US Citizen  |  Austin, TX 78758  |  (512) xxx-xxxx  |  tishchenko@yahoo.com
Alex Tishchenko

 

Skills

    - Extensive IT experience in Financial and Technology sectors
    - Infrastructure: HA architecture, cost management, automation, BCDR, Cloud migration, environment standardization
    - Public and Private cloud: VMware, Docker/Containers, Amazon Web Services (AWS), MS Azure
    - OS platforms: in-depth knowledge of Linux (RHEL, CentOS, Amazon Linux), Windows; HPCC
    - Toolsets: Bash, Python (incl. Boto3), PowerShell, SQL, Terraform, Git, Tableau; fundamentals of C, Java, .NET, PHP
    - Expert knowledge of Dell|EMC, HP, Brocade, Cisco, F5 and other enterprise product lines
    - Datacenter: colocation selection, relocation/setup from ground up, Telco/datacenter management
    - Compliance: PCI-DSS 3.x, SSAE 16 (former SAS70), HIPAA, NIST (STIG) security framework
    - Financial Planning/IT budget management; ROI/VOI; Project Management; contract negotiation, vendor management
    - Agile (Scrum/Kanban) and Waterfall methodologies; DevOps; IaC, IaaS, technical writing

Certifications

    - Enterprise Architecture (EA) framework: TOGAF 9 Foundation (The Open Group Architecture Framework)
    - Cloud: AWS Certified Solutions Architect-Associate
    - Linux: RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer), LPIC-1 (Linux Professional Institute Certification)
    - Microsoft: MSCA, MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer)
    - EMC: EMCIEe (Implementation Engineer, Solutions Expert), EMCCE (Customer Engineer, Solutions Specialist)
    - Dell: DCSNP (Dell Certified Storage Networking Professional)

Work experience

Infrastructure Architect

Oct '20 to Present

Acxiom

Austin, TX

    - VMware, Block/File/Object Storage, Backups and BCDR; Dell|EMC, IBM, Infinidat, Brocade, Veritas
    - AWS Infrastructure, Lambda, Boto3, Control Tower, Docker, Jenkins, CI/CD
    - Automation, scripting, Python, Bash, IaC Terraform Cloud, GitHub Enterprise, REST API
    - Capacity Management, AWS Config, Tableau and Excel Dashboards/Analyses/Forecasting; SQL Data Manipulation
    - Various projects, POCs, cost assessments and benchmark testing for on-prem and in AWS

Director of IT Operations and Infrastructure

Dec '19 to Jun '20

CreditShop LLC

Austin, TX

    - Responsible for IT, DevOps, DBA, MFT, Production Support and Help Desk
    - Lead a geographically dispersed team to drive Infrastructure and Continuous Integration/Delivery (CI/CD) Modernization,
      Cost Savings and PCI-DSS compliance in AWS and Azure clouds and on-prim environments
Accomplishments:
Cut AWS infrastructure cost by 25% thru:
    - Migration to On-Demand Development environments, Jenkins infrastructure, and containers
    - Implementation of EFS, S3/Glacier manual (end user) and intelligent tiering
    - Change from monolithic to microservices architecture
    - Contract negotiations, savings plan, prepay, spot instances use
Implemented processes and infrastructure changes to achieve PCI-DSS and CIS Benchmarks compliance:
    - Matured enterprise patch management by implementing governance, process automation and control structures, resulting
      in drop from 1,000s of non-compliant vulnerabilities monthly to zero across AWS and Laptops
    - Corp, Prod, CDE infrastructure segmentation (AD, network, AWS accounts); AWS Transit VPC standup; PaloAlto HA
    - Implemented Ansible Tower for patching and configuration automation; ELK, LogRhythm, Symantec SEP, DLP, MSS;
      Azure SAML/MFA; server LDAP auth; migrated from Keys to AWS IAM Roles; Contrast Security CI/CD integration
      IT CAB processes; 24hr Production Support coverage, hand-off/rotation procedures
COVID-19 pandemic response:
    - Migrated company to 100% remote; implemented MS Teams (Conferencing solution); remote Help Desk
Completed monitoring, performance, and latency improvements:
    - Service Monitoring and Alerting leveraging AWS Lambda functions; NOC Single Pane of Glass monitoring dashboard
    - Migration to DB stored procedures to increase response times; DB connection pooling enablement to decease latency
Cost/time saving projects:
    - 3rd party Java SSL certificate management improvements
    - On-demand Encryption/Decryption services for Tech Ops team
    - Managed File Transfer (MFT) migration from Cerberus to GoAnywhere
    - IBM Sterling Connect:Direct to allow for NDM communication to TSYS
    - Wilmington, DE office move

 

Lead Infrastructure Architect

Nov '16 to Dec '19

Visa Inc

Austin, TX

    - Strategic planning, development and facilitation of solutions to business and infrastructure challenges
    - Building organizational consensus around infrastructure strategy; assurance of organizational broad awareness
    - Assessment of industry trends and emerging technologies; Gartner/IDC research
    - Scrum Master (Kanban Flow Manager); Data Protection Program management; automation initiative; DR strategy
    - Funding approvals, contract negotiation, vendor relationship maintenance
    - Analyses of large data sets; SQL; Tableau and Excel dashboards
    - Hands-on help to Storage, Network, Virtualization, Automation, OS, DB and Capacity teams: network packet capture/
      analyses, automation spec writing, design blueprints, RHEL/AIX/VMware performance/analyses/troubleshooting,
      Bash and PowerShell scripting, Windows security, ...
Accomplishments:
    - Achieved 48% decrease in Data Protection spend by development and leading migration to new architecture utilizing
      updated technology stacks and improved Database and VMware backup methodologies
    - Re-negotiated Visa International and Visa Europe Data Protection license costs resulting in 70% cost savings
    - Integrated WORM protection into Data Protection stack

 

Senior Manager Virtualization and Automation

Feb '16 to Nov '16

WorldPay

Atlanta, GA

Senior Enterprise Infrastructure Architect

Aug '14 to Feb '16

WorldPay/SecureNet

Austin, TX

Senior Systems Engineer

Nov '12 to Aug '14

SecureNet

Austin, TX

    - Responsible for the overall vision, leadership, direction, governance & strategies associated with the planning, delivery,
      management, and support of virtualization infrastructure and automation
    - VMware ESX/vSphere support across 6 data centers; Horizon View VDI environment; monitoring
    - Self-service portal build up and automation;
    - Management of geographically dispersed team; project management
    - Cost reduction, integration and processes optimization
    - Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure proof of concept
    - Managed, defined, and evolved enterprise technology strategy through alignment with corporate business strategy by
      driving technology blueprints, conducting technology assessments, automation and managing the technology portfolio
    - Budgeting; primary point of contact for vendor engagement and relationship management; project management
    - PCI DSS compliance; environment standardization and documentation
    - RHEL/CentOS, Solaris, VMware vSphere administration
    - EMC CLARiiON/Dell Compellent SAN, PowerVault MD administration on SAS, iSCSI, Cisco MDS, Brocade fabrics
    - f5 Big IP, Cisco ASA/Catalyst and Windows secondary admin responsibilities
Accomplishments:
    - Grown Virtualization & Automation team from a single engineer to a team of six
    - Inventoried, patched and secured WorldPay virtualization infrastructure for PCI DSS ROC submission
    - Successfully completed primary WorldPay datacenter migration to a new colocation (Atlanta, GA)
    - Built IT lab
    - Under budget near 100% server and SAN hardware refresh and retrofit; over 90% environment virtualized; near $1 million
      (USD) in savings via optimization, re-engineering, automation and contract/vendor negotiations
    - Architected and implemented DR infrastructure and automation to meet <30min RTO
    - Successful datacenter migration from Sterling, VA to Las Vegas, NV with close to zero hardware budget; allowed
      organization cross datacenter operation with minimum latency; over 30% savings in month-to-month colocation spending
    - Key participant in SecureNet PCI DSS audit proceedings; year-to-year successful ROC submission
    - SolarWinds expansion to monitor storage and virtualization infrastructure; vROPS implementation
    - Monetra (payment gateway) major architecture upgrade for PCI-DSS compliance
    - Feedzai (Cassandra based fraud prevention system) design, buildout and integration into SecureNet authorization system
    - Planet Group - Acquire360 (Merchant Billing, Settlement and Chargeback platform) migration from Solaris to Linux,
      redesign and major version upgrade; allowed to scale SecureNet merchant boarding capabilities and reduced hardware cost
    - Multi-distribution Linux environment upgrade/standardization on latest Red Hat OS; server deployment automation
    - NTP and external DNS re-architecture; Oracle RAC environments migration and standardization on 12c/RHEL

Senior Systems Engineer, IT Hosting Services

Oct '11 to Nov '12

Epicor

Austin, TX

    - EMC CLARiiON CX4-, CX-series, HP 3PAR P10000 V800 storage administration on Brocade and McData FC fabrics
    - VMware administration: 40 ESX servers, 500+ VMs, multiple datacenters
    - Automation; performance analyses and tuning; environment documentation and standardization
    - VAR relationship management; project management
    - SAS70 (SSAE 16) and PCI DSS compliance
    - Backup Linux/Unix admin: 400+ RHEL4,5,6 and Solaris 8,9,10 servers, Veritas Clustering (VCS, VxVM)
Accomplishments:
    - VMware contracts re-negotiations and infrastructure redesign resulting in over 20% cost savings
    - Storage and server hardware refresh: migration from EMC VNX/Dell PowerEdge to HP 3PAR/ProLiant
    - Key participant in Activant and Epicor infrastructure merger planning
    - Successful PCI DSS ROC submission

PG Software Engineer Advisor, Data Center Solutions Engineer

Mar '10 to Oct '11

Dell

Austin, TX

Services Technical Consulting Advisor, Field Systems Engineer

Dec '08 to Feb '10

Dell

Austin, TX

Enterprise Technical Support Advisor

Aug '05 to Dec '08

Dell

Round Rock, TX

Server/Storage Support Analyst

Apr '02 to Aug '05

Dell

Round Rock, TX

    - Dedicated operations engineer for Facebook, Yahoo and OnLive; backup for Amazon and Microsoft
    - Systems integration support; automation; scripting; performance testing/optimization; IPMI; Intel Node Manager
    - Microsoft/VMware failover clusters, ROCKS+/Platform PCM (OCS) HPC clusters deployment and troubleshooting
    - Brocade, Cisco MDS, InfiniBand/Mellanox, Dell|EMC, EqualLogic, PowerEdge, PowerConnect, PowerVault NAS/tape,
      Windows, Red Hat, VMware ESX and GSX (VMware server), Solaris, AIX, HP-UX
Accomplishments:
    - In collaboration with Facebook developed common platform for system configuration changes and firmware delivery
    - Wrote tool for SMBIOS modification
    - Developed and pioneered factory integration model for HPC clusters at Dell using 3rd party integrator (TriFusion)
    - Developed and implemented North America's Dell|EMC Remote Enterprise Assistance program, creating foundation
      for Dell Global Services program

Education

BS, Bachelor of Science, Texas A&M University-Commerce; GPA: 3.95, Magna Cum Laude
Major: Computer Information Systems; Minor: General Business

Languages

Fluent in English, Russian and Ukrainian, conversant in Spanish