Capacity Management Consultant

• Sep 2016 - Present

Capacity Manager and Splunk Data Analyst (Contract)

• Dec 2013 - Jun 2016

Initial three month contract, extended nine times.Initially engaged to develop service-based Availability Mgmt. Joined ‘task force’ to investigate a major customer’s performance and stability issues; took over Capacity Management for that customer, developing depth and breadth of dedicated service.Lately, data analyst in Splunk-based Information Intelligence team, developing Operational Intelligence dashboards and Capacity reports internally and for multiple large corporate customers.• Introduction of service-based availability mapping;• Joined 'task force' for major CC customer investigating performance and stability issues; instrumental in identifying the cause after deep dive data analysis;• Developed a full Capacity Management service for that customer, with main focus on their Citrix-based VDI platform and supporting infrastructure;• Extended depth and breadth of capacity service within contractual agreements; approach subsequently extended to other accounts;• Produced regular capacity plans, reports and recommendations for customer, including quarterly in-depth Capacity Plan; attended reviews, presenting to infrastructure owners;• Splunk data analysis; produced Operational Intel. dashboards and reports internally and for multiple large corporate customers;• Exploited Splunk to collect data for production of regular and bespoke Capacity reporting and analysis;• Responded to customer for specific analysis of infrastructure utilisation, to investigate issues, resolve problems and identify potential threats;• Identified and utilised key business metrics; created capacity models to forecast future break points and potential threats, and assess impact of changing business demand;• Employed Splunk to automate previously time-consuming manual spreadsheet processes for Asset Mgmt;• Built strong customer relationships, working on-site with infrastructure managers, building customer trust;• Performance analysis of testing of major new application suite.

Principal Capacity Manager (Contract)

• Sep 2012 - Nov 2013

Initial six month contract, subsequently extended twice.Working on behalf on T-Systems Ltd (TSL), on-site at customer (EE telecoms). Initially engaged to formalise capacity reporting and forecasting to the customer; role expanded to technical lead of Capacity Management team. Increased capacity management coverage and reporting across TSL-managed EE infrastructure. Built and trained team, implemented and handed over processes.• Regular assessments of infrastructure components to identify actual and potential issues, and highlight opportunities to consolidate and decommission infrastructure;• Produced regular capacity plans and reports for customer; attend reviews, presenting to stakeholders (infrastructure owners and administrators, architects, customer capacity and service managers);• Set and managed reporting thresholds to reflect infrastructure resiliency, depending on availability requirements and SLA;• Utilised EE infrastructure data collected from multiple tools: BMC BCO, TeamQuest, HP Openview;• Modelling of infrastructure and database utilisation to ensure operational availability and stability; created bespoke models for Citrix infrastructure, database tablespace utilisation, growth and storage requirements;• Defined capacity reporting schedule; planned and scheduled work for TSL Capacity Mgmt team; • Establishment of readable and usable business-relevant reporting suite and dashboards, not just a maze of lines on a chart;• Introduced tracking and reporting of capacity recommendations to ensure issues and threats resolved;• Improved operational efficiency of the TSL capacity management process; developed regular reporting to the customer of the effectiveness and performance of the service;• Introduced KPIs to track investigation and resolution of recommendations, number of capacity-related incidents, production and quality of contractual deliverables to customer: capacity plans, reports and assessments, service and component coverage.

Operations Director

• Nov 2011 - Sep 2012

RightSize provide professional services in business intelligence and analytics, data analysis, capacity management, performance modelling and IT rightsizing. RightSize provides services to major financial, media, telecoms and IT service management companies.As Operations Director I established the financial and administrative structure of the company as well as providing professional data analysis services. RightSize provide professional services in business intelligence and analytics, data analysis, capacity management, performance modelling and IT rightsizing. RightSize provides services to major financial, media, telecoms and IT service management companies.As Operations Director I established the financial and administrative structure of the company as well as providing professional data analysis services.

Capacity Manager (Contract)

• Nov 2010 - Oct 2011

Contract, with extension.Development of DB infrastructure Capacity Management function for 40,000+ server estate including Solaris SPARC, X64, Windows, SLES, in a global investment banking environment. Strong focus on resource optimisation - right-sizing, consolidation, decommissioning - to generate financial savings.• Plan, implement and rollout of capacity management service to c.4,000 applications in a truly global investment banking environment; optimise rollout plan for application groupings and owners to meet demanding targets;• Testing and development of bespoke in-house SQL-based DB Capacity Management workflow and reporting tool;• Design and implementation of Excel-based systems for planning and tracking application contacts, service rollout, optimisation savings, amalgamating and manipulating data from multiple sources.• Contact application owners globally, presentation of awareness sessions to international audience, onboard applications to capacity management service, act as nominated Capacity Manager;• Production of scheduled capacity utilisation reports; build relationships and establish regular reviews with application owners;• Identify and forecast potential capacity-related risks to operational stability and capacity optimisation opportunities;• Identify key business metrics influencing forecast demand on applications;• Analysis of utilisation data to identify capacity optimisation opportunities to reduce cost, both from a server and application perspective, and also an estate-wide platform approach;• Identify under-utilised platforms, propose optimised solutions for execution by transition team;• Sizing of optimised target environments, quantification of benefits for both internal and bottom-line cost savings;• Positively influence internal customers to benefits of capacity management;• Particular optimisation focus on VMWare, hosting Windows and Linux, and Solaris SPARC platforms.

Wintel Capacity Manager

• Mar 2007 - Nov 2010

• Established RBS Capacity Management function from scratch across 10,000+ Windows server estate including large virtual infrastructure, providing service to 140,000+ global end users;• Creation of processes, algorithms and scripts for monitoring, analysis, modelling, forecasting and reporting, to highlight service-threatening pinchpoints and recommend action;• Modelling and forecasting requirements for servers, ESX nodes, clusters and associated SAN and disk storage, according to upcoming cross-group demand; advice on image placement within clusters;• Capacity reporting and forecasting for 2,500+ image virtualised server infrastructure and SAN using VMWare ESX and VirtualCenter;• Establishment of centralised server procurement and pre-provisioning system, with associated management and reporting; predict and supply business demand for rack, blade and virtual server and network requirements, delivering reduced costs and lead times between request and provision;• Establishment of readable and usable reporting suite and dashboards, not just a maze of lines on a chart;• Leverage server hardware knowledge by interacting with business project and design teams to advise on optimum server hardware selection, and challenge all demand for efficiency and virtualisation;• Drive down data centre power and space costs by appropriate hardware selection and decommissioning;• Manage centralised RBS group server procurement budget according to capacity plan and demand;• Increase senior management and service teams’ awareness of platform capacity and related issues, providing technical guidance and advice; contact point for all capacity and performance analysis issues;• Establishment of inventory and server asset management and reporting system from heterogeneous environment and disparate data sources, as input to server management and compliance;• Responsibility for internal and external audit, SOx compliance returns, and submissions to Risk log.

Server Hardware Specialist, Technical Development

• Jan 2006 - Feb 2007

• Ownership of Wintel server hardware platforms:• Research new initiatives, initiate proofs of concept, migrate into production;• Focus on server hardware; tenders and selection, working closely with Purchasing function;• Technical authorisation of new server implementations, ensuring compliance with RBS standards.

Platform Standards Manager

• Apr 2005 - Dec 2005

• Led and managed a team which established a comprehensive multi-level documentation library for server and desktop design, build and support standards within RBS.

Senior Systems Technician, Distributed Infrastructure Management

• 2002 - 2005

• Server hardware Technical Design Authority – evaluation, specification and selection of all Windows server hardware;• Ownership of technical relationship with server hardware suppliers; maintain server roadmaps;• Introduced standardised server portfolio; reduced purchase, implementation and support costs;• Server design, build and installation;• Management and administration of RBS Windows server estate. • Server hardware Technical Design Authority – evaluation, specification and selection of all Windows server hardware;• Ownership of technical relationship with server hardware suppliers; maintain server roadmaps;• Introduced standardised server portfolio; reduced purchase, implementation and support costs;• Server design, build and installation;• Management and administration of RBS Windows server estate.

Systems and Capacity Engineer

• 1994 - 2002

• Windows server design, build and support;• 1996-2002 CPMS Capacity and Performance Management System: designed, built and implemented bespoke Capacity monitoring and reporting system to manage RBP (>2,000 servers);• Integration of NatWest systems onto RBS platform.• MCSE and Compaq ASE.• Pre-1994: IBM MVS mainframe Systems Programmer; MVS/XA assembler programming. • Windows server design, build and support;• 1996-2002 CPMS Capacity and Performance Management System: designed, built and implemented bespoke Capacity monitoring and reporting system to manage RBP (>2,000 servers);• Integration of NatWest systems onto RBS platform.• MCSE and Compaq ASE.• Pre-1994: IBM MVS mainframe Systems Programmer; MVS/XA assembler programming.