Selected Results
Five examples of how I have led and delivered infrastructure change. Each one covers the situation, the decision, what was delivered and why it mattered to the organization.
Resilient Network Across Carriers, Datacenters and Cloud
Mobile Heartbeat, healthcare SaaS
Situation. The company had grown from a startup on a single small-business internet connection into a healthcare SaaS provider. A single-provider network was a business risk.
Decision. I planned the network in deliberate generations instead of in one large rebuild. Each stage added resilience that the business could fund and support at the time.
Delivered.
- multiple carriers with public BGP
- colocation and a dedicated disaster recovery site
- tested routing failover
- segmented Azure connectivity with Palo Alto firewalls
The next generation adds company-owned public address space, Azure BYOIP and multi-region disaster recovery planning.
Impact. A network that holds up when a single carrier or site fails, and that kept up as the company grew, went through an acquisition and expanded its SaaS business.
From Startup Server Closet to Enterprise Infrastructure
Mobile Heartbeat
Situation. I was given a budget to buy more servers because the company needed more compute.
Decision. I recommended not buying them. The real constraint was the architecture, not compute. The money went into shared storage, licensed virtualization, backup and networking instead.
Delivered. Standalone VMware hosts with local storage became a redundant virtualization platform. Over several stages it grew into a highly available enterprise platform on Cisco UCS, Fibre Channel and all-flash storage.
Impact. Compute, storage and network capability increased dramatically in about the same physical footprint. It also gave the company the foundation for its later growth.
$2.5M Infrastructure Modernization Program
Seneca Nation of Indians, government
Situation. I led a nine-person team supporting about 1,300 users across two campuses, 29 buildings and remote government and healthcare sites. The fiber, network, wireless and phone infrastructure needed to be modernized.
Decision. I built the case for a full modernization program and secured $2.5M in funding. I also tackled day-to-day stability through process improvements and preventive maintenance.
Delivered.
- new fiber, networking, wireless, security and VoIP, on budget within the planned 18 months
- four datacenter moves
- projects covering ERP, virtualization, shared storage and virtual desktop infrastructure
Impact. About 40% fewer monthly IT incidents within 18 months, and a modern foundation for government and healthcare services.
Two-Site Datacenter Modernization
Zippo Manufacturing Company
Situation. A mostly physical server environment that needed modernizing, with second-site disaster recovery as a goal.
Decision. I led a multi-year program covering networking, virtualization, storage and security, and I owned the project budgeting, vendor selection and implementation.
Delivered.
- VMware consolidation on Dell Compellent shared storage
- a second site for both active workloads and disaster recovery
- redundant 10 Gbps storage links and a 40 Gbps leaf-and-spine datacenter backbone
- updated power and redundant cooling
Impact. The physical server footprint shrank by 75%. Two working sites replaced a single point of failure.
Product Platform Engineering: Mobile Heartbeat Voice Gateway
Mobile Heartbeat, hands-on example
Situation. The product needed a voice backend that could scale for large hospital deployments. The open-source platform it was using struggled beyond about 2,000 endpoints.
Decision. I designed and built a purpose-built Linux/Asterisk backend, working directly with product engineering, customers and telephony vendors.
Delivered. A SIP communications backend engineered for 10,000+ configured users and about 4,000 simultaneous active users per server. It integrates with enterprise Cisco CUCM and Avaya Aura environments.
Impact. It has been in customer production since 2015. It shows that I can lead from the front when a technical problem is central to the business.
Want to know more? Download my résumé or email me.