Gerhard Venter

Gerhard Venter 4 Claughton Road, Largs Bay, SA, 5016 Mobile:-, Email:- Key Skills I'm a systems administrator with experience in corporate, web and ISP networks, and with web, database and programming skills. Experience Summary ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● Virtualization: VMWare ESXi and VSphere, Linux KVM, Oracle Virtualbox Windows server related (Since 1998) : Active Directory, MS Exchange, Group Policies, Citrix XenApp (MetaFrame / Presentation Server), VBScript, AutoIT, WMI (Windows management Instrumentation), Windows Powershell, DNS, DHCP, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) (Systems Management Server), WSUS, ISA Server, Disk imaging and custom builds. DFS, DFSR, Sharepoint, Kaspersky AV, PRTG, Appsense Unix/Linux related technologies (Since 2001) : Linux - Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu & Centos distributions, Sun Unix, Postfix, Bind DNS, Squid, MRTG, SNMP, Bash shell scripting, Samba, iptables Linux firewall, Nagios, FreeRadius, Rsync, Zimbra Web programming: Apache, Nginx, IIS, HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, Python, Django, CherryPy, Zope, Plone, Mezzanine, Kivy, Git, Moodle, Wordpress Database: PostgreSQL, MySQL, Microsoft SQL server, SQLite Backup systems and high availability: CommVault, Backup Exec, VMWare Data recovery, Double-Take Availability, HP Dataprotector, Actifio Mobile: Android. I am also able to create apps for Android and iOS using Kivy Cloud infrastructure: Amazon Web Services, Digital Ocean Consumer Cloud services: Dropbox, Google Drive, Office 365 Qualifications ● ● ● ● ● ● BA (English & Economics) HED (South African Teachers Diploma) MCSE with MS Exchange & TCP/IP as electives Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA) Red Hat Certified Systems Administrator — RHCSA A+ Certificate (a PC hardware and software certificate) Courses ● ● ● ● ● Citrix CCA course (2001 and 2010) Cisco CCNA course (2005) CommVault Simpana (2009) Red Hat Certified Systems Administrator — RHCSA (2011) Riverbed Cascade Pilot (2012) Work history Contractor, Semantic Sciences, Oct 2015 - June 2016 Systems Administrator Sysadmin and programming work on internal and public facing web services. Created: ● Code deployment systems (from git and local content to live websites). ● A web based backup tracking and reporting system. ● Parts of a secure software licence system. ● Moodle sites and courses. Main technologies used: Linux, PostreSQL, Nginx, Apache, Python, JavaScript, Django, Zimbra, Moodle, Amazon Web Services, Windows 10, VMWare Server & Workstation Contractor for Anittel at People’s Choice Credit Union, Sept 2014 - Oct 2015 Systems Administrator, BAU team ● Responsible for backups, restores and backup failure troubleshooting in Actifio and HP Dataprotector. ● MS Exchange migration work. ● Created a database driven network asset collector using Python. ● Installed Citrix Cloudbridge and VMware ESXi systems. ● Created & configured many new virtual servers in the VMWare cluster. ● Server relocations and data centre work. Contractor, Guide Dogs SA.NT, April - June 2014 ● Sysadmin work - similar to my previous contract with Guide Dogs Contractor, Guide Dogs SA.NT, Contract, May - Aug 2013 Systems Administrator Responsible for all aspects of their ICT, including: ● Exchange and Active Directory admin ● VMWare VSphere cluster admin ● Citrix admin ● Firewall work ● Backups Created or implemented: ● A Cisco Wireless network with Radius authentication to Active Directory, and bandwidth accounting from the FreeRadius MySQL database with a bandwidth reporting system I created in Python. ● A secure automated file transfer system for getting data from the public website into the Guide Dogs network. ● Trialled and implemented Trend Micro hosted email security to work with the existing Exchange-based email system. Technical specialist, NHS Anglia Support Partnership, (now ​Serco ASP​), UK, 2007 - 2012 Supported several organisations within the NHS in the UK. Worked in a team responsible for developing and maintaining the ICT infrastructure consisting of around 7500 users, 6500 PCs and 322 servers. Responsible for: ● Lead several site re-IPs at NHS sites where I was responsible for all aspects of the work, including reconfiguration of routers, switches and printers, liaising with the site, finding applications that applications might break due to static IP configurations, etc. ● VMWare VSphere cluster admin. Virtualized physical servers. ● VMWare Data Recovery backups, as well as CommVault Simpana backups of the cluster through the VMWare API for Data Protection. ● Co-responsible for setting up and monitoring the enterprise CommVault Sympana backup system. ● Set up many Backup Exec, Unix, and database level backups that were not covered by CommVault. ● Implemented parts of the Citrix XenApp farm, installed and supported applications. Also migrated applications to Citrix. ● Rolled out software and managed a PC based network of 6500 workstations at many sites using Group Policy, my own Python-based system (see below), web-based self help installers and SCCM. ● I was the WSUS administrator - checked and released Microsoft security updates ● Supported the Riverbed Shark appliances and did bandwidth and network analysis and reporting using Cascade Pilot and WireShark. ● I was the Double-Take administrator, responsible for setting up replication sets for Exchange servers, Application servers and File servers to hardware at a failover location. In cases of failures of a server at the central site I was able to switch over to the failover server with no data loss. ● Created the desktop SOE build with NHS applications ● Supported an Oracle database and financial applications running under Linux KVM. Created: ● A monitoring, asset tracking and automation system using Python, SQL and Web programming. This system tracks backups (CommVault and Backup Exec), checks essential system parameters on servers, such as disk space (on Windows and Unix). It alerts system administrators when essential services stop, when site network links go down, backups fail or essential accounts get locked out. It also graphed bandwidth usage on the network links. It keeps tracks of users and workstations, including where and when they logged on, and hardware and software details of PCs. It was also used to automatically rename and reboot thousands of Windows workstations to a new naming convention - and did so without affecting the user’s work. ● A self-help web portal where users could apply for access to parts of the file system. For this I created a web-based ticketing system which emails the NHS manager who can authorise access. Upon authorisation, the system would add the user to the AD group that allows access to that part of the file system, the user would be informed via email, and a record of the authorisation would be kept in the ticketing system. ● Self-help installers where users could install certain software on their systems without having administrative access to their workstations. Contractor at Evolving Media, UK, 2006 - 2007 Preparation and installation of Dell servers at Telecity data centre in London and transfer of websites, web-applications and databases to these new servers. Supported the developers with database administration, MySQL replication, backups and website go-live, Apache configurations (for example mod_rewrite). Supported the internal network and Macintosh desktops. Created: ● monitoring systems to monitor many aspects of the company's operations, including databases, websites, and hardware ● advanced security for a web-based application used by banks and building societies. Contractor at GalleonCI (now called ​Dovetail​), UK, Early 2006 Done their migration to Active Directory and created group policies and logon scripts. Set up Microsoft Systems Management Server and ISA Server. Contractor at NHS Anglia Support Partnership (now ​Serco ASP​), UK, 2005 – 2006 Citrix, Active directory & MS Exchange support and support of NHS applications. Created: ● a web based application for the IT support staff displaying key network indicators at a glance such as Backup results, Internet mail queues, Wins Status, Server Disk usage, logged on users & computernames, summary of server event logs. ● a web-based & MySQL changelog system for modifications made by administrators (such as firewall changes). Systems engineer at Africonnect Ltd, UK, 2002 - 2005 Responsible for: ● Installing & supporting networks, mail servers, proxy servers and VSAT connectivity for research institutes in Africa. This includes the US Centers for Disease Control, Institut Pasteur, University of Tuebingen, the Wellcome Trust and Comesa. ● Solving problems with Cisco configurations and firewalls escalated to me by site administrators. ● Training & supporting network administrators at these sites. ● Writing documents about bandwidth optimisation for the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) which was distributed to ICT staff at universities in developing countries. Spoke on the subject at a conference in Johannesburg attended by representatives of several African universities. Created ● web-based statistics and monitoring systems for site LANs and VSAT networks. ● a large Zope/Plone database driven website, with workflows, and where users could publish their MS Word or PDF documents into web format easily, and have documents approved by their managers ● the bandwidth usage interface for an ISP billing system, using Python and SNMP. Systems administrator, Hays Commercial Services (Now Iron Mountain), UK,- Worked on a project rolling out new infrastructure to the IMS division of Hays. This included creating a new server farm with 150 servers. Created the build and installation of the servers and migrated from Novell Netware. These included MS SQL servers, Citrix servers, Domain controllers, DNS, DHCP, WINS, MS Exchange, file and print, and web servers. Designed and rolled out a standard desktop build environment designed for central control and low support costs to all 1700 staff at 32 sites. Created a Citrix Terminal Server farm for centralizing the data of 32 sites at the company's main site. Implemented Internet access with WebSweeper, MailSweeper and MS Proxy Server. Helpdesk technician at DIGICA, UK,- Mathematics Teacher, RT Mokgopa High School, South Africa,- Personal projects: ● ● A cross-platform arithmetic app that can run on ​Android​, iOS, Windows, Linux and Macintosh created using Kivy. See ​en.arithmethon.com An aggregator / indexer / web crawler of Afrikaans web sites at b ​ lik.co.za​. This site runs on Apache, Django, PostgreSQL and has Python code which finds new Afrikaans web sites using various methods, and updates the site dynamically. Personal: Citizenship: South Africa, United Kingdom Australian permanent resident Australian drivers licence Date of Birth: 26th. October 1967