs (i.e. reviewing technical feasibility proposals from customers
or Bill of Material (BOM) validation)
· Publish technical whitepapers or case studies and present at IT forums
·
Provide
pre-sales support to Sales team(s) worldwide including meeting with CXO
levels to discuss business drivers and provide solutions.
·
Responsible
for defining the business drivers and associated system capabilities and
services required for I.T. transformation of enterprise server environments
for server consolidation, including cross-tower dependencies and analysis
with storage, data center consolidation, application migration, platform
consolidation, server refresh, capacity management, etc.
·
Responsible
for translating the client’s business requirements into specific system,
application or process designs. This includes working with client personnel
and executives to identify requirements and subsequently working with and
leading others in the identification, justification and design of the
client’s solution.
·
Develop
technical design documents and deliverables.
·
Analyze the
current I.T. environment and define future business and technical
requirements, as well as normalizing or synthesizing through supplied
inventories and data.
UST
Global, Infrastructure Architect/Cloud Practice Lead (Austin, TX) Feb-Jul
2014
Responsibilities
·
Responsible
for defining the capabilities, infrastructure and delivery of a cloud
offering for the Infrastructure Managed Services group. This offering
included using AWS, Google and Microsoft cloud services into a single
dashboard. Defining the roles and responsibilities of the steady state
support teams for O/S and applications. Defining the methodology and work
products for migration activities into the cloud.
·
Provide
pre-sales support to Sales team(s) worldwide including meeting with CXO
levels to discuss business drivers and provide solutions.
·
Responsible
for defining the business drivers and associated system capabilities and
services required for I.T. transformation of enterprise server environments
for server consolidation, including cross-tower dependencies and analysis
with storage, data center consolidation, application migration, platform
consolidation, server refresh, capacity management, etc.
·
Responsible
for translating the client’s business requirements into specific system,
application or process designs. This includes working with client personnel
and executives to identify requirements and subsequently working with and
leading others in the identification, justification and design of the
client’s solution.
·
Develop
technical design documents and deliverables.
·
Analyze the
current I.T. environment and define future business and technical
requirements, as well as normalizing or synthesizing through supplied
inventories and data.
IBM,
Senior I.T. Architect (Austin,
TX)
Oct 2010 – Feb 2014
Responsibilities
·
Responsible
for defining the business drivers and associated system capabilities and
services required for I.T. transformation of enterprise server environments
for server consolidation, including cross-tower dependencies and analysis
with storage, data center consolidation, application migration, platform
consolidation, server refresh, capacity management, etc.
·
Hands-on
knowledge of server consolidation, virtualization (including VMware, XvM,
VirtualBox, LDOM, Zones, LPAR, NPAR) and optimization technologies,
methodologies and application rationalization and local consolidation
techniques.
·
Hands-on
knowledge of Solaris, Linux, AIX, HPUX and Windows operating systems.
·
Responsible
for translating the client’s business requirements into specific system,
application or process designs. This includes working with client personnel
and executives to identify requirements and subsequently working with and
leading others in the identification, justification and design of the
client’s solution.
·
Develop
technical design documents and deliverables.
·
Analyze the
current I.T. environment and define future business and technical
requirements, as well as normalizing or synthesizing through supplied
inventories and data.
Apollo
Consulting, Senior I.T. Architect (IBM, Austin, TX) July 2009 –
Oct 2010
Responsibilities
·
Responsible
for defining the business drivers and associated system capabilities and
services required for I.T. transformation of enterprise server environments
for server consolidation, including cross-tower dependencies and analysis
with storage, data center consolidation, application migration, platform
consolidation, server refresh, capacity management, etc.
·
Hands-on
knowledge of server consolidation, virtualization (including VMware, XvM,
VirtualBox, LDOM, Zones, LPAR, NPAR) and optimization technologies,
methodologies and application rationalization and local consolidation
techniques.
·
Responsible
for translating the client’s business requirements into specific system,
application or process designs. This includes working with client personnel
and executives to identify requirements and subsequently working with and
leading others in the identification, justification and design of the
client’s solution.
·
Develop
technical design documents and deliverables.
·
Analyze the
current I.T. environment and define future business and technical
requirements, as well as normalizing or synthesizing through supplied
inventories and data.
Applied Computer
Solutions, Senior Pre-sales Architect
Sep 2007 – Jun 2009
Responsibilities
·
Provide
pre-sales technical promotion and support for enterprises seeking to employ
computer technologies for their competitive advantage.
·
Develop and
present strategic presentations on existing and emerging Sun Microsystems,
IBM, NetApp, EMC, Hitachi Data Systems, HP, VMWare, CISCO, Juniper, F5 and
Symantec hardware/software/networking technologies.
·
Design,
configure, and deliver systems for the benchmarking and evaluation of
products in competitive sales environments.
·
Evangelize
Sun Microsystems and OpenSolaris technologies beyond the traditional customer
base.
Accomplishments
·
Consistently
deliver strategic wins with my sales executives by providing value and
teaming with both the customer and to the entire sales organization by
understanding the role of technical marketing and continuously improving upon
sales and marketing techniques.
·
Developed and
delivered numerous sales/marketing/technical presentations across the product
lines.
·
Successfully
worked with other team members to secure strategic benchmarking wins in large
scale OLTP, ERP, and Database applications in competitive sales environments.
·
Founded and
managed the Arizona OpenSolaris User Group.
Apollo
Consulting, Senior I.T. Architect (IBM, Oslo, Norway) Jan 2007 –
Jun 2007
Responsibilities
·
Provide
expertise in server consolidation for the Sun Microsystems CMT server line.
·
Developed and
benchmarked existing Sun Microsystems servers for consolidation
considerations.
Accomplishments
·
Conducted
tests on server builds using Sun Microsystem’s JumpStart utility.
·
Work with the
client's architects to consolidate their mail system onto the Sun T1000 and
T2000 server line.
Sapphire
Technologies, Sr UNIX Engineer (VA, Austin, TX) May 2003
– Jan 2007
Responsibilities
·
Provide UNIX
administration support primarily on the Sun Microsystems servers and storage
for the MyHealtheVet and other projects.
·
Integrate
ideas and demonstrate technical leadership in incorporating in the delivery
of new technologies to the IT organization.
Accomplishments
·
Architected,
implemented and maintained a “native LDAP” infrastructure for all of the UNIX
environments.
·
Development,
configuration, and implementation of operating system installations utilizing
JumpStart/Jet software enabling the automation of the upgrade and
installation process for the Solaris environments.
Sprint,
Solutions
Architect
Dec 2002 – May 2003
Responsibilities
·
Provide
pre-sales technical promotion and support for enterprises seeking to employ
computer technologies for their competitive advantage.
·
Design,
configure, and deliver systems for the benchmarking and evaluation of
products in competitive sales environments.
Accomplishments
·
Successfully
architect hosted solutions for various customers utilizing the latest
products and services.
SATS
Technology, Product Line Support Manager/Engineer Feb 2002 – Jul
2002
Responsibilities
·
Provide tier
3 level technical support for enterprises seeking assistance with issues
related to the Sun Microsystems Solaris Operating Environment.
·
Managed a
group of other tier 3 level engineers to support enterprises with issues
related to the Sun Microsystems Solaris Operating Environment.
Accomplishments
·
Designed and
managed the Sun Microsystems product line support group for SATS.
·
Consulted
with senior management and sales executives to successfully win opportunities
for the company.
Sun
Microsystems, Senior Professional Services
Engineer Jan 2001 – Feb 2002
Responsibilities
·
Provide a
variety of tasks based on the current project from Senior Engineer to
Technical Team Lead.
·
Provide
installation and configuration of Sun Microsystems hardware and software
solutions.
Accomplishments
·
Working
primarily as a troubleshooter to provide satisfactory resolution to customer
issues, ranging from Sun Cluster installations to new server builds.
SandStream
Communications, Internet
Architect
Jan 2000 – Jan 2001
Responsibilities
·
Architect,
test, implement and maintain the infrastructure for the ISP section of the
business for SandStream.
·
Managed I.T.
professionals within the ISP group.
Accomplishments
·
Built up the
ISP business from the ground floor.
·
Successfully
integrated the ISP infrastructure with the Video and Telecommunications
infrastructures across the network backbone.
Other Employers:
o Senior UNIX Administrator,
Consultant
12/1998 – 12/1999
o Computing Information Services, Technical Services
Manager 2/1998 – 12/1998
o TexNet Internet Services,
CEO
6/1996 – 1/1998
o Thomson Consumer Electronics, Sr UNIX Admin
(MX)
7/1992 – 6/1996
o Computing Micro Solutions, UNIX Sales &
Support
11/1989 – 7/1992
o Martin & MacArthur, IT
Specialist
3/1989 – 9/1989
o American 10-Minute Oil Change, IT
Manager
1/1984 – 3/1989
o U.S. Air Force, Supply
Systems
7/1976 – 12/1983
Education:
High
School
1977
University of Phoenix
In-progress
Training/Certification:
·
Sun
Microsystems System Administration
·
Sun
Microsystems Advanced System Administration
·
Sun
Microsystems Network Administration
·
Sun
Microsystems SunNet Manager
·
Sun
Microsystems Shell Scripting
·
Sun
Microsystems StorEdge Volume Manager
·
Sun
Microsystems Cluster 2.2 & 3.0
·
Sun
Microsystems Server Performance
·
Sun
Microsystems Sun Fire System Administration
·
Sun
Microsystems E10k System Administration
·
Sun
Microsystems E15k System Administration
·
Sun
Microsystems Solaris 10 System Administration
·
SunTAN
Training
o
Compliance
and Sarbanes-Oxley
o
IT General
Controls Tester Training
o
SOX at Sun –
An Overview of Sarbanes-Oxley
o
Consolidating
Data Centers
o
Web Tier
Consolidation Solution
o
Enterprise
System Products
o
Sun Fire
Midrange Server Architecture
o
Identity
Management Essentials
o
Identity
Management Sales Essentials
o
Identity
Management Technical Essentials
o
Identity
Management Services
o
Engineering
Enterprise Roles for Sun Java System Identity Management
o
Federated
Identity Overview
o
Introducing
Sun Java System Identity Manager Service Provider Edition
o
Sun Java
System Identity Management Project Leadership and Planning
o
Sun Java
System Identity Manager 6.0 New Features and Functionality
o
Sun Java
System Identity Manager: Best Practices for Coding Design
o
Premier
Certification
o
Advanced
Solaris Administration for Solaris 9
o
Capacity
Planning and Sizing for Sun Platforms
o
Sun Fire
Midrange Server Architecture
o
Solaris 10
Operating System
o
Intermediate
System Administration
o
Advanced
System Administration
o
Sun Secure
Global Desktop Software
o
Sun Secure
Global Desktop Software 4.2: Config and Admin
o
Sun Vision
and Technology
o
UNIX
Essentials Featuring Solaris 10
o
Sun J4X00
Array
o
Sun Storage
7000 Data Migration
o
iPlanet
Messaging Server: Analysis and Planning
o
iPlanet LDAP
Server: Analysis and Planning
·
Microsoft LAN
Manager, NT Server, Proxy Server, Exchange Server
·
IBM Training
o 12/27/10 –
The IT Architect: An Introduction
o
12/27/10 –
Enterprise Architecture Solution Overview
o
12/01/10 – Infrastructure
Services Architecture and Design (3/05)
o
12/14/11 –
Presenting Your Case (EDE016)
o
12/15/11 –
Project Management Orientation (PM54G)
o
12/16/11 --
IT Optimization Framework (0PXX)
o
12/16/11 -- A
Practical Technical Architecture for Service Oriented Applications (1DWK)
o
12/16/11 --
ARC-240 - Connecting Architecture Models (1EQI)
o
1/30/2012 --
Practical Guidance for IBM Unified Method Framework (BLG0464)
o
1/30/2012 –
Core Consulting: Global Blue Consulting (BLG0214)
o
2/22/2012 –
IBM Unified Method Framework for TI Professionals (TIWSBX)
o
2/22/2012 –
Coaching Simulator (SGC30166)
o
2/22/2012 –
Introduction to Organizational Change Management (OCM10000)
o
2/22/2012 –
How to Interview Stakeholders (OCM21000)
o
2/22/2012 –
How to lead Change (OCM24000)
o
2/23/2012 –
How to manage resistance to Change (OCM22000)
o
2/23/2012 –
How to identify change impact (OCM23000)
o
2/23/2012 –
Negotiation Essentials – Communicating (COMM2403)
o
2/23/2012 –
Negotiation Essentials – Avoiding pitfalls in negotiations (COMM2405)
o
2/24/2012 –
The Process of Negotiation (COMM0803)
o
3/24/2012 –
The Coaching Skillset (MGMT0904)
o
3/28/2012 –
Writing High Impact Reports and Proposals (EDUK0033)
o
3/29/2012 --
Business Architecture Fundamentals (KL01316G)
o
4/1/2012 –
Financial Management for Project Managers (PM63G)
o
4/2/2012 --
Using Team Solution Design (00144106)
o
4/3/2012 --
Cross-functional Strategic Management (MGMT2302)
o
4/3/2012 --
Transitioning from Technical Professional to Management (MGMT1901)
o
4/4/2012 –
Communication Skills and Project Management (OPER0405)
o
4/11/2012 –
How You Can Improve Customer Satisfaction (CUSTSAT1)
o
5/8/2012 --
Customer Advocacy: Enhancing the Customer Experience (00610318)
o
5/9/2012 –
What Is Systems Thinking? (STGY0401)
o
5/10/2012 –
IBM PureFlex System Overview (April 2012)
o
5/10/2012 --
IBM PureSystems: STG Positioning (April 2012)
o
5/10/2012 --
IBM PureSystems Mastery Exam for STG Sellers
o
5/10/2012 –
IBM PureApplication and PureFlex System Selling Scenarios – Accelerate Cloud
(April 2012)
o
5/14/2012 –
Completed Managing Project Estimating Case Study (PM54G) with Certified
Architect Albert (Jerry) Rollins.
o
7/9/2012 –
Leadership Communication Skills (COMM0205)
o
3/21/2013 --
Introducing Cloud Computing (00552650)
o
3/28/2013 --
Moving Business Services into the Cloud (00560215)
o
3/28/2013 --
Introduction to Architectural Thinking (00556897)
o
4/25/2013 –
Architectural Thinking (SIMT2G)
o
5/8/2013 –
Digital IBMer, Responsible Secure Computing (CIODIG13)
·
BEA Weblogic
Server 8.1: System Administration
·
ITIL V3
·
AWS Technical
Partner Accreditation
Professional Associations:
·
Founder &
Manager, Arizona OpenSolaris User Group
·
Member,
Arizona Technology Council
Personal Accomplishments:
·
Author of “The
Sun Geek’s Guide to Native LDAP”, published in 2002.
·
Started,
developed and managed www.SunGuru.com
· Boy Scout Troop Leader and Council Member