Address: 225 Blackberry Lane Four Oaks Sutton Coldfield B74 4JR

Gary Asson

Address: 225 Blackberry Lane Four Oaks Sutton Coldfield B74 4JR

Telephone: 0121 353 4617, 07966 458416

Email:

Nationality: British

Personal Qualities

Team work and leadership, Problem determination skills, attention to detail, management of suppliers and stake-holders, willingness to learn, comfortable with change, appreciation of risk and risk mitigation, sound communication skills including giving presentations, sound budgetary knowledge. Project Management skills, strong technical aptitude across a broad range of UNIX and other technologies - 27 years total IT experience

I have a thorough understanding of various UNIX, LINUX and Windows operating systems, and their associated communications, mainlyin highly available environments. I have hands-on management experience ofUNIX/AIX based systems and projects, throughout their life cycle from initial customer request, confirmation of need/requirement through development to test, deployment and administration/ management. Ensuring budgetary constraints are met.

Key Skills

Skill / Experience (Years)
UNIX / 27
Networking, TCP/IP, X25, SNA, X400, etc / 10
Windows / 15
AIX 1.n – 6.n / 22
LINUX / 5
RedHat Linux / 3
SuSE Linux / 1
Ubuntu / 2
Unix Sun Solaris / 2
Unix – HP – UX / 2
Apache / 3
HTTPD / 2
MQ series / 3
SSL / 2
WebSphere / 3
Windows (XP,NT,2000 etc) / 10
Perl / 3
Shell (Bash, Korn, C, POSIX, Awk, Sed, etc) / 20
HACMP / 8
Project Management / 6
Team Leadership/Mentoring / 10
System Administration/ Management / 20
Application Development and Test / 5
Web Development CGI, Perl,HTML / 5
Reverse Proxy, SSL / 2
Oracle / 2
Security / 20
SQL database access / 4
Informix / 3
Documentation / 20
System and Application Test / 5
Customer/Stakeholder Management / 4
Deployment of C, Java, and WebSphere / 3
Firewalls / 1
LPAR, DLPAR and Micro partition / 3
SAN / 1
Change management systems, ClearCase / 1
SVC / 0.5
HitachiHiCommand / 0.5
Remote support / 18
VIO, NPIV, VLAN Tagging etc / 3
Security Cleared (SC level) / 4

Employment History

December 7th 2009 – PresentFujitsu Services (DVLA security cleared SC)

(Contract: Asson Computer Services Limited)

Consultant

Installation and configuration of several pSeries Power6 570’s with dual VIO servers, SEA etherchannel, NPIV, AIX 6.1, HMC v7 etc. LPAR and VIO hardening. Migration and update of servers using nim, including update to support MPIO. Writing and quality reviews of all documentation (High Level Designs, Low Level Designs, Operational support guides/manuals, Build guides, etc)

November – Impact-ac

Installation and configuration of a pSeries Power6 550, IBM DS5020 with 5 expansion draws SAN. Dual VIO servers, AIX 6.1 LUNS. Utilising NIM, Shared Ethernet Adapters (SEA) and Multi Path Input output (MPIO)

October 4 day contract – Fruit of the loom

(Contract: Asson Computer Services Limited)

Installation and development of a secure Apache virtualised Reverse Proxy on RedHat Enterprise, for Oracle E-Business suite 11i.

January 2009 – JulyIBM LITS project

(Contract: Asson Computer Services Limited)

Primary role Infrastructure Developer Secondary role Infrastructure Tester. Investigation of Infrastructure and application (AIX, database, LITS application etc) anomalies, and development of solutions into Licensed program products (LPP’s) using all standard system scripting utilities Shell (ksh) perl, awk, sed etc. Design and development of test procedures. Documentation of development process under ClearCase configuration management and version control. Build and test of IBM pSeries architecture systems, Stand alone, LPAR, DLPAR, Micro partitions, VIO (Virtualised), NIM, SAN etc.

August 2008 – October 2008Barclay Bank

(Contract: Asson Computer Services Limited)

Consultant Storage Deployment and design

This is a cross training assignment, passing on Unix/ AIX skills, gaining SAN storage and infrastructure. In a short period of time, I gainedconsiderable exposure to SAN Storage architectures, Infrastructure and fabric in a large banking environment. Configuring fabric and deploying storage to local and remote sites. This also included some scripting utilising shell, perl, awk, and sed etc. The technologies used were Hitachi, EMC, Brocade, SVC,TPC, HiCommand, EFCM etc. In a Wintel/ Unix AIX environment. Using pSeries 5 and 6 servers, LPARS, DLPARS, VIO and Workloads.

October 2005 – July 2008Fujitsu Services (DVLA security cleared SC)

(Contract: Asson Computer Services Limited)

Consultant

This was a wide remit that has required me to gain Security Clearance to SC level, it includes the architectural role of Creating Low Level Design form High Level Designs, including presentation of solution to all stake holders, writing Operational Acceptance Tests, Testing, and Operational Service Acceptance Plans/ documents. Installation of p5 and p6 pSeries (inc 590 ) LPAR/ DLPAR systems with HACMP clustering, SAN, using HMC and NIM. Management of technical projects throughout the Project life cycle (Development and test through to deployment and administration in the production environment). Development of scripted solutions using Shell (ksh), perl, awk etc to perform automate manual system processes.Management of customer and other stake holders, Ensuring budgetary controls were maintained, Problem determination of customer production systems, including making recommendations for preventative maintenance and scheduling. Design, configuration and deployment of WebShere application servers, and Reverse Proxy servers. Proof of concept including tracing of network paths (TCP/IP) and data using standard AIX monitoring tools. Deployment of finished solutions, including backup and restore and full documentation, System Hardening/ Security to Government standards. Development of Highly available applications (HACMP) by production of scripts etc to start, stop and automatically failover all server applications.Installation of NIM environment for Shared services systems, including delivery and test. Testing of automated application start/ stop and failover.Compliance to change management. Migration of legacy systems, including all applications. Training/ mentoring of Graduate and second line support staff. Documenting changes in AIX 6.1, Presentation of changes, and suggested upgrade paths. Installation and upgrade of the primary test system from AIX 5.3 to AIX 6.1 using NIM.

November 2004 – September 2005BMW Motorgen

(Contract: Asson Computer Services Limited)

Consultant

Proposal and costing of the migration of PSSP systems (AIX 4.3) to pSeries (AIX 5.2/ 5.3) HMC controlled clusters, ensuring budgetary controls were maintained. Migration of all systems to HACMP, ensuring all stakeholders bought in, by giving presentations of the proposals, and possible consequences of not following this strategy. Automation of NIM backup. Configuration of scheduled maintenance.

Preparation of all AIX/ Unix servers for handover to central administration in Munich. This includes documentation, liaison with all stake holders, ensuring conformity to new standards and conformance to budgetary constraints.

Specification and preparation for SAN and backup tape libraries.

Specification of Storage On demand and backup servers.

Installation and build of Linux servers.

Security review, including moving all servers to Secure shell (ssh). Web enablement of system monitors and reports.

System administration and team mentoring.

Performance monitoring and tuning. Problem determination, Disaster recovery. Scripting/ programming of system monitors, reports and self healing monitors for all Unix systems and Oracle databases, including writing SQL applications (AIX, SUN, Linux and HMC ) in Shell (ksh, csh, bash etc) and Perl. Installation and administration of Websphere application server and MQ series.

September – October 2004Standard Chartered bank

(Contract: Asson Computer Services Limited)

Consultant

Creation of manual fail over system for 2 pSeries 650’s AIX systems utilising HACMP methodologies, with the service being booted from SAN. The systems are geographically separated using WAN and VPN technologies. Writing of shell scripts, network switching etc. Configuration of both servers as Tivoli Storage Management clients, and automated their backup.

Installation and configuration of the Globus banking system and associated software, Oracle, MQ series etc

Creation of full installation document.

July 2004 – SeptemberIBM UK limited

(Contract: Asson Computer Services Limited)

Consultant

Department of Works and Pensions project. System build including DB2 automation and Code deployment using Rational ClearCase. Automation of deployment using shell and Perl scripts. Performance evaluation and system administration on all Unix/ AIX systems ranging for F40 to pSeries 690.

November 2000 – June 2004Softlab BMW

(Contract: Asson Computer Services Limited)

Consultant

System management of HACMP’d PSSP, S80 and pSeries AIX farm, using HACMP and AIX4.3 – 5.2 on BMW’s mission and production critical Unix SAP and bespoke systems using Veritas NetBackup to Storage tech tape library systems controlled by Sun systems.

Skill transfer/ mentoring of staff in all aspects of systems administration/ management, Team leadership, Project planning/ management and implementation as well as team build have been a large part of this contract.

Identification, Justification and specification of upgrade of hardware from PSSP to pSeries using HMC for system managment. In this project I installed the hardware including HMC and project managed the initial Migration of the S80 SAP HACMP’d systems, developing and tested the HACMP installations and documented all stages for the team. In the second phase which was moving some of the bespoke production applications, I mentored and monitored BMW’s own team in their successful projects.

I also designed and developed a web based reporting, monitoring and knowledge based system using HTML, shell, awk, tivoli and C scripting/ programming. This system now monitors all Unix and some server systems at BMW plant Hams Hall, by interface with the Tivoli reporting system, it controls out of hours call out of the infrastructure team, and acts as a general knowledge base.

In addition to the above I have been responsible for developing procedures for preventative maintenance and level tracking, Implementing and automating NIM backup and recovery procedures, Performance monitoring and tuning, Problem determination, Disaster recovery, Capacity planning, System security including intruder detection/ tracking, Rationalisation of SSA local and fibre attached storage, as well as general procedures. I was also tasked with an Investigation into feasibility of introducing HAGEO and GeoRM.

Preceding the purchase of the pSeries 615 and 630 systems I was tasked with documenting the LPAR system, and partitioning their 630 for the AIX portion of the team.

April – November 2000ntl

(Contract: Asson Computer Services Limited)

System Administrator and Project manager

Day to day duties included monitoring and administering 7 RS6000 SP2 AIX systems including an S80, 2 of which are in a HACMP environment. Management of the disaster recovery environment, including backup using the Veritas NetBackup program to tape silos. Plus management of approximately 20 standalone RS6000’s of varying types.

My duties also include (In conduction with the Solaris specialist) monitor and administration of several SUN systems utilising the Veritas volume manager and file system manager software.

Both SUN and AIX systems are based around the Oracle environment.

I was on 24hour call for 50% of the time, and am therefore expected to have a good overall knowledge of all systems and applications.

Skill transfer to a fairly new administration team formed part of this contract, as did identification and implementation of security systems for both data and system integrity. I defined and implemented several projects, including documentation of and writing a trouble-shooting guide for the SP WAN. I also Project managed phase one of the move of 2 live mission critical SP2 systems from a remote site. This included backup, fail- over to DR, decommission, and supervision to transport.

Jan 2000- April 2000Equant Application services.

(Contract: Asson Computer Services Limited)

IT Consultant

Duties include Configuration and monitoring of 5 Apache web servers, running on IBM AIX RS6000 systems. Specification and development of shell programs that monitor and report system abnormalities, Specification and development of reporting systems, shell script based, that utilise a custom built Operators interface, and e-mail systems. Specification and development of automated take-over systems. Configuration and automated monitoring of the Apache web servers. System security, etc.

May 1998 -November 1999IBM Global Services Internal SAP Account

(Contract: Asson Computer Services Limited)

Infrastructure Team Leader/ Project manager

Trainee SAP Basis Administrator

IBM considered my AIX RS6000 PSSP System Administration skills to be at a level whereby they were prepared to train me to a point where I could administer SAP systems running in the RS6000 PSSP environment. Duties included installation and configuration, of nodes, SAP Basis, networks etc on IBM’s RS6000 AIX SP2 systems, connecting to DB2 databases locally, and on MVS mainframe systems.

Infrastructure Team Leader/ Project manager

I was asked to take on this position for the “IBM Global services internal SAP Accounts”. The systems then stood at 5 SP’s ranging from 2 Frames and 12 nodes, to the largest which has 10 Frames and 47 nodes. With several AIX HACMP environments. All are interconnected via ATM networks.

My duties include leading a team of 15 people of all skill levels geographically spread across three Sites. Being responsible for the all aspects of Infrastructure including installation and customisation of all nodes, installation of SAP Basis (Using DB2 both locally, and Mainframe server), network configuration modification, including Ethernet Token Ring ATM, ESCON, Switch etc.

I was also responsible for the Project Management, planning, organisation and execution of large projects. Such as, the network realignment affecting some 75 SP nodes, and the quarterly Preventative Maintenance.

This was a highly dynamic system.

I was expected to demonstrate and maintain a high degree of personal skill, spread in order to fulfil my teaching/ personal development duties.

Practical skills used in my day to day environment include, but were not limited to Problem Determination of all aspects of the environment, AIX, PSSP, inc Kerberos, ADSM, Networking, Shell Scripting, MQSeries, General system development etc.

I was also Product lead for AIX and SP.

November 1997 - May 1998Transax

(Contract: Asson Computer Services Limited)

System Administrator

Knowledge transfer of AIX system administration/ Trouble shooting. In-depth performance monitoring and tuning of 12 RS6000’s in 2 SP frames including Control work stations, networks and frames in the Oracle environment. Appraisal, recommendation and implementations of RS6000 and SP security. Capacity planning. Disaster recovery, Shell programming, including kerberos, sysctl and Oracle etc.

Initial 3 month contract extended to 6 months.

1997 June - NovemberUnigate Plc

(Contract: Asson Computer Services Limited)

System Administrator/ Project Manager

Reporting to Technical Projects Manager. Performance monitoring and appraisal of all RS6000 machines including SP’s. Formulation and testing of RS6000 disaster recovery procedures. Investigation and appraisal of all overnight/ cron jobs. Technical management of several new projects. Appraisal/verification of maintenance costs, plus day to day trouble shooting.

1993 - 1997GAB Robins UK Limited.

(Permanent )

Technical Team Leader

Reporting to the Group Computer Manager. Responsible for the organisation, development and day to day running of the 500 user based mission critical computing systems and communications, primarily 3 RS6000’s (J30, 560 and 220). Running Informix On-Line and various bespoke programs plus an X.400 compliant E:mail system. Users being Windows based, and geographically dispersed across the UK and Eire.

The duties included: System Administration/ management AIX RS6000, Informix Database Administration/ Management, Project Management, Constancy. (both Internal and External), Installation and development of the X.400 E:mail system. Development, testing and installation of the users Windows based applications. Development of internal and external E:mail links, Development, implementation, testing and monitoring of Disaster recovery procedures. Selection, training and management of operations staff. System security. Shell programming. Design, development and programming of Windows users interfaces etc. Management of GAB’s LAN and WAN. Liaison with external support agencies. Development of operations and user procedures libraries and manuals. Development of user guides and training courses. Management of consumables. Replacement systems specification. General project management. (Inc upgrade of an RS6000 560 to a J30). Management of X.25 link. Etc.

Others Information available on request

Education

The Open University.

Post Graduate certificates:

Relational Database Management Systems

Project Management

Software Engineering

Computer Architectures and Operating Systems.

1985 - 1986City of Birmingham Polytechnic, Perry Barr, Birmingham. (Day release)

Higher National Diploma in Mechanical / Production Engineering.

1984 - 1985Dudley College of Technology, West Midlands. (full-time )

Computer Programming for Engineers. Higher National Certificate in Computer Aided Engineering.

1980 - 1983City of Birmingham Polytechnic, Perry Barr, Birmingham. (Day release)

Ordinary National Certificate in Mechanical / Production Engineering.

Higher National Certificate Mechanical / Production Engineering.

1975 - 1980Brooklyn Technical College, Great Barr, Birmingham. (Day release )

City & Guilds Engineering Craft Studies, Cert Parts 1, 2 and 3. EITB Mechanical Engineering.

Ordinary National Certificate in Mechanical/ Production Engineering part 2.

Other professional

Security Clearance to SC level.

HACMP 5.1 Migration Workshop/ HACMP 5.1 Update

IBM VAR Training and Authorisation course (Cert No 53).

AIX/6000 V4.1 System Administration.

Informix On-Line DAS System Administration.

Netware v4 System Administration.

Supporting Microsoft Windows N.T. 3.51

Lotus Notes v4 Basics.

Lotus Notes v4 Beyond Basics

Lotus Notes System Administration I.

First aid:

Appointed person

Paediatric First Aid

CRB checked

Other:

BSAC First class diver, Instructor trainer/ examiner. PADI Speciality instructor. CMAS/SAA Regional Instructor, National Diver, CMAS 3 Star Instructor 4 Star Diver. Full Cave Diver, Advanced Trimix, Closed circuit rebreather diver.

References:

Duncan Skilton
Delivery Manager
Infrastructure Services
FUJITSU
2nd Floor, Ffynnon Menter, Phoenix Way, Enterprise Park, Swansea SA7 9HZ
Landline +44 (0)1792 388654
DVLA extension x8654
Mob: +44(0)7867 825874
E-mail: / Kate Severn
Technical Platform Manager
IBM Associate Project Manager
MoD LITS Programme
Mailpoint K3N, Stevenage
Tel: 01926 464689 (Internal 664689)

Mr Mark Forse
Manager IT services