Experience

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  Redi internet service provider

  Oct 2005 - Mar 2009

  Technical support specialist

  Hardware: Purchasing and custom building of rack mountable server systems with technologies like RAID and Redundancy. Purchasing of workstations, peripheral hardware and networking/hosting equipment. ?Software: Installing and configuring server and workstation systems on Windows 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, All Linux Distributions and Solaris platforms. This includes RAID, Backups, Security(IP Tables, Windows Firewalling systems), Mail(Exchange, Sendmail, Postfix), Web(IIS, Apache), DNS(Bind), FTP, Proxy(Squid), Database(MS SQL/My SQL), Active Directory, DHCP and Samba. ?Networking: Maintaining and improving of Internal, Client site and Server Farm's TCP/IP networks on both wired and wireless platforms. ?Hosting: Installing and maintaining of Hosting Racks, power, cooling system and networking. ?Internet: ADSL(Capped, Uncapped), Diginet, ISDN, Dial Up, Wireless(3G, iBurst, Sentech) ?Graphic Design: Designing of company's logos, Letter Heads, Web Graphics etc. (Packages used are Paint Shop Pro, Corel Draw and a number of Animation Packages) ?Web Design: Designing and maintaining of Web sites, Intranet sites, Forums etc. (Packages used are: Macromedia MX, Flash Fireworks etc.) (Languages used are HTML, DHTML, PHP, Java Script, Flash etc.) ?Support, Troubleshooting and Consulting: Liaising with clients on their Desktop Support, Servers, Networks, E-mail, FTP, Websites, Internet connections, etc. ?Consulting: Consulting clients on small LAN's, regarding internet spreading over their networks, Web Hosting, Email hosting, Registering and maintaining of domains and other Internet solution services. Show less

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  Onecell technologies

  Apr 2009 - Nov 2014

  International systems support team leader

  Onecell Technologies takes care of all the IT and electronic development, systems and maintenance for numerous companies under the Onecell Holding umbrella including Cartrack and Onecell Community Payphones. I am heading a team of 4 senior systems engineers which takes care of all the international franchises across 14 countries sharing a total of 60 servers systems. This includes 10 African countries, 3 European countries and Brazil. I travel from time to time to these countries to work abroad but mostly work is done remotely. 4 of the 14 franchises were established and setup from nothing during my time with the company. 95% of all the servers are Linux based. Hardware: Working together with company buyer, to spec, price and purchase numerous, workstation, server and server technologies of all makes and models suitable for the project at hand. A typical example would be server systems, workstations, switches (IP and KVM), routers, firewall, racking solutions, UPS's and generators to setup a new franchise in a foreign county. Software: Installing and configuring server and workstation systems on Windows XP, Vista, 7 All Linux Distributions and Solaris platforms. This includes RAID (Software and Hardware), Backups, Security(IP Tables, Windows Firewalling systems), Mail(Exchange, Sendmail, Postfix), Web(IIS, Apache), DNS(Bind), FTP, Proxy(Squid), Database(MS SQL/My SQL/ PostgreSQL), Active Directory, DHCP and Samba. Working together with software developers to implement, upgrade and maintain company software as well as customise standard Linux distributions in order for company software to work correctly. Networking: Maintaining and improving of all franchises internal and Server Farm's TCP/IP networks on both wired and wireless platforms. Internet: ADSL(Capped, Uncapped), Diginet, ISDN, Dial Up, Wireless. All internet connections to and from the franchises and the VPN connections between them. Web\Graphic Design. Show less

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  Business connexion

  Apr 2012 - Aug 2015

  My company needed a Senior Linux Systems Engineer to support 4 different Openstack private cloud platforms. I relocated from KZN to JHB to join data centre team and for fill these duties. The 4 Openstack platforms are: - Openstack Essex JHB South Africa. Controller and compute nodes are divided between two different data centres. There is roughly about 35 compute nodes and 6 controller nodes in this environment. The kit is IBM and for this particular deployment internal disk is used with IMB?s Netapp block storage. The Openstack Essex technology used here: - Djeep as a PXE boot server - Chef as an auto deployment server - Horizon on Apache for the front end dashboard - Nova Networking - Nova Volume for volume management - Openstack Essex Lagos Nigeria. All controller and compute nodes in one data centre. There is 10 compute nodes and 3 controller nodes in this environment. The kit is Fijitsu kit and for this particular deployment internal disk is used with no block storage. The Openstack Essex technology used here: - Djeep as a PXE boot server - Chef as an auto deployment server - Horizon on Apache for the front end dashboard - Nova Networking - Nova Volume for volume management - Openstack Grizzly Western Cape South Africa. All controller and compute nodes in one data centre. There is a total of 12 nodes on IBM kit. Shared distributed storage is used here instead of internal disk. The Openstack technology used here: - Djeep as a PXE boot server - Chef as an auto deployment server - Horizon on Apache for the front end dashboard - Quantum Networking - Cinder volume management - Chef clustered distributed storage. - Openstack Icehouse Show less I form part and am the team leader the OSSS (Open Systems Support Services) for the Unix environment in the BCX KZN Data Centre. - Hardware: Working together with internal business units, to spec, price and purchase numerous, server and server technologies of all makes and models suitable for the data centre project at hand. A typical example would be server systems such as Sun, HP and IBM solutions. - Software: Installing, configuring and administrating server systems with - Sun Solaris, - HP-UX, - AIX - All Linux Distributions platforms. This includes - Hosts(Solaris), - Containers(Solaris), - LPAR?s (AIX), - NIM?s (AIX), - VIOS (AIX), - HMC?s (AIX), - Citrix Xen Server and VM?s, - RAID (Software and Hardware), - Technologies such as SAN Storage, ZFS, VLAN?s - Backups (Netbackup), - Mail(Sendmail), - Web(Apache, Httpd), - DNS, - FTP/SFTP, - Database(My SQL/ PostgreSQL), - Samba and Network File share technologies. Working together with software developers to implement, upgrade and maintain company software as well as customise standard Linux, Solaris, HP-UX and AIX distributions in order for company software to work correctly. - Support, Troubleshooting and Consulting:Liaising with clients and other business units on their Servers systems and software requirement as well troubleshoot problems specific to the operating systems technologies. - Training and Tutoring: Training and tutoring of junior staff (Technical and Administrative) on Unix Operating system products and services as well troubleshooting tools and skills on both Technical and IT level. Show less

  • Senior Unix Systems Engineer

    Dec 2014 - Aug 2015

  • Senior Unix Systems Engineer

    Apr 2012 - Aug 2015
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  Times media group

  Sept 2015 - now

  Senior system engineer

  My main responsibility at Times Media is to train and share my Linux knowledge and experience with an in-house team of Senior Windows Engineers. I've been given free range to implement and apply new technology and systems to comply with best practices and fall in line with ITIL processes. This includes things like monitoring, automation, housekeeping, HA and DR implementations as well as streamlining backup possesses and optimizing shared SAN storage. Being a media company Times Media host a number of 3rd party editorial systems, most of which is hosted on a stack on Linux servers. All and all we have 100 odd servers both virtual(VMWare) and physical. The main Linux flavours used is Ubuntu, CentOS and RHEL. We are responsible maintain, implement and administer all of the Linux systems and further assist the 3rd party application fenders to implement their software on the stack. Services on these implementations includes: - Apache - Tomcat - Varnish - Disk volume management - Backups (Netbackup), - Mail(Sendmail), - DNS, - FTP/SFTP, - Database with HA and DR(My SQL/ PostgreSQL), - Samba and Network File share technologies. The company also host a team of in-house software developers which I need to assist in implement, upgrade and maintain company software as well as customise standard Linux, distributions in order for company software to work correctly. - Support, Troubleshooting and Consulting:Liaising with other business units on their Servers systems and software requirement as well troubleshoot problems specific to the operating systems technologies. - Training and Tutoring: Training and tutoring of junior and senior staff (Technical and Administrative) on Linux Operating system products and services as well troubleshooting tools and skills on both Technical and IT level Show less