nICHOLAS
j. cOLLIER
FLAT 5,
TEL: 0208 948 4740 (HOME) 07984
708 043 (MOBILE)
EMAIL: nick@POLAR-IT.CO.UK
Website: http://WWW.POLAR-IT.CO.UK
To download in MS Word 2003 format: cv1.doc
For CV updates: http://www.nick-cv.com
PERSONAL
DETAILS
Date of Birth:
Nationality: British / United
States
Marital Status: Single
QUALIFICATIONS
/ CERTIFICATIONS
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|
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Microsoft Certified Systems
Engineer, Windows 2000
Microsoft Certified Professional, Windows 2000
Professional
Microsoft Certified Professional, Windows 2000 Server
Microsoft Certified Professional, Windows 2000 Network
Infrastructure
Microsoft Certified Professional, Windows 2000 Active
Directory Services
Microsoft Certified Professional, Windows 2000 Active
Directory Services Design Exam
(TCP/IP
and Internet Information Server 4.0 exams are carried forward from Windows NT4
MCSE)
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|
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Microsoft Certified Systems
Engineer, Windows NT4
Microsoft Networking Essentials Exam
Microsoft Certified Professional, Windows NT Workstation
4.0
Microsoft Certified Professional, Windows NT Server 4.0
Microsoft Certified Professional, Windows NT Server 4.0
in the
Microsoft Certified Professional, TCP/IP on Microsoft
Windows NT 4.0
Microsoft Certified Professional,
Internet Information Server 4.0
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Cisco Certified Network
Associate
CCNA Introduction Exam
CCNA Interconnecting Cisco Network Devices Exam
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CompTIA A+
Certification (Spring I.T., 1999)
Microsoft Operating Systems and
general computer hardware
‘A’-Levels (Bloxham School, Banbury,
1990-1992)
Economics, Mathematics, Physics, General Studies
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY SKILLS
|
Desktop hardware |
HP
/ Compaq, Dell, IBM desktops and laptops |
|
Server Hardware |
HP/Compaq Proliant
server, HP Blade (basic level), Dell Server, SGI web server, IBM e-server,
Colalt Raq |
|
RAID / Storage |
HP SmartArray, Mylex
RAID controllers, IBM ServeRAID, AMI Megaraid, EMC Storage Area Network
(basic level), Microsoft RAID, HP Autoloader tape libraries |
|
Other hardware |
Alteon Ace Director 3
web load balancing (basic level) |
|
Operating Systems |
DOS, Windows
3.1/95/98/ME/XP/NT4 workstation & server/2000 Professional & Server/2003
Server, Unix (basic level), Linux (basic level), VMWare ESX Server |
|
Microsoft Desktop
Products |
MS Office 95/ 97/ 2000/
2003, MS Visio |
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Microsoft Server
Products |
Exchange Server 5.5/
2000/ 2003, Internet Information Server (IIS) 4/5/6, Proxy Server, Microsoft
Operations Manager 2000/ 2005, Windows Software Update Services, Microsoft
Virtual Server 2005 |
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Active Directory
(Windows 2000/ 2003 server) |
Active Directory Domain
structure i.e. Forests, Trees, Parent/ Child domains, sites. Integration of
Microsoft Server Products with Active Directory e.g. Exchange Server, SQL,
MOM, DNS Server. Migrating / upgrading
NT4 networks to Windows 2000/ 2003 Active Directory networks, Remote
Installation Service (RIS), DHCP , WINS, RRAS, Terminal Server, Microsoft
Clustering. |
|
Databases |
SQL Server 7/ 2000,
Access 2000 with Visual Basic |
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Programming |
HTML, ASP, Visual
basic, ODBC, Javascript (basic level), Visual Studio 6/.NET |
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Scripting |
Windows Scripting Host/
Vbscript, Batch files e.g. Frequently use scripting to automate tasks e.g.
application/ patch deployment, to survey a large quantities of computers for applications,Windows services, registry
conditions etc. |
|
Networking/ Transport/
Application Protocols |
Internet Protocol (IP),
RIP, OSPF, IGRP, EIGRP, Ethernet, OSI , NetBEUI , TCP/IP: FTP, SMTP, ICMP,
ARP, SSL, SSH, SMTP |
|
Networking products |
Wireless Lan ( |
|
Security |
Microsoft domain
security, IP packet filtering, Firewalls, DMZ, VPN |
|
Web software |
Webtrends, Authentix |
|
LAN admin software |
Update Expert
(patching), WhatsUp Gold (monitoring) |
|
Backup software |
Veritas Backup Exec,
Veritas NetBackup, Brightstore Arcserve |
|
Anti Virus/ Anti
Spyware software |
McAfee Antivirus,
McAfee E-Policy Orchestrator (EPO) 3.6, Norton Antivirus 2000, Trend
Antivirus, Microsoft Anti Spyware, Adware |
|
Graphics |
Paintshop Pro (basic
level), Photoshop (basic level), Adobe Acrobat Writer |
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Accounting/ Software |
Balance sheets,
purchase/ sales ledger, End of year accounts etc. Sage, Sun Accounts, Pegasus |
|
Investment Banking |
Reuters, Bloomberg,
Securities trading, settlements, stock portfolio management/ valuation, price
feeds, reconciliations. Understanding of FX, equities, bonds, futures,
options markets. |
|
Telephony |
Voice Over Internet
Protocol VOIP (Basic Level), SIP, Asterisk Server, Avaya phone switches |
CURRENT
EMPLOYMENT
[A global media company, name withheld
for privacy reasons] January 2007 – Ongoing
New Media Division
New Media Infrastructure Manager
(Permanent Position)
· To manage the web infrastructure for the New Media Division which consists of a development, staging and Live web environment. The environment is primarily Microsoft based i.e. Visual Studio .NET 2005, Windows 2003 servers, .NET 2 web platform, IIS6, SQL 2000 servers.
· To provide the infrastructure required by developers for development and staging environments and to provide special requirements for projects, scaling on demand etc.
· The live web environment is situated in the United States in a 3rd party hosting location and we use a managed services company to perform day to day tasks, incident management and execution of changes.
· To liaise with project managers to facilitate in house and customer projects i.e. the development process, testing, go live, hosting. Providing coordinating/ providing input on the various actions required to go live e.g. Choice of hardware platform, software platform, .NET environment, IP routing/ switching, DNS entries, redirection, host headers, monitoring, backups, web caching, load balancing, security etc.
· Make recommendations and bring about projects to save costs and bring about increased value in the infrastructure e.g. Website replication between web servers to save rollout costs. To maximise value gained from capital expenditure using economies of scale e.g. Using HP Blades or reusing servers or Cisco equipment.
· To gain maximum cost efficiency yet optimal performance for end user web hits e.g. Making use of 3rd party web caching services for static web pages and only using direct web hits to our infrastructure for dynamic web pages.
· Automate the production of daily infrastructure status reports e.g. Critical disk space reports, broken links reports, IIS error reports, non hit websites reports.
· To act as a point of escalation for issues which cannot be resolved by support personnel, developers and project managers.
CONTRACTING
HISTORY
Scottish and Southern Energy August 2006 – December 2006
Microsoft Server Team
Windows Consultant
· The team supported the Windows servers for SSE . The company has a Windows 2003 Active Directory domain (Exchange 2003 Mail servers/ Microsoft Operations Manager 2005/ SQL 2000 Database servers/ Application servers/ File and print servers etc.)
· Performed general maintenance tasks e.g. break fixes, patching, upgrades, monitoring etc.
· Wrote/ modified Vbscripts to automate various tasks eg. To read data from an Excel spreadsheet for AD user account creation, to move data via. FTP.
·
Rolled out 4 E-commerce websites eg. http://www.thesouthernshop.co.uk
into test and live environments. The websites use an IIS6/ SQL 2000/ MS
Commerce Server 2005 infrastructure. The ASP .NET code development was
outsourced to a company in
· Implemented a monthly reboot script on all Windows servers subject to approval by the application contacts/ teams.
Rolls Royce (outsourcing company Data
Systems & Solutions) February 2006 – May 2006
Network Operations
Centre
Network Engineer
· The team supported the Window server and network infrastructure for Rolls Royce Aircraft Monitoring division . The company has a Windows 2003 Active Directory domain (Exchange 2003 Mail servers/ Microsoft Operations Manager 2005/ SQL 2000 Database servers/ Application servers/ File and print servers etc.) and Cisco routers and switches.
· Performed general maintenance tasks e.g. break fixes, patching, upgrades, monitoring etc. Troubleshooted problems with the Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 infrastructure.
· Built servers which were handed over to application teams
· Tested various domain Anti-virus products in order to assist decision making.
· Installed Microsoft Live Communications Server (LCS) 2005.
· Assisted in building an HP Blade enclose and blade servers
Silverscreen DVD Ltd. September 2005 – January 2006
Acting Infrastructure Manager
· I performed this role as a contractor while the company was in the process of recruiting a permanent Infrastructure Manager.
· The position involved managing the Infrastructure for Silverscreen. The company has a head office with around 60 staff and around 70 stores.
· The computer infrastructure included a Windows 2000 Active Directory domain, Windows XP workstations, non domain computers & network tills in stores
· The head office network was a 10/100/1Gb switched network with a Cisco 2600 series router connected to a 2Mb serial line. ADSL links with VPN tunnels were used to connect stores to head office by means of VPN tunnels. Troubleshooted layer 2 or 3 networking problems and set up routers for new stores. Created a Layer 2 access list in head office on the main switch.
· Administered McAfee E-Policy Orchestrate (EPO) 3.6 and Wsus.
· Implemented a tape backup system using an HP Surestore Ultrium3 tape autoloader and Arcserve.
· Wrote Vbscripts to perform maintenance and monitoring tasks e.g. Checking disk space, copying databases, checking database copy, bulk copying files to stores, ping testing, checking pst file sizes etc.
· Server room reorganisation; migrated fileserver, EPO server, Wsus server and Backup server from a domain controller which was performing all of these roles to separate servers.
· Produced documentation on most aspects of the infrastructure
· Assisted with processing data in Excel spreadsheets, importing and exporting through CSV files, writing Excel macros.
SAIC May 2005 – August 2005
Infrastructure Team
Systems Consultant
· The team supported the SAIC Europe Windows 2003 Active Directory domain (Domain Controllers/ Mail servers/ Database servers/ Application servers/ File and print servers etc.)
· Designed and implemented a server monitoring system using Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 with multiple MOM servers across multiple sites. Implemented MOM/ HP Insight Manager monitoring. Worked with the client to establish their monitoring needs and handed over the long term process of tuning MOM to the client.
· Designed and implemented an automated desktop patching system using Windows Software Update Services (Wsus) with multiple Wsus servers across multiple sites. Policies were controlled by means of Active Directory GPO’s. Worked with the client to establish their desktop patching needs/ desired policies and configured Wsus accordingly.
· Implemented NTP Quota & File Sentinel software to control the use of fileserver disk space/ permissible file types of desktop users.
· Produced documentation of Infrastructure servers on Physical, Network, Application layers as well as Support and Backup information.
Audit Commission January 2005 – April 2005
Infrastructure Team
Network Engineer / Microsoft Systems
Engineer
· The team supported the Audit Commission LAN/ WAN Infrastructure and about 170 Servers (Windows Server 2003 Domain Controllers/ Exchange 2003 Mail servers/ Database servers/ Application servers/ File servers)
· Performed various audits e.g. Breakdown of all server SCSI drives, Breakdown of Veritas BackupExec/ agent installations versus licenses. I wrote scripts to collect the data.
· Produced documentation of systems e.g. Messaging infrastructure, HP Insight Manager
· Assisted in file permissions restructure after a migration to new domain
Citigroup (Citibank) May 2004 – December 2004
NT Sats / Quality
Circle Team
Systems Consultant
· The team supported application servers for the bank's cash, equities, derivatives and warrants businesses.
· I Helped provide server support for around 1,000 NT4/ Windows 2000 application servers.
· Worked in the Quality Circle team which was an initiative to reduce the support ticket count by analysis of reoccurring problems and unnecessary alerts.
· Project Managed the rolling out of applications and patches. Wrote deployment scripts using Vbscript which worked alongside Citibank's SOE (Standard Operating Environment, an in house add on to the operating system to centrally inventory application deployment status.)
· Writing Continuity of Business Plans and Cob tests
Rural Payments Agency (UK
XP Migration Project
Microsoft Consultant
· The project consisted of rolling out a Windows 2000 Server / Exchange 2000 Server based network on a new domain and upgrading the clients to Windows XP machines.
· Duties included resolving general issues/ end user problems with regard to migration e.g. Email inaccessible, data on old domain fileservers, problems with applications.
· Write vbscripts to resolve specific problems e.g. Script to change all of a users Word files templates attributes, script to add an IP address into a machines host file.
· Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000 mailbox migrations and resolved issues relating to these
· Additional assistance with general LAN admin / NT admin work e.g. User problems, creating user accounts, mailboxes etc.
Isle of Man Government July 2003 – October 2003
Microsoft Engineer
· General LAN administration in a Novel backend and Windows front end network
· Setting up Novel accounts / Novel file permissions
· Resolving tickets for end user problems
· Installing required software
· Troubleshooting & maintaining backups
Web Genie Internet / Nicnames January 2003 – June 2003
Microsoft Consultant
· Set up/ maintained web hosting on Windows 2000 Server / IIS 5 (Internet Information Servers) at a web hosting location and within the company DMZ
· Assisted with general NT admin, customer support tickets
· Wrote scripts to identify inactive customers i.e. customers who are not paying, customers who are not paying the required amount for the service they are actually using, customers whose service has been transferred elsewhere/ not pointing to webservers which contains web site. This was done using vbscripts/ programs which query IIS object, IIS logfiles on webservers, billing database, whois lookups.
· Wrote a script to parse IIS log files to produce statistics on site bandwidth usage.
· Rebuilt the LAN infrastructure from the point of view of rebuilding NT4 PDC and domain, and migrated Exchange Server 5.5 database to new installation.
Telenor Business Solutions October 2002 – January 2003
Microsoft Systems Engineer
· Set up, troubleshooted and closed web hosting for shared, managed and supported web hosting clients. Web hosting was on Windows NT4/ IIS4 or Windows 2000/ IIS5 (Internet Information Server)
· Set up and troubleshooted web site ASP connections to SQL Server 7 database server (using DSN’s / ODBC)
· Set up other services/ software for web hosting clients e.g. Webtrends / Authentix (a package that lets customers configure their own access permissions for their web files.)
· Obtained ad renewed Thawte SSL certificates for internal sites, shared, managed and supported web hosting clients.
· Administered the office LAN i.e. Building workstations, installing applications, troubleshooting user problems, etc.
· Maintained backups for LAN, development server and datacentre
Unilever May 2002 - August 2002
GIO E-Services
E-Service Consultant
· Worked on a project to transition web sites from Unilever's many European businesses to a central hosting location. Sites included HTML pages, ASP scripts & databases.
· The essence of the project was to motivate the businesses to comply with the project objective; to move the sites. - Liaison with the different businesses including discussing business political/ legal issues as per project guidelines.
· Progression of the project involved co-ordination between the various parties i.e. domain registrars, design agencies, revenant business and Unilever's web hosting department.
NTT
Communications Corp./ Verio
Web hosting division of NTT Communications Corp.
Enterprise
Web Hosting
·
Providing 3rd
level of support for dedicated web hosting on Windows 2000 platform with IIS 5 (Internet
Information Server). Problems could involve
errors with customer’s web site files, hardware problems, operating system
problems, IIS config. problems, DNS config, firewall config. or routing
·
Assisting in
designing build procedures for dedicated web server builds by datacentre
technicians. Web hosting was Windows 2000/ IIS5 platform.
·
Installing
SQL Server 2000 for clients
·
Configuring
Checkpoint Firewalls
·
Maintaining
DNS server records
·
Applying Microsoft
hotfixes / critical updates / service pack releases to web servers
·
Upgrading
web server hardware / installing additional components e.g. SCSI RAID in some
cases
·
Maintaining
web server backups using Veritas NetBackup.
·
Assisted
with Checkpoint Firewall config. As webservers were kept in a DMZ.
Web Programming
·
Wrote the
London Intranet site using Dynamic HTML
·
Wrote Java
applets for documentation database front end using code from code library
Database design
·
Wrote the
billing database with web front end using MS Access 2000 with Visual Basic, ASP
with ODBC. This was a relational database with around 10 tables that calculated
the monthly billing and produced invoices.
LAN
·
Maintaining
server backups using Veritas Backup Exec for LAN
·
Managing the
·
Made a
computer network audit of Rapidsite LAN, a company that Verio took over
WAX DIGITAL February 2000 – December 2000
Web Site Development Company
NT Network Administrator
Along with the I.T.
Manager I administered a network that grew to around 70 workstations and 15
servers. My duties included:
·
Managing the