Zafar Afridi
Manager Network Operations and Control Center at Northwestel- Claim this Profile
Click to upgrade to our gold package
for the full feature experience.
Topline Score
Bio
Credentials
-
Project Management Professional (PMP)
Project Management InstituteNov, 2019- Nov, 2024 -
Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP)
Cisco -
Fortinet Network Security Expert Level 4: Certified Professional
Fortinet -
IT Information Library Foundations Certification (ITIL)
AXELOS Global Best Practice -
ITIL v4 Specialist
AXELOS Global Best Practice -
Microsoft Certified Information Technology Professional (MCITP)
Microsoft -
Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate: Windows Server 2012
Microsoft
Experience
-
Northwestel
-
Canada
-
Telecommunications
-
200 - 300 Employee
-
Manager Network Operations and Control Center
-
Jul 2021 - Present
•Manage the daily operations of NorthwesTel network infrastructure working collaboratively with the operations, engineering, and customer services departments to ensure the various services provisioning and assurance activities occur in a timely manner, and that the network is optimally configured to ensure customer satisfaction. •Provide effective ad timely escalation of customer-based interest issues when required to both internal and external organizations. •Enforce contract obligations respecting both customer Service Level Agreement (SLA) and organizations Mean Time to Repair commitments. •Develop, monitor and track service level indicators and coordinate the development of action plans that effectively address areas of opportunity. •Champion continuous improvement goals in support of our ability to surpass customer expectation by effectively collaborating with other business partners across the business. •Chair the change advisory board, Emergency Change Advisory Board and facilitates all post implementation reviews providing monthly metrics to the Northwestel leadership team on success, attendance and complain ratio. •Plan, coordinate and implement all changes/upgrades to the network and service provisions ensuring that such changes are made with minimal interruption to the network. •Coordinate the maintenance and repair of the network, when necessary, by providing guidance around priority and impact mitigation to those responsible for carrying out approved changes. •Ensure all change requests are formally identified and properly documented in an effort to fully understand change requests which have an impact on the service delivery and customer. •Lead all direct and indirect reports including performance evaluations, attendance management, prioritizing of workload, and implementing both staff development and training plans. •Represent the organization through direct contact with business customers, partner carriers, and internal departments as required. Show less
-
-
-
ExxonMobil
-
Oil and Gas
-
700 & Above Employee
-
Infrastructure Support Analyst/Project Coordinator
-
May 2019 - Sep 2020
• Create and review documentation/process as required (i.e. Transition documents from Project to Steady Operations state) • Provide overall IT infrastructure Projects coordination, which involves multiple local and global groups to complete assignments and projects. • Support business in an Enterprise environment, with distributed locations, dealing with items remotely. • Perform changes according to change management best practices. • Maintaining and monitoring project plans, project schedules, work hours, budgets and expenditures. • Organizing, attending, and participating in stakeholder meetings. • Documenting and following up on important actions and decisions from meetings. • Configuring network switches and routers and setting up firewall policies. • Installing and decommissioning Windows Servers 2012/2016 in data centre • Applying patches to end user systems and servers • Managing virtual machines and data resources on Amazon Web Services (AWS) • Troubleshoot IT issues assist with incident resolution. • Configuring and managing Microsoft Office 365 servers • Maintain, analyse, and troubleshoot, software and computer peripherals. • Ability to setup, configure and add all hardware. • Assure that all tickets requiring follow up work and/or calls receive appropriate attention. • Assist in developing and documenting improvements to current processes. • Ensuring projects adhere to frameworks and all documentation is maintained appropriately for each project. • Assess project risks and issues and provide solutions where applicable. • Create a project management calendar for fulfilling each goal and objective. Show less
-
-
-
New York University Abu Dhabi
-
United Arab Emirates
-
Higher Education
-
700 & Above Employee
-
Senior Client Service Analyst
-
Sep 2014 - Feb 2019
• Participate in Project planning sessions • Create, manage and complete schedule changes by using IT service management tool Service Now in order to complete on going activities related to maintenance • Participating in Change Management meetings as part of Change Advisory Board member • Communicating project progress and submitting reports to Senior Management • Evaluate and install computer hardware, networking software, server operating system on physical and virtual machines. • Troubleshooting computers, switches, wireless access points, printers and Audio/Visual devices. • Configuring network devices in a network consist of 6509, 4507, 4510 and 7000 Catalyst Switches • Making updates to the CMDB as necessary • Assess project risks and issues and provide solutions where applicable • Contributing to technical documentation of processes, procedures and guidelines • Assisting with tasks related to projects as requested by Project Managers • Analyse and monitor network activity to ensure optimal network operation. • Monitors and tests network performance and provides network performance statistics and reports. • Handles and manages daily requests from other business and technical units on routine activities related to the network infrastructure • Performs basic to complex security reviews to ensure compliance with internal security standards and regulatory requirements • Ensuring optimal performance of laptops, tablets and desktops with a strong focus on security and virus management • Log Incidence and Service Requests tasks using Service Now to analyse the root cause of problems and incidence and try to resolve them within the time frame suggested by IT Service Management Team • Initiates and participates in the investigation of alleged security breaches by helping to determine root cause, impact, remediation, and, if necessary, assisting with actions associated with such incidents Show less
-
-
-
-
Assistant Manager Technical
-
Nov 2013 - Apr 2014
• Participated in planning, designing of Cisco Nexus Switches Roll out project • Submitting project progress report to stakeholders • Coordinating with different departments to understand the issues they were facing • Improve productivity by highlighting deficiencies and recommending changes in tools, training, processes, reporting and employee engagement. • Work with vendors to resolve hardware, operating system issues; research and test possible solutions and implements solutions. • Update operating system software and apply patches to end user application software • Identifies, troubleshoot and resolves hardware, software and network related problems encountered by the end users of the ACES network. • Analyses bugs in system and application software; research and test possible solutions, implements solutions. • Perform primary system administration on servers as needed. • Testing and evaluating new technology • Install network devices for both local and company-wide networks. • Use equipment such as network analyser, memory tester and a variety of electronic test equipment. • Perform major repairs and adjustments or coordinate repairs with external organizations. Show less
-
-
-
EthicStar Ltd London UK
-
London, United Kingdom
-
Senior Network Security Engineer
-
Mar 2008 - Sep 2012
• Installing, upgrading and maintaining systems hardware, operating system and software infrastructure. • Tackling DNS and DHCP issues on the client computers • Managing the website domain, server administration and keeping the internal networks running • Backing up the servers and system data on daily bases and creating IMF (Install from Media) files • Adding new computers to the network and updating the software • Maintaining the security of equipment and data • Maintaining the Internet connectivity and auditing the data • Providing training and support to the ICT Engineers • Setting up the network and security standards for the organization • Analysing the existing business, writing the new requirements, providing IT solutions to business and management problems. • Uploading products data to the web application server. • Maintaining the system which connects the Textile Graphic Network with the rest of the Network • Provides support related to the Computer Internetwork • Provide training to the staff regarding graphics and network management • Ensuring that hardware and network cabling are maintained and repaired as necessary • Providing basic 1st and 2nd line computer network support • Constructing the technology skeleton • Providing the guidelines and safeguard to the company network structure • Responsible for creating and managing the user account (deletion, addition and modifying) • Responsible for allocating the permissions to certain departments regarding the computer equipment like printers and fax machines Show less
-
-
-
Church World Service
-
United States
-
Non-profit Organizations
-
700 & Above Employee
-
Field Officer
-
Jul 2006 - Jan 2007
Preparing Weekly and Monthly planning Responsible to submit Weekly and Monthly Reports to Team Leader Identification of Volunteers (focal person/contact person) during Social Mobilization Formation of Village Committees (VCs) in the target area Registration of Volunteers and maintain a data base of the target group Training of the target group on project activities Coordination with the UC level govt. line departments, NGOs and UC government Support to Team Leader in reporting and planning Show less
-
-
Education
-
2009 - 2010
London Metropolitan University
MSc Computer Networking, Computer Science
Community
