Gareth Langham

Part of the infrastructure team, of an external 3rd party support company. Supporting a UK wide company, working out of the Oxford office for Ridge and Partners LLP. My key responsibility as part of the role was to evaluate the current systems and processes, looking for ways to improve efficiency and the customers experience using the IT systems.
Key responsibilities:

• An escalation point for providing support to the rest of the support team
• Evaluation of the current systems and looking for ways to improve the customers experience
• Maintaining the VMWare and Hyper-V, virtual infrastructure
• Creation and maintaining of system documentation

• Implementation of Meraki MDM for iPhone management
• Optimisation of the VMWare infrastructure
• Design and implementation for upgrading to Exchange 2010, leading to the installation and deployment of Exchange 2013 with site resilient DAGs
• Upgrade and migration for six remote sites to new virtualised hardware
• Redesign of the current way company data is held, using DFS, to improve availability and performance
• Design and implementation of infrastructure monitoring
• Onboarding and transition of a new client
• Deployment of SCCM site hierarchy across 10 sites
• Company wide deployment of Office 365

Working as part of the CIS team on the Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) project, for AirTanker based at RAF Brize Norton. Providing and supporting mission critical IT systems within a restricted environment, to assist in the running of a 24/7 operation. Due to working on a restricted network I was also required to go through and attain UK SC clearance.
Key responsibilities:

• Providing desktop support to 500+ users across multiple networks and sites
• Supporting Linux RHEL servers and HPUX servers, ensuring uptime on mission critical flight planning systems
• Running monthly updates on flight planning applications
• Organising and implementing monthly Microsoft and RHEL security patching across all servers on a mix of virtual and physical systems
• Creation and distribution of new and existing applications and driver packages using SCCM
• Building new desktops and laptops using SCCM
• On-call out of hours support
• Regular monitoring of Nessus to ensure known Microsoft and RHEL vulnerabilities are dealt with
• Updating and creating documentation for new and existing software
• Annual disaster recovery and business continuity testing
• SHE lead for the CIS department, ensuring all working areas were kept in a safe working state

• Implementation of flight performance software onto a restricted network
• Upgrading of the SQL estate to increase compatibility with applications
• Upgrading McAfee ePO across all networks

After building up further experience in this area of the business I was given the opportunity to take on the position full time.
My key responsibilities in this role were:

• Administering vSphere 5 cluster
• Administering 30+ virtual and physical Linux and Windows 2003 & 2008 servers
• Monitoring of all servers and services both internal and external
• Providing desktop support to the business for 50+ desktops
• Ensuring all company systems are kept up to date using WSUS
• Monitoring and management of business firewalls and VPNs
• Generating reports for the business using SQL queries
• Ensuring backups run correctly and are usable when required
• Installation and deployment of new desktops
• Maintaining and creating AD user and mailbox accounts
• Administering company PABX telephone system
• Procurement of hardware and software
• Out of hours support

• Domain migration, moving both users and mailboxes
• Upgrading and migrating users from Windows XP to Windows 7
• Generating scripts for external RHEL servers to help reduce disk usage
• Deployment of new Data Centre
• Deployment of new virtual infrastructure
• Migration of previous physical infrastructure to new virtual environment
• Consolidation of severs and services to help conform to existing licensing and resource requirements
• Design, implementation and testing of business backup strategy
• Development and testing of device applications running on a Linux platform
• Development and testing of mobile applications
• Planning for a possible move to new premises, including designing of office layout and implementation of network infrastructure
• Migration of a Linux based sync server onto new hardware and software, involving creation of new configurations and script amendments
• Investigating, setting up and deploying a Terminal Server, built to best practices

This was a support role, which involves assisting both an administration team and a customer base in troubleshooting problems with their devices and problems with software applications used in conjunction with the devices. Some of the application troubleshooting involved resolving errors that have occurred during installation or use of the software, and also driver installation and configuration issues. This role allowed me to apply my knowledge of troubleshooting systems and find ways to resolve new issues that arose. During the last 6months in this role I was given the opportunity to work alongside the IT department on a part time basis, assisting them with day to day tasks, as well as covering a member of staff's role in the department whilst they were away. This allowed me to develop my IT skills whilst still performing technical support tasks.

Haven Networks is a small business venture I co-run with a colleague, set up shortly shortly after I finished at Maplin Electronics. Haven Networks provides a broad range of services including web design, computer maintenance and technical support. Although still active, new clients are limited to friends and family. Running Haven Networks gives me the opportunity to experiment and improve across a broad range of transferrable skills, including running a business, self-motivation, customer relations and technical skills such as web design.

As a sales assistant, I was required to assist customers by working out their needs and then recommending what would best suit their needs. I was mainly based in the computer section of the store, where my prior skills and knowledge could be utilised best. Maplin Electronics emphasis providing customers with technical knowledge to solve their problems. Therefore in addition to standard tasks required of a sales assistant, I would sometimes be required to advise and compile a list of hardware parts that a customer would need to fit a specific need whilst remaining within a budget. Additionally, I would also sometimes be called upon to diagnose and fix problems with customer systems from either information I was given or by directly looking at the system myself.