Work Experiences

Senior Systems and Virtualization Engineer/VMware Consultant   (Sarv Hami Co.  / September 2015 – Present)

Sarv co is a “Cloud Computing” IaaS provider delivering Cloud and enterprise data centers with +20 years’ of experience in providing highest quality technical support services possible to IT sectors specifically Iran Banks. 

► Charged with the responsibility to provide architect, design, perform, maintain and troubleshoot virtualization infrastructure based on the latest VMware technologies, EMC storage, and cloud-based solutions. Also, provide continuing maintenance of IaaS project, handling problems, proactive monitoring, supervising and briefing technical team on targets.

  • Appointed team leader for VMware virtualization project at the customer site, supervised and led a team of 9, set team goals, mainly responsible for designing, implementing and administering VMware environment that includes vSphere products, VCSA, SRM, vROps, Log Insight. Also co-responsible to ensure high availability, scalability and troubleshoot VMware infrastructure for high performance, meet the business SLA 99.97%  uptime and provided support 24*7*365.
  • Designed, performed and managed VMware infrastructure based on vSphere5.5 from the ground up, configured features including vMSC clusters, VDL on VPLEX, VCSA, Heartbeat, HA Clustering, vMotion, DRS, dvSwitch, vApp, hardening infrastructure and troubleshooting issues.
  • Involved in implementing Active-Active sites utilizing VPLEX metro cluster between two locations. Also designed, developed and performed DR/BC solution for migrating +1K VMs hosted on 50+ HP servers by SRM, EMC RecoverPoint and RP4VM, and testing the failover of the sites.
  • Designed, Performed structured upgrades to virtualization and storage platform. Implemented and administered virtual infrastructure upgrade including vSphere 5.5 to 6, 6.5 and other services.
  • Designed, performed performance monitoring, configured and used VMware vROps, Log Insight, OPManager, EMC ESA, RVtools, Central Unisphere, to detect and resolve infrastructure issues.
  • Supervising backup strategy and related activities on Veeam backup 9.x, made monthly reports.
  • Assisted with monthly reports, offered recommendations (optimization, tuning, capacity planning), developed the solution, respond and resolved critical service outages severely impacting customers.

Key achievement: take over leadership of a “Bank Data Center virtualization infrastructure” – Successfully designed and delivered virtualization solution, provided maintenance service and optimized system availability (99.97% uptime). To increase high availability and ensure business continuity, established VPLEX storage architecture and implemented transfer all VMs from HP EVA 8400 to EMC 7600. Designed and 80% of migrations were successfully performed between VMware data centers by SRM and EMC RPA. Also, bringing new SDDC approach to Bank data centers, demos and administered VMware technologies including vRealize Suite, NSX, SRM, consolidated monitoring tools. Performed EMC RP4VM, planned upgrade infrastructure to vSphere 6.5 and deliver the major release to stack holders on time and under budget were done.

Senior Windows/VMware Systems Engineer/Infrastructure Architect   (Kian Rayaneh IT Co.  / March 2009-September 2015)

Kian Co. – an IT company and IT education center, especially focused on designing and providing Microsoft technologies, storage and virtualization solutions to many customers, and involved in training for IT engineers.

► Directed IT teams in designing, implementing, managing and enhancing key technologies to customers. Mainly responsible for preforming Microsoft and VMware solution, also led projects while ensuring they met strategic business requirements, was completed on time within budget constraints.

  • Installed, administered Microsoft infrastructure, and provided technical expertise on the design, implementation and troubleshooting Microsoft services based on Windows Server 2008R2, 2012R2 including Active Directory, Hyper-V, WSUS, SCOM, SCCM, IIS, Exchange, and secure them.
  • Performed multiple virtualization solutions, implemented and administered VMware vSphere infrastructure including ESXi, vCenter, HA clusters, FT, iSCSI storage, vMotion and so on, Also, directly responsible for development and support of VMware vSphere infrastructure 5x.
  • Planned and implemented several upgrades to the Active directory and its services. Also, performed VMware vSphere infrastructure and convert physical to virtual services by P2V tools.
  • Implemented, monitored, secured and optimized virtual infrastructure through proactively monitoring, capacity management by vCOs, hardening VMs by best practices, and analyzing logs.
  • Involved in running and configuring virtual desktop infrastructure and vApp in VMware View 4.6.
  • Implemented OwnCloud tools for 7000 users based on Linux, and configured Ubuntu as a server.
  • Supervised activities of the technical team, technical training, influenced IT strategic vision. 

Key achievement: Led technical team, designed and implemented VMware clustering, virtualizing over 90% of workloads and improved customer service satisfaction 20% annually. Provided expert consultation based on vSphere and Hyper-v technologies for customers. Successfully managed and supported Windows Server, Active Directory, WSUS, DHCP, and 100% issue-resolution scores by consolidated excellent monitoring systems, including SCCM, SCOM, GFI, improving communication, performance and troubleshooting rate by 10%.

Network administrator and Systems Engineer   (Sabzevar Electricity Company / October 2004-March 2009)    

Sabzevar Electricity Company, a branch of the Electricity Distribution Company in Khorasan province, is a state-run organization executed for providing electricity for the home, industrial and commercial customers.

► Distinguished as a systems engineer, fulfill key responsibilities encompassing implementing and maintaining IT infrastructure including server hardware, Microsoft domain services, backups, email, firewall, MIS systems, and network service administration.

  • Implemented, administered, and maintained directory service, and performed successfully Active Directory migration from 2003 to 2008. Utilized scripts and policies to automate network tasks.
  • Provided configuration and maintenance of Microsoft network services including DNS, DHCP, WSUS, FTP, IIS, WDS, SQL, VPN, Terminal service, and setting up Exchange as a mail server.
  • Identified security needs based on business, enhanced systems security by performing Firewall, TMG, Antivirus, GFI, vulnerability scanners, reached 100% up-to-date systems by WSUS server.
  • Established monitoring solution utilizing SCOM, Solarwinds, and actively audit and monitor server’s uptime, resolved conflicts, resulting in a 10% decrease in downtime monthly. Improved documentation and provided periodical services for maintaining HP and Cisco equipments.
  • Worked on installing, delivering and supporting required software, including MIS system, Oracle 10G, Automation, Billing, financial apps, Company-developed apps and DOS-based software.

Key achievement: Awarded bonus and commended by supervisor: “Servers upgrade project greatly contributed to performing successful Active directory upgrade into Server 2008 in multiple sites remotely”. Identified and corrected network conflicts resulting in a 200% increase in network speed. Drove a 30% decrease in IIS downtime by configuring IIS load balancing. 

Windows system administrator   (Parastoo Agro-Industrial Complex / September 2002-September2004)

Holding HACCP and ISO 9001 Certificates, Parastoo is one of the most prosperous private companies in agriculture and poultry in Iran, especially focused packaging and selling food products.

► Installed, configured and maintained Windows systems including servers and clients, upgrades, administered Active Directory, developed regular system backups and provided technical support.

  • Installed, configured and administered Microsoft Active Directory based on Windows Server 2000. Plus, managed Windows services such as DHCP, DNS, FTP, IIS, and remote management.
  • Installed and configured DOS, Foxpro DB and Dos-based application along with performed daily backup procedure, identified issues, diagnosed and made the weekly report to IT dept.
  • Resolved system issues related to Windows, SQL2000, Automation, Office, NC, and virus isolation, through reconfiguration, integration and offered Helpdesk support to fix all users issues.

Key achievement: Significantly migrated LAN infrastructure from Novell to Microsoft Active Directory, which enhanced system management and performance. Automated daily backup tasks by scripting.

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Projects 

Bank Data Centers (September 2015-Present)    

Implemented, administered and maintained Bank virtualization infrastructure and provide support for VPLEX architecture. Also, designed, developed DR/BC solution and performed SRM, EMC Recoverpoint, RP4VM, along with proactively monitoring and analyzing issues utilizing vROps and Log Insight. Furthermore, performed hardening and securing VMware infrastructure according to best practices.

Hakim-e-Sabzevari University (September 2013 utill March 2014) | Consultant, Virtualization expert

Designed, built and managed virtual infrastructure and implemented Active Directory for IT department. Applied VDI infrastructure, Server virtualization, and storage, OwnCloud file service for 7000 users. Also, redevelop effectively Active Directory by the implementation of SCCM, SCOM, Exchange, and Hyper-v.

Payam-e-Noor University (October 2014 until December 2014)   

Performed Active Directory based on Server 2012 R2, administered GPO Policies, Implemented VMware vSphere, providing auditing, monitoring solution, Xen App, and optimized network services.

Oil referring Company-Sabzevar branch (September 2012 utill March 2013)

Consulted, designed and provide implementation virtualization infrastructure, HA clustering, EMC replication and DR solution based on SRM. Performed backup solution and optimized Active directory.

Fire Department (November 2011 until November 2011)

Installed and configured Active Directory infrastructure, TMG, Exchange, IIS, VPN in multiple locations.

Works and Publications

  • Koushki Omid (2018), Compiling and writing “VMware SRM to perform DR solution”, in progress
  • Reconditioned for contributions to the VMware virtualization community, VMware vExpert 2018
  • Attended in VMware vSphere course: Install, Configure, Manager [v6] and certified on VCP exam
  • Taking the Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) course offered via mylearn portal
  • Attended in VMworld 2016 conference held in Europe-Barcelona (17-20 October 2016)
  • Presented, lectured SDN concept at SDDC seminar, Sarv Co, Tehran 2016 (NSX functional services)
  • Koushki Omid (2014), Applied Reference of Virtualization of VMware vSphere 5.5 book [in Persian], Pendar-e-Pars Publications, ISBN: 978-600-6529-58-5
  • Published articles in my Persian blog at blog.koushki.net, particularly focused on MCSE, virtualization and cloud technologies to share my gained expertise and offered new technologies.
  • Member of Microsoft-authorized writer for Persian Blog at Microsoft Wiki. Written eagerly articles in http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/26766.fa-ir.aspx
  • Selected in top Persian contributors on TechNet Wiki of Microsoft, at http://blogs.technet.com/b/wikininjas/archive/2013/11/08/top-persian-farsi-contributors-on-technet-wiki.aspx
  • Developed IT community forum available at www.4admins.org  with more than 25000 members
  • Presented as a speaker in Startup Weekend competitions at Hakim-e-Sabzevari University, Sabzevar 2013. The topic of the presentation was “Cloud Networks and the future world”.
  • Lectured on “Security and vulnerabilities scanning”, Payam-e-Noor University, Sabzevar 2012.
  • Presented a webinar “Introducing Microsoft certification-MCITP”, 2009, at www.ciscoinpersian.com.