Brad Ralph

Experience

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  Lonepine Electronics Pty Ltd

  Feb 1989 - Mar 1996

  Electronic Technician

  Break/Fix servicing and supply of industrial electronics control systems (both computer based and analogue systems). Small amount of computer and network support to customers. Sales and service of industrial instrumentation including infra-red spectrophotometers and nuclear thickness gauges.

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  Self Employed

  Apr 1996 - Oct 1998

  Freelance Technician

  Break / fix support to a number of companies in the manufacturing industries. Sales and support of computers, networks and Internet connectivity. Telephone support on equipment sold. Networking installation and support using NetWare 4.x, Windows 95, Windows NT and LANtastic v4.x – v7.x Demonstrating the operation of common office applications and how they interact in a network environment. Connection of customers to the Internet using third party ISP's

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  IBM

  Nov 1998 - Aug 1999

  Helpware Lead Product Specialist

  Working in the Consumer Products Division Call Center, I provided telephone based after sales technical support to IBM consumer and small business customers on a range of equipment, including consumer PC’s, scanners, notebook PC’s and PDA’s I provided solutions to technical escalations from level 1 call takers. I also provide technical support during any complaints resolution processes, including hardware and software repairs to computers shipped to IBM. Perform software reloads of IBM notebooks that were shipped to the Mobile's repair center. Provide technical interviews to prospective level 1 call takers. Show less

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  Jaycar Electronics

  Dec 1999 - Jun 2003

  IT Manager

  Jaycar Electronics is a chain of approx 50 retail electronics stores. As a one person IT deptartment, I was responsible for supporting the POS and Inventory control systems in the warehosue and all retail stores. The included phone based remote support and all hardware maintenance. Key responsibilities and projects: * Migration and upgrade of Unison ERP system from SCO Openserver to Red Hat Enterprise Linux for all 50 sites. * Creating an Intranet based sales reporting system using Apache / PHP programming on Linux and also a data warehouse using Crystal Enterprise and MS SQL Server on Windows 2000 Server. Installation and maintenance of the companies MS Exchange 2000 server * Provide on-site IT instalation services as new stores opened and closed in 4 time zones (NZ, NSW/QLD/VIC, S.A., W.A). * Create maintenance scripts using TCL / Expect to support the VPN and Informix-4GL scripting to support the Linux based Point-Of-Sale system * Provide IT support to a 3200sq/m warehouse, including installation of bar code tracking systems, parcel dispatch tracking and daily store re-stocking. * Assist the Marketing staff with creating and managing the database / revision systems for advertising copy using Microsoft Access and Microsoft Visual Basic V6.0. * Support the administration staff with their use of Microsoft Office programs. Show less

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  Adelong Computers Pty Ltd

  Aug 2003 - Oct 2004

  Store Manager, Service & Support Technician

  Adelong is a small retail computer business that has one store in York St in Sydney. During my time there I was responsible for the everyday running of the store. This included resolution of customer complaints, level 2 technical queries and the creation of marketing material to promote Adelong's products. I was also responsible for providing quotations to Adelong's business customers for advanced server and network hardware.

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  Self Employed

  Nov 2004 - Jul 2007

  Freelance Computer Technician

  Providing on-site technical support and application design and development to clients in a diverse range of industries. Some of the services provided include: * Support for common office applications (MS Word, Excel, Outlook) * Install and manage small office servers using the CentOS Linux and Microsoft Windows Server operating systems. * Customise SugarCRM to model a complex workflow for an online morgage lending broker. Integrate it to the Asterisk VoIP PABX so that call management and tracking was integrated into the case history * Built a 'simple to use' POS system using Python and the QT GUI toolkit running on Linux for a small retail store Show less

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  OXFORD SHOP PTY LTD

  Aug 2007 - Jul 2011

  Information Technology System Administrator

  As systems administrator I was responsible for the smooth running of all IT systems including the inventory and Linux based POS systems linking all 45 stores.Key Responsibilities included:* Managing upgrades of the core POS software from Red Hat Linux 8 to Centos 4 across PC fleet. * Phone support of retail POS hardware. (bar code scanners, EFTPOS machines and cash drawers, receipt printers). * Installation and maintenance of in-store computer video surveillance systems. * VoIP phone system installation, configuration and ongoing technical support. Key Achievements:* I built the software system that is used for direct marketing to Oxford's membership loyalty program using Python/Django that was sending over 4 million SMS and emails annually. * Developed a custom sales reporting platform using Python/Django to measure store KPI's * I developed an online catalogue for the Oxford product range. Show less

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  Self-employed

  Aug 2011 - Apr 2022

  Freelance IT Consultant

  Providing end to end support to clients in a diverse range of industries. This ranges from advice and recommendations, build and deployment through to service and support.Including phone based and on-site technical support plus a limited amount of contracted fixed term projects. Some of the services provided are: * Hardware sales, repairs and upgrades for IBM PC and Apple Mac computers. * Installation and troubleshooting of Windows, Apple and Linux operating systems. * Support for common office applications (MS Word, Excel, Outlook) * Install and manage small office servers using the CentOS Linux and Microsoft Windows Server operating systems. * File sharing: Samba, NFS, Windows Server * Email: Postfix, Cyrus-IMAP, Dovecot, RoundCube Webmail, Kolab, Microsoft Exchange * Web: Apache, Nginx * Database: PostgreSQL, MySQL, Informix, SQLite * Other services: ISC DHCP, BIND DNS, openSSH, NTP, Polipo, Squid, OpenVPN * Web App development and hosting: Adobe Business Catalyst / Wordpress / Django* Cloud Email hosting and data backup services. * Configuration and support of VPS servers and AWS EC2 instances.* Network monitoring and configuration management (DevOps): Zabbix Show less

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  Anchor

  Jul 2018 - Jun 2021

  Cloud specialist in the Anchor Systems support team- Helping clients understand their hosting environments and actioning change requests using DevOps methodologies- Incident response, analysis and remediation - Ensuring the operational excellence of customer’s hosting environments Cloud specialist in the Anchor Systems support team- Helping clients understand their hosting environments and actioning change requests using DevOps methodologies- Incident response, analysis and remediation - Ensuring the operational excellence of customer’s hosting environments

  • Anchor & Cloud Support Team Lead

    Dec 2020 - Jun 2021

  • System Administrator

    Jul 2018 - Mar 2021
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  Anchor

  Apr 2022 - Jul 2023

  System Administrator II

  Senior System Administrator with the Anchor Systems support team- Helping clients understand and manage their AWS environments- Employ Devops methodologies to maintain and upgrade systems- Incident response, analysis and remediation - Ensuring the operational excellence of customer’s hosting environments