RAFI SHAIK
Phone: +966541729371 /
+91-9100713579
E-mail: rafi.shaik3@gmail.com
Skype: Rafi.shaik1379
Soft Skills
Profile Summary
VMware Certified and Enterprising IT Professional offering, 15 years of National & International experience across IT Infrastructure Management, Security and Networking Operations
Successfully administered various IT Infrastructure Programs through program governance processes; developing relationship with business stakeholders and culturally diverse leadership teams; presenting changes, issues, risks & contingency plans to balance program/project resources
Functional skills includes Virtualization, High Availability, VIO (Virtual IO), Console, Clusters, VMWare VCenter, SAN (Storage Area Network), SAN Switch, Backup Policies and so on
Proven excellence in working within established configuration, documentation and change management policies to ensure awareness, approval and success of changes made to the network design & infrastructure steering to cost optimization
Gained extensive experience in working on diverse Virtualization software such as VMware, Hyper-V, Citrix and Virtual box
Recognized for establishing:
o SMTP, POP, RBL, SBL policies & exception in accordance the needs
o Firewall policies by working on multiple protocols as well as configured IPS, IDS, Dos and Spoof protection
Skilled in managing installation of OS, servers under multi-platform environments, deployment of servers, disk quota management; distributing and monitoring file systems & network
A keen planner & implementer with demonstrated abilities in Server Administration, IT Infrastructure Planning and Management for streamlining IT related operations
Provided technical support to global clients supporting a Service Level Agreement (SLA) of 24/7 uptime; re-designed technical infrastructure resulting in a global, high-availability environment
Proven track record in contributing significant impact to cost reduction and profit maximization through innovative technology planning, operating standards & procedures, and IT infrastructure
Rich experience in managerial activities entailing rendering technical leadership & guidance to the team members, holding discussions with different functions for reviews and analysis
Critical Strengths & Competencies
IT Infrastructure Management
Disaster Recovery Management
Storage Area Networks (SAN)
Business Continuity Planning Incident Management/ Troubleshooting/Technical Support LINUX Administration
Virtualization
Security Systems and Networks/Network Infrastructure Upgrade
ITIL Framework
System Administration Firewall Performance
Best Practices / Upgrades
Certifications/Courses
VMware Certified (VCP6-DCV)
Microsoft Certified (MCITP and MCP)
Internal Audit Course, ISO 9001, 14001 & OHSAS 18001
Cisco Introduction to Cybersecurity Course from Cisco
Advanced Certification Program in Cybersecurity by E-Learning Center, IIT Roorkee
IT Skills
Operating Systems: Linux, Windows
Virtualization: VMware, Hyper-V, Citrix
Networking: Cisco, Dell, Netgear
Security: Sophos, SonicWALL, Fortinet
Storage: Dell, NetApp, Netgear & EMC
Mail: Zimbra, Icewarp, Mdaemon, Exchange, Google
Cloud: AWS
ERP: SAP (Support on OS, Storage and Networking)
Applications: Fund Count, QuickBooks, Tally, TAS, MS-Projects, AutoCAD
Helpdesk: Manage Engine, osTicket, SysAid
Career Timeline
Professional Experience
Since Apr’16
Arabian Waterproofing Industries Co. Ltd., Riyadh, Saudi Arabia as Assistant Manager (IT Infrastructure) (www.awazel.com)
Oct’15-Mar’16
Treeline Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Chennai, India as a Consultant for Awazel
Jul’11-Apr’15
Basiz Fund Services Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India as Assistant Manager – IT (www.basizfa.com)
Jan’07-Jun’11
Radha Realty Corporation India Pvt. Ltd. & Tempus Infra Projects Pvt. Ltd. (Group of Companies) Hyderabad, India as Sr. System and Network Administrator (www.radharealty.com)
Jul’05-Jun’06
CVS Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad, India as System Engineer
Key Result Areas:
Troubleshooting incoming incidents; performing requests for service or environment system configuration changes and applying problem management upon available skills and experiences
Ascertaining continual service improvement opportunities and working on them
Governing the entire ITIL Process including Service Level Management, Issues Management, Configuration Management, Risk Management, Scope Change Management, Patch Management, Communications Management
Building a high performing Infrastructure Operations team that operates with a culture of business and customer centricity; partnering with Engineering teams to improve service experience, uptime and resilience
Performing Due diligence for new transition and contract for server infrastructure
Strategizing plans for process improvement and customer service delivery; sustaining accurate technical documentation specifying system configurations, procedures and standards as well as adapting best practices in accordance with OEM
Ensuring infrastructure adherence to preset KPIs; analyzing performance, health, and monitoring to ensure appropriate resource allocation, system reliability and availability, sufficient capacity and optimal performance
Governing SLAs, safeguarding timely closure of priority tickets, resolving escalations, migrating systems to upgraded versions to maximize efficiency; spearheading portfolio of projects including cost budgeting, planning and execution of programs; providing inputs on the project strategy, budget, policies and major issue resolutions
Ensuring timely closure of all incidents as per Incident Management Practices; preparing disaster recovery plans for the network and security devices; interfacing with vendors for network and security products
Framing & employing change management strategies around complex client business initiatives by utilizing proven methodologies and techniques
Supporting and monitoring the existing infrastructure, managing preventative maintenance and backup as well as performing other regular support activities to ensure effectiveness
Knowledge Purview (Technical)
Security & Networking:
Led successful configuration of:
o Mail NAT policies using MTA, Legacy modes
o Static Routes and SD-Wan Policy routes
o Routers using RIP, OSPF, EIGRP protocol
o IPSEC, RED, SSL VPN to communicate branch offices and remote workers
o Security devices including Sophos, Cyberoam, Fortinet, SonicWALL (Sophos XG 310, XG210, XG125, Cyberoam CR300iNG, CR100iNG, CR35iNG, Fort iGATE 60B, 100C and Sonic wall TZ 170, 190, NSA 240, NSA 2400)
Applied intellect for utilization of network simulator programs such as Cisco packet tracer and GNS3
Gained extensive experience in working on multiple Antivirus software such as Symantec, MacAfee, Escan and Kaspersky
Steered installation and configuration of:
o ISA firewall as per organization’s requirement, user level access, blocking websites, downloading and so on
o Networking devices encompassing Cisco, Dell, Netgear (Cisco catalyst 3650, 2600, SG300, SG350, Cisco 881, 2821,2901, Dell Force 10 S4810, Dell Force 10 MXL Dell power connect 5548P, 6624, Netgear GSM7228s)
Virtualization:
Championed initiatives in executing multiple projects on virtualization including disaster recovery by working on VMware SRM
Performed a comprehensive assessment of ESXi patches and VMware tools as well as updated the same
Converted P2V, V2V using tools vCenter Convertor and MVMC
Configured:
o Clusters with HA, DRS and EVC
o VM/Host Groups and Rules
o Virtual, Distribution switches, failover and NIC teaming
o Port Groups, Edit Security Policy and Traffic Shaping Policy for a Virtual Switch
o Storages with ESXi using iSCSI along with troubleshooting LUN related concerns
o vCenter replication partner
Insightful experience in importing and managing certificates based on requirement in VMware Certification Manager
Create roles and assign to staff members
Create and Configure alarm definitions based on organization requirements.
An enterprising professional, who has skills on:
o Configure roles with High availability
o Hyper-V network design and NIC teaming
o Troubleshooting Hyper-V production issues
Successfully configured as well as administered storage resources
Resourceful in scaling up the processor performance through supporting Hyper threading technology
Led the installation and configuration of:
o Citrix Hypervisor
o Windows 2008, 2012 and 2016 with Hyper-V
o Fail Over Cluster Manager
o vCenter server with embedded and external platform service controller
Created virtual machines on workstation by using virtual box
Storage:
Managed the installation and configuration of Dell, Netgear & NetApp storages
Configured:
o HTTPS, CIFS and NFS
o Network interfaces
o Filer view and installed licenses including CIFS, Cluster, FCP, HTTP, NFS, iSCSI
o Replication, RAID-DP, thin provisioning, Snapshot copy, deduplication, data compression, SnapVault and SnapMirror
o Group and management IP addresses by console
o Access policies as per the requirement
Efficiency in designing & creating storage pools and delegated space for replication
Responsible for updating firmware for securing new features and fixing the bugs, on periodic basis
Skilled in generating backup storage and configuring schedule and continuous backups by volume
Successful role in creating & supervising aggregates, volumes and LUN’s; allotted LUN’s to virtual machines as data stores
Steered efforts towards creating and configuring the cluster between two filers
Mail Server Administration:
Displayed resourcefulness in configuring:
o Mail servers such as Zimbra, Mdaemon, Icewarp and Exchange
o Zimbra multiserver consistent with the requirement LDAP, MTA, store, proxy, archiving
o SPF, DMARC, DKIM for facilitating secure mail flow
Performed troubleshooting on Zimbra
Held the responsibility of establishing mailbox quotas, sending & receiving restrictions, attachment size restrictions and so on
Worked on Ex-merge to create PST’s from mailboxes
Mdaemon Mail Server installation, configuration and Maintenance.
Led successful installation, configuration and troubleshooting of Microsoft Exchange 2003 and advanced versions
Key role in designing new mailboxes on Exchange as well as updating the users at PAN India level
Pivotal role in administering Exchange server in cluster along with creating mailbox, checking queues and Restoring mailboxes as well as assessing the mail flow monitoring San activity
Operating Systems (Linux & Windows):
Gained rich exposure on Linux distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, RedHat and so on
Steered the configuration & maintenance of Widows Server 2003
Key role in deploying Active Directory Security settings such as group policies, local policies, domain & domain controller policies
Steered the configuration of:
o Network solutions including DNS, WINS & DHCP and servers
o Volume Shadow Copy Services
o Active Directory along with developing FSMO Roles
Led the installation and configuration of:
o IIS, File and Print Servers
o Windows Fail Over Clustering
Monitoring the Active Directory Environment using Event Viewer, Task Manager, and Performance Manager
Engaged in DFS Management
Personal Details
Date of Birth: 5th July1984
Languages Known: English, Hindi, Urdu, Telugu and Tamil
Address: Saudi Arabia
No. of Dependents: 2
Marital Status: Married
Visa Status: Employment Visa
Driving License: No