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9 min read

This is me, and I'm for Hire.

This is me, and I'm for Hire.

In my efforts to re-enter the working world, and feel useful contributing to the real world, I'm first going to share a Cover letter that I have been using for remote positions that I have been applying for:

Dear Sirs or Madam,

I am offering my skills and tool sets to companies, organizations, and teams that require modern, reliable and rock solid computer deployment for development, hosting, or storage system anywhere in the world that has an in place network connectivity. These skills, I bring, I have developed because I have in the past few years been faced with personal mobility challenges brought on by unfortunate circumstances. Turning these limitations into positive productive benefits to everyone has allowed me to take all the experience I acquired over my 45+ years working in the IT sector and make it work for today's business needs. From the project management of ensuing the bare metal hardware and connectivity requirements are met, to the actual remote deployment and even on going administration, I bring the skills and tool sets to the table.

My background experience as a Senior Systems Administrator in the UNIX/Linux servers and network connectivity, I have worked in large data centre’s and smaller VFX Studios and everything in-between, the one constant is my commitment to keeping the systems and associated infrastructure running reliably and up to date.

While most of my experience is in UNIX/Linux servers and the associated Networks, I have had massive amounts of experience with all technical operations, project planning, and user/client support. Additionally I have experience in VPN connectivity and System Security, ensuring reliable and secure connectivity of systems connected at distance. I have become an expert in making these systems work in the way the organization and users needs to be successful.

Currently offering my skills and an independent freelance IT administrator and security consultant, I am open to full-time, part-time, or as needed engagements. I have experience in every aspect of administration, and worked onsite and remotely. I have a very technical background in servers and networks, their configuration and troubleshooting. As I have some mobility issues am seeking remote positions.

The next thing I want to share is my resume, now the problem having 45 years of experience is trying to put the most relevant information is the least amount of space. As I have been told many hiring managers don't read long resumes so below is the fifth incarnation of my post accident resume:

Summary

I have over 45+ years of experience in systems administration, networking, and database, in small company and data-center operations. (Only experience from 2001 is included here). With senior technical hands-on management, server administration, planning, implementation, and upgrades.
While supporting and setting up platforms' Linux, Windows, and Mac OS servers and desktops, the expertise is in building transition and implementation plans for Linux server infrastructure, deploying, supporting, configuring, maintaining, administering, and updating RHEL, CentOS, SUSE, Fedora, and Debian-based systems (to name just a few).

I have been semi-retired for the past 4 years, (early retirement brought on by a severe neck injury brought on by a transit accident), and I have remained current with technologies as part of my rehabilitation. Even though I still use a walker as a mobility aid, I am now seeking to get back into the working world at least part-time or even full-time in a remote work-from-home type position. The one benefit of dealing with limited mobility is I have developed skills and toolsets that allow me to complete builds, maintenance and administration remotely from anywhere that an internet connection is available, and with the skills of using wireguard VPN technology alloying all the remote processes to happen securely.

Functional highlights

Over time I have built up skills and toolsets for building and maintaining physical and virtual servers server builds using PXE, or other hardware remote network access, and cross-platform scripting with Ansible, Python, and Shell scripting aiding the installation to create stable, reproducible base configurations. This is especially important in Cluster technology, storage environments of SAN, NAS, Fiber and Cloud including storage migrations, and repeatable hosting environments without the need to be onsite removing the limitations of time and distance constraints.

The experience and toolset I have built up also work's with the supporting infrastructure as complete systems all require solid network switches, routers and firewalls to updated and properly configured for everything to function as designs require. The addition of high capacity WiFi 6 interrogations with gigabit Ethernet and Fiber Networks, VM and Cloud server technology solutions, architecture give a rounded scope of business needs for today's world, and all of these systems I have the honed experience of setup and configure at a distance. Active Directory and LDAP planning and administration and maintaining existing company infrastructure, documentation updates, and changes also are created, updated and made available all remotely without the need to be physically present, allowing everything to happen at any time of day, or date to ensure commitments and deadlines are met.

System monitoring, by secure remote connection, allows for continuous automated logs that can pinpoint issues that will lead to the creation of detailed maintenance tickets and modification to infrastructure configuration, as well as improved backup and disaster recovery. Prepare and provide improved status reports of systems, availability, problems, and resolutions. Additionally allows for tailor-made mentoring, coaching and preparing teaching guides for IT staff.

Professional Experience

Design, Support, Admin & Security: VVS Systems Inc.
Mar 2018 to Jan 2024

Administration of servers, storage networks, and design of new or enhancing existing systems.

    • Having the ability to diagnose and resolve problems promptly, and have the patience to communicate with a variety of interdisciplinary teams and users. To ensure that your technology infrastructure runs smoothly and efficiently.
    • Monitoring performance and maintaining systems according to your requirements, while managing network servers with technology tools and developing documentation that allows for training staff on new technologies while ensuring security through access controls, backups and firewalls, and installing and configuring new software and hardware, on-site or remotely delivering ready to solutions.
    • Experience with databases, networks, configuration and patch management. In-depth knowledge of system security and data backup/recovery and a familiarity with various operating systems and platforms allows for the ability to create programs, tools, and scripts in Python, Shell or other languages.
    • The ability to work remotely off-site, with access to state-of-the-art personal technology, high-speed internet connectivity, and terabytes of available storage allows for meeting deadlines. Providing onsite administration off-site with all the monitoring, reporting, and resolutions necessary for some operations of your company systems all done with all the security required in today's computing world.

Senior System Administrator: Legend3d VFX
Dec 2017 to Mar 2018

As Senior Systems Administrator I oversaw Legend's back-end infrastructure systems (Servers, Storage and Networks). Main responsibilities as Senior Systems Administration duties:

    • Responsible for developing a transition plan for converting the studio from Windows/MacOS to Linux/MacOS.
    • Assist in the planning, installation, configuration and maintenance of servers and network switches.
    • Create and update build documents routinely while ensuring an up-to-date build library.
    • Maintain company server infrastructure and document updates, changes and action logs.
    • Create and maintain infrastructure backup and recovery systems, and test for functionality every quarter.
    • Administering Linux, MacOS, and Windows-based systems, with CLI interface and tools. Local and remote.
    • Deploying supporting, configuring, and updating Fort-Net devices and IT monitoring tools (Greylog, Nagios, Grafana)
    • Maintain enterprise NAS, Active Directory, and LDAP servers.

Senior System Administrator: Rocket Science VFX
Jan 2017 to Dec2017

As System Administrator, deploy, monitor and maintain the production computer systems for the studio and provide technical support for the users in a mixed network. (Linux. Mac OS, Window), with responsibilities:

    • Installing, configuring and testing computer hardware and operating systems
    • Keep all systems updated as required by their OS
    • Configuration of multiple systems in a cluster active/active, active/standby.
    • Monitoring and maintaining client computer systems (Zenoss, Zabbix, Cacti, Grey Log).
    • The Deployment and maintenance of production applications and support of production workflows.
    • Supporting the roll-out of new applications, updates, setup, configuration, and support of VMware servers.
    • Maintaining back-ups of key computer systems, and validating technical and process documentation.
    • Maintain SSO and identity management, maintain user accounts and profiles, processing and documenting all changes.
    • Remote upgrade, patching, maintenance, cross-platform
    • Extensive experience with PC hardware with a focus on visual/media systems
    • Working with TV and Film, post-production teams, and Visual Effects studio, operations.
    • Installation, configuration and troubleshooting of VFX operating system and software including but not limited to:
      • Maya, Houdini, Nuke, Red Shift, VRAY, Windows (cross-platform).
      • Mac OS, Linux and Windows, (All required versions and releases).

Senior System Administrator: Mr. X Inc
Oct 2014 to Aug 2016

Senior Systems Administrator I was responsible for daily system maintenance, monitoring, reporting, and development of systems and network infrastructure. While maintaining hardware, virtual servers and monitoring server operations to ensure a robust systems environment. To maintain 24/7 functionality while scheduling upgrades on an operational application platform of Linux, (Red Hat, CentOS) with a substantial proportion of Mac OS and Windows 7 & 10 machines.Also, be willing and able to join and lead a team of talented Systems Administrators supporting a VFX large production team:

    • Maintain Red-Hat & CentOS, Storage (SAN/NAS) technologies including Storage Migrations and Veritas cluster.
    • Utilized PXE remote install in Linux, Mac OS, and Windows, environments.
    • Administration of IIS, AD, Exchange, DHCP, DNS, LDAP and mail server
    • Maintain the existing Puppet and transition to a new Ansible implementation.
    • Contribute towards overall server and system standards, planning, and expansion.
    • Develop and recommend innovative, and automated, approaches for system admin tasks.
    • Maintain firewall and switch configuration when needed.
    • Regular system monitoring, verifying the availability and storage space of server resources, and systems.
    • Responsible for regular security monitoring, adding or updating user access rights as needed.
    • Perform daily backup operations, ensuring all required file system data is archived.
    • Identify problems, propose then implement solutions, to improve system performance.
    • Respond to tickets, user emails, and phone calls regarding system problems and resolve them.
    • Maintain user-accessible documentation so users can solve some questions (Wikipedia style).
    • Setting up and maintaining Mac OS, Windows, and Linux applications
    • Deployment and integration within a VLAN gigabit network.

Senior System Administrator: Guru Animation Studio
Jun 2013 to Oct 2014

Employed as a Senior Systems Administrator tasked with the daily system maintenance, monitoring, reporting, and development of systems and network infrastructure:

    • Maintaining and developing network infrastructure and system administration, System Support.
    • Maintain and update IIS, Exchange Mail, Spam services and Active Directory.
    • Update, upgrade back-end server services, and security, then apply regular patches.
    • Windows and Linux server automation and workflow, security and log-on script creation.
    • Monitor network connectivity and troubleshoot where required.
    • Responsible for studio-wide backups and restores. Ensure daily backup operation to DLT tape.
    • Daily system monitoring, verifying the availability of server resources, systems and key processes.
    • Responsible for regular security monitoring, patching and resolution in all environments.
    • User account creation, change and deletion per request in all systems (FTP, Email, AD, VPN, etc)
    • Maintain working order and provide optimizations for the Linux and Windows-based render farm at all times.
    • Reporting, perform periodic performance reporting to support capacity planning.
    • OS patches and upgrades regularly, and upgrade administrative tools
    • Configure / add new services as necessary

Senior Systems Administrator: CGI Mississauga Data Center
Jan 2001 to May 2013

Employed as a full-time IT consultant, I participated in several customer-facing projects from many of CGI's customer base, as well as some internal project work at one of CGI's main data centers. The projects included:

    • CGI Data Center: Data Centre Manager:
      • managing the installation, configuration, maintenance, and upgrading system throughout the facility
      • 450 VLANs, (one or more for each client in the data center)
      • Provider 1, CISCO core switches, and Checkpoint firewalls
      • 800 UNIX, Windows, & Linux bare metal servers, 75 Linux hosts for virtualization, & 86 Oracle environments
      • Secure LDAP and Active Directory systems, for multiple DC clients
      • Change and asset management, Service Level Agreements of data center infrastructure
      • Responsible for all systems network, DBMS (mostly Oracle), UNIX (SUN OS), HP/UX, Linux, Windows Server
      • Configured, maintained, and upgraded all firewalls (Cisco, Checkpoint, Juniper)
      • Monitoring and systems reporting
    • Team Bell, Electronic Services:
      • Designed, Implemented, and administrated, a redundant Network and Security system.
      • Implemented Solaris and Windows Servers, Oracle database, and Cisco, and Checkpoint firewalls
      • Project Management, hardware and software purchasing, and data center integration
      • Ensured full system security hardening, for Solaris, and Windows, ITIL standards
    • Royal Sun Assurance:
      • Upgraded 85-95% of their servers to newly upgraded hosts, in two geographically separated data centers
      • Upgraded existing infrastructure, installed configured and transferred data and applications, old to new for 200 hosts
      • Upgraded the Oracle environment and NETAPP systems
      • I-SERV Data center consolidation and upgraded core switches and implemented redundancy
    • Systems Integration & Consulting:
      • Installed and configured new Checkpoint firewalls (primary layer) & Cisco PIX firewalls (secondary layer)
      • Implemented administration procedures for all, UNIX, Linux, and Windows Servers in the data center
      • Installation of VOIP (Asterisk and CISCO call manager) at client sites
    • Forester Insurance:
      • Implemented a new security infrastructure, Checkpoint firewalls & new NETAPP storage array system
      • Updated administration procedures of all Forester's network expansion, Windows & Linux Servers
      • Implement Identity Minder and a new single-sign-on system (CA)

So that me in a nut shell. I have the experience to really help your business or organization. While I am looking for remote positions, due to my mobility challenges brought on by my transit accident four years ago, this doesn't mean I can't be a real benefit. Please consider giving me a chance.

Thank you.

Published by:

Valentine Stubbs