Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Certification
Timeline
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Aaron Perkins

Mississauga,Canada

Summary

IT professional with 23+ years of Information Technology experience Highly motivated, dependable trouble shooter and problem-solver Customer focused performer who is committed to quality in every task Always a valued contributor who performs confidently and effectively under pressure and thrives on challenge Team Lead Experience of over 15 years In attendance to HP Discover (Las Vegas) 2014/2015/2016/2017/2018/2021/2022/2023/2025

Overview

32
32
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification

Work History

IT Infrastructure Expert

MNP
04.2022 - Current
  • Lead role consisting of 6 members of the IT Expert Team
  • Citrix upgrade/re-design 7.15 to 2203 and 140 Citrix VDA servers to Win 2025
  • Horizon 2503 design and implementation to support 400 businesses across Canada
  • Horizon VDI implementation on-prem and AWS Workspace to support remote businesses
  • Horizon 2503 platforms architected and administered with Horizon App manager, DEM and Workspace One
  • Horizon installed and maintained with VMware ESXi on HP Blade, Dell Blade and HP/Dell Rack Servers
  • Administered company-wide Active Directory support for 100,000 users supporting LDAP, Kerberos, SAML, Oauth2, OpenID Connect, Powershell/VB scripting
  • Azure Hybrid administration providing cloud management and automation, process enhancement, stakeholder management
  • Architect and engineered CheckMK Monitoring solution for all infrastructure and Business Intelligence for over 10,000 Servers and Networking equipment with NTOP
  • Architect and engineered Disaster
  • Successfully migrated SAN Nimble to “all Flash” HP Alletra SAN
  • Weekly attendance in Cab committee as a member
  • Maintain 4 data centers within Toronto and Calgary
  • Assisted in Cisco ACI Migration to SDN Networking
  • Designed an implemented Ansible for automating Windows Server deployments for Toronto and Calgary Datacenters
  • Senior Infrastructure Specialist/Architect, City of Mississauga, ON

Senior Infrastructure Specialist/Architect

The Travel Corporation
02.2020 - 09.2020
  • Team Lead role consisting of 5 members within the Infrastructure Specialist team
  • Actively participating and resolving Major Incidents, Change Management and Risk Management within North America and Europe through Service Now
  • Weekly attendance within CAB committee to discuss Change Management
  • Architected strategy/migration to O365 from Exchange 2013 in a Hybrid on premise/Cloud multi-tenant arrangement to support 12 global offices supporting 10000 employees
  • Migration of 50 legacy Microsoft/Linux web servers to Amazon EC2 to support 50 Travel agencies across the globe
  • Architected/Migrated/Upgraded 100 VMware Enterprise vSphere 5.0/5.5 to 6.5/6.7 on Lenovo Flex Blades and IBM DS8880 San fiber storage supporting 6 locations in Canada, USA and Australia
  • Architected/Migrated 50 VMware Enterprise vSphere 6.0 to 6.7 on HP Blades and 3PAR StoreServ 7000 fiber storage in UK
  • Maintained Citrix Farm XenApp 7.12 and XenDesktop to support 300 users across Canada and Australia operating off Lenovo Flex Blades and IBM DS8880 San fiber storage
  • Continually creating documentations and Visual Topologies to help departments understand business dependencies and flows
  • Senior Infrastructure Specialist, Aimia, Toronto, ON

Senior Infrastructure Specialist

Aimia
06.2010 - 02.2017
  • Engineered and maintained 2 Bell Data Centers (Markham/Montreal) treated as an active/standby configuration to satisfy DR and high availability for the business;
  • Engineered migration strategies to migrate 1200 plus servers to vSphere 5.0/5.5 infrastructure;
  • Team Lead role engineered and maintain 60+ ESXi Enterprise Platforms vSphere 5.0/5.5 hosted on HP Blade C7000 Chassis (VC FlexFabric) 6 server cluster configurations operating on BL620c/660c G7/G8 blades, hosted on 3PAR F400/v400 (2/4 node) Fibre and NETAPP (ISCSI) Storage;
  • Implemented VMware Enterprise Applications such as VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager, VMware vCenter Lab Manager, VMware vShield Product Family,VMware vCenter Operations and Vkernel Management Suite;
  • Successfully contributed and lead towards obtaining level 1 PCI certification for the Information Technology Department;
  • Assisted and maintained MPLS network supporting 4 remote sites including Toronto, Montreal, Chicago and Vancouver;
  • Implemented and Maintained Citrix Presentation Server 4.5/5.0 for 200+ users to provide support for legacy financial applications;
  • Implemented and maintained Exchange Server 2010 consisting of 6 combined servers providing email services for 1450 users;
  • Engineered and maintained 620 Plus Servers operating off HP G3,G4,G5,G6 and G7 Proliant servers;
  • Maintaining Cisco equipment including switches (4507,2960) routers (2900,2800) and ASA (5510,5520);
  • Senior Systems/Network Administrator, Corus Entertainment Inc. Toronto, ON

Senior Systems/Network Administrator

Corus Entertainment Inc.
03.2010 - 06.2010
  • Team Lead role leading 8 new business applications within VMware ESX 4.0 environment for finance and TV production departments hosting 350 servers;
  • Designing new HP blade servers and HP EVA storage solutions for new head office and new remote backup location;
  • Daily administration for 600 + users operating off of VMware virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI);
  • Implemented and maintained Citrix Presentation server 5.0 for 600 + users for hosted applications such as Microsoft Office 2007, TV Broadcasting, VPN, SQL 2008 and executive software;
  • Senior Systems Administrator/Team Lead, CTV Global Media Inc. Toronto, ON

Senior Systems Administrator/Team Lead

CTV Global Media Inc.
08.2009 - 03.2010
  • Team lead role implementing VMware ESX 3.5 Enterprise for 3 remote locations utilizing IBM Blade Centre with blade models such as LS21, HS20 and HS21;
  • A total of 12 ESX 3.5 servers implemented along with 280 physical servers migrated (P2V) to ESX infrastructure;
  • IBM DS4800 San storage (fibre channel) implemented along with brocade 2005 r32/Silkworm 4100 fibre switches;
  • Implemented vFoglight Pro 6.0 to actively monitor ESX Enterprise environment for 4 remote locations;
  • Implemented and maintained Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 hosting 12 IBM HS21 blades publishing over 450 applications for 1200 users;
  • Helped migrate over 1100 users from Microsoft Server 2003 Active Directory to 2008 R2
  • Administered Active Directory for over 1300 users across all CTV locations and head quarters;
  • Actively participated in (Team Environment) 3rd level support/remote requests for 2010 Vancouver Olympics;
  • Observed and implemented new hardware for in house TV broadcasting applications to maintain improved bandwidth and speed;
  • Constantly writing procedures, diagrams and documentation on all infrastructure implementations
  • Actively participating in employee meetings with IT Managers and Vice Presidents to insure tasks and or projects were communicated;
  • Senior Systems Administrator/Team Lead, Dufferin Peel Catholic School Board, Mississauga, ON

Senior Systems Administrator/Team Lead

Dufferin Peel Catholic School Board
01.2009 - 08.2009
  • Part of a 6 month project migrating legacy servers to VMware ESX servers using conversion tools such as VMware P2V and PlateSpin Migrate;
  • Migrated 50 plus Windows Servers to Dell EqualLogic PS5000E iSCSI SAN Arrays with replication;
  • Team lead role prioritizing workloads and time schedules for 15 other IT technicians;
  • Installed (and maintain) additional Citrix 4.5 Presentation Servers to expand throughput and database size constraints for 500 plus users.
  • Administer and maintain Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 and Active Directory for 500 users for all Alternative Education Centers and Secondary schools;
  • Implemented Nagios alarm solution to monitor all 40 Alternative Education centers to proactively check for threats and alterations to the network.
  • Senior Network Administrator/Team Lead, USC Education Savings Plan Inc. Mississauga, ON

Senior Network Administrator/Team Lead

USC Education Savings Plan Inc.
06.2007 - 12.2008
  • As a Senior (TEAM LEAD of 3) successfully architected a full disaster recovery solution at both head office and an offsite data recovery site location;
  • Actively writing topologies and written procedures and policies in administering Disaster Recovery Center;
  • Migrated all legacy production server equipment to VMware 3.5 ESX Server within 3 months consisting of 55 Microsoft Windows 2003 Servers;
  • Created and maintained Citrix 4.5 Presentation Server composed of 4 presentation servers and one security/web server, which supports 350 Sales representatives across Canada;
  • Upgraded legacy fibre channel storage equipment to Dell Equallogic ISCSI storage;
  • Installed and introduced Microsoft SharePoint 2007 server in test environment for the Sales and IT department to share and collaborate ideas to create content management;
  • Installed and maintained Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 Server (MOSS) synchronized to Outlook Calendar, SharePoint Calendar and RSS feeds through Outlook Office;
  • Maintain and Support Linux Ubuntu OS which was running on the client workstations.
  • Introduced a fully automated monitoring system to monitor all production and test server equipment with phone (Blackberry Enterprise) and email notifications;
  • Customized a test environment using VMware Server hosting all production servers operating in an isolated environment for developers to test code and applications;
  • Maintained 48 Windows 2003 Servers multi-domain environment hosted by VMware 3.5 ESX Server;
  • Architected and maintained replication of all production servers though a 100MB fibre line using Dell Equallogic ISCSI Arrays every 20 minutes;
  • Installed Cisco routing to route 2 subnets data/recovery site and main office, where QOS was also introduced to maintain adequate bandwidth needs throughout business hours.
  • Managed 2 desktop support technicians to support internal and external clients.
  • Frequently writing topologies and documentations to provide clear understanding of infrastructure to better the IT department.
  • Implemented and maintained HP Procurve/Dell switches to all departments with vlans and port manageability for security needs.
  • Administered and maintained Microsoft Active Directory along with 3 domains within 3 locations;
  • Senior Network Administrator/Team Lead, Synergex Corp, Mississauga, ON

Senior Network Administrator/Team Lead

Synergex Corp
02.2004 - 06.2007
  • As Team Leader of 15, maintained the IT department by structuring and organizing desktop technicians to assist customers and in house employees with everyday IT needs;
  • Introduced Microsoft SharePoint Server 2003 in test environment stand alone edition for developers and sales groups to collaborate and develop a document-management platform;
  • SharePoint 2003 Server was later migrated to production SQL Server database alone with 2 other SharePoint servers clustered to form a farm.
  • Implemented and maintained Citrix terminal solutions for SQL applications, that allow developers to merge code, this includes 3 presentation servers, 1 license server, on 2U IBM Servers.
  • Conducted small seminars for sales and developers to create Microsoft SharePoint portals to help communicate special projects and integrate office applications;
  • Implemented and maintained servers; such as, IBM HS12 Blade servers, Microsoft server 2000/03, datacenter, Microsoft SQL 2000/05 servers, Microsoft Exchange 00/03 server, VMware ESX 3 server and Microsoft Virtual server;
  • Installed Microsoft SMS Server to deploy and update clients, servers and mobile devices;
  • Installed and maintained Equallogic SAN'S to provide adequate space for production servers;
  • Implemented and maintained Asterisk which is a Linux based VOIP (virtual PBX).
  • Assisted with in-house VOIP solution with Asterisk (PBX);
  • Configured SIP phones and prioritized 800 numbers accordingly for companies needs;
  • Provisioned and maintained an E1/100MB fibre link from Toronto to Mexico to maintain Microsoft Navision and Domain servers;
  • Delivered internal design, implementation, cost analysis, and negotiation of TCP/IP-based network, consisting of a point-to-point DS-1 that securely connected corporate headquarters to the Internet and customer WAN via dual Ethernet Cisco router and Nortel Contivity VPN appliance.
  • Described by supervisor and colleagues as extremely thorough, proficient and knowledgeable about client base;
  • Internetworking Specialist, Allstream, Mississauga, ON

Internetworking Specialist

Allstream
10.2001 - 02.2004
  • Worked in Tier 1 and 2 technical support. Respond to, evaluate and prioritize incoming phone call requests for technical assistance to customers and internal employees;
  • Actively picked up alarms from CIC (Cisco Information Centre) and change requests to configurations of Nortel, Cisco routers and switches;
  • Maintained UNIX and Microsoft servers with active traps sent to Cisco Information Centre;Guided customers and onsite technicians with hardware replacements WICS, RAM and cables ECT;
  • Designed and deployed a wide-area virtual private network (VPN) based on IPsec tunnels using OpenBSD, later integrated with a Cisco-based IPSEC VPN;
  • Work done such as IOS upgrades access-lists for security and troubleshoot protocols such as FRAME RELAY, EIGRP, BGP, MPLS and others;
  • Contributed ideas to improve customer service and helped second-level teams support customers with access-lists and troubleshooting on Cisco routers;
  • Network Administrator, Dufferin Peel Catholic School Board, Mississauga, ON

Network Administrator

Dufferin Peel Catholic School Board
09.1996 - 10.2001
  • Implemented and maintained a LAN/WAN consisting of 8 schools and 8 Alternative Education Centers with Windows Server 2000 and EMC SAN'S;
  • Maintained, updated, patched, and supported (i.e. user logins, scripts, etc) for Linux Redhat.
  • Continually maintained upgrades of hardware and software to all Secondary locations with configurations of hubs, switches and routers;
  • Kept coworkers and management well informed to provide team efficiency and expedient resolutions to users problems;
  • Maintained Citrix servers and thin client workstations at all Alternative Education Centers;
  • Network Technician, Compucentre, Toronto, ON

Network Technician

Compucentre
01.1993 - 09.1996
  • Report to and responded to project Manager for daily/monthly IT projects;
  • Worked extensively with the Toronto Catholic School Board setting up and maintaining Windows NT 4.0 servers and workstations;
  • Repaired hardware on laptops, workstations and servers on a continual basis;
  • Assisted with in-house infrastructure developing solutions to better customer experience;
  • Setup and maintained remote administration to respond to clients problems faster to develop a good reputation for the company;

Education

Global Knowledge Online Learning

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Dell EqualLogic Training

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Hewlett-Packard Canadian Education Centre
Mississauga, ON
01.2011

Recreation Leadership Diploma - undefined

Mohawk College
Hamilton, ON
01.1998

Skills

  • Azure Administrator
  • Microsoft/Linux
  • HPOpenView
  • Exchange/SQL/SMS
  • Unix/Linux//Sun
  • Ansible
  • Citrix
  • VMWare Vsphere/ESXi
  • Checkpoint/Cisco

Certification

  • Azure Administrator
  • A+ CompTIA
  • AWS Cloud Practitioner
  • MCP Server 2019/2022
  • ITIL (Foundation)
  • Checkpoint NG (CCSA)
  • VMware VCP-DCV
  • VMware VCP-Cloud

Timeline

IT Infrastructure Expert

MNP
04.2022 - Current

Senior Infrastructure Specialist/Architect

The Travel Corporation
02.2020 - 09.2020

Senior Infrastructure Specialist

Aimia
06.2010 - 02.2017

Senior Systems/Network Administrator

Corus Entertainment Inc.
03.2010 - 06.2010

Senior Systems Administrator/Team Lead

CTV Global Media Inc.
08.2009 - 03.2010

Senior Systems Administrator/Team Lead

Dufferin Peel Catholic School Board
01.2009 - 08.2009

Senior Network Administrator/Team Lead

USC Education Savings Plan Inc.
06.2007 - 12.2008

Senior Network Administrator/Team Lead

Synergex Corp
02.2004 - 06.2007

Internetworking Specialist

Allstream
10.2001 - 02.2004

Network Administrator

Dufferin Peel Catholic School Board
09.1996 - 10.2001

Network Technician

Compucentre
01.1993 - 09.1996

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Dell EqualLogic Training

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Hewlett-Packard Canadian Education Centre

Recreation Leadership Diploma - undefined

Mohawk College

Global Knowledge Online Learning

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Aaron Perkins