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Work Background
Ben E. Keith CompanySenior Director of Infrastructure
Jul. 2018 - Jan. 2025Dallas/Fort Worth AreaLeading the infrastructure organization, responsible for Mainframe, Server, Network, Storage, Cloud, Database, Security, End User Compute & Operations. Major Accomplishments:
Office 365 adoption
- Exchange migration from on-prem to O365
- Teams rollout to support COVID work from home
- Teams phones rollout, eliminating long-distance charges
Telco/Mobility optimizations
- MPLS to DIA migration, 10x + bandwidth, same cost structure
- Mobility optimizations resulting in 30% direct cost savings
Business Growth project support
- Integration of 2 acquisitions
- 3 new warehouse builds & one major expansion
- Replacement of B2B e-commerce system - ERP system to the Cloud (currently in-flight)
Security Posture/Risk Management Improvements
- MSSP implementation
- Perimeter security improvements (VPN, Firewalls, Akamai, MFA)
- Security tooling (SEIM, Phishing protection, Next-gen EDR, Security Awareness Training, Password Policy enhancements, bitlocker)
- Technical debt elimination (vulnerability management, outdates OS’s, EOL hardware replacements)
- ITSM process maturation (incident management, change management)
CS TechnologyPrincipal/Office of the CTO | Executive Advisor | Technology Leader
Jun. 2015 - Jul. 2018Dallas/Fort Worth AreaCS Technology (now part of Accenture) is a leading advisory firm that provides strategy and implementation services to world-class companies to unlock the value of their IT portfolio investments. The company’s domain expertise, nimble business model, and financial acumen helps clients enhance the bottom-line performance of their data centers, enterprise infrastructure, and technology-driven initiatives. I provide strategic guidance to technology executives on complex infrastructure related initiatives. Duties include selling, scoping, and planning engagements, as well as providing leadership, expertise, and deliverable support during execution. - External: Led process optimization effort for improving service delivery time frames, identifying and removing bottlenecks. - External: Led program for a major retailer’s cloud adoption initiative leveraging OpenStack private cloud and Azure public cloud. - Internal: Developing CS Technology’s channel partner program, working with complimentary consulting firms and resellers to drive mutually beneficial business relationships and improve the value proposition for our clients.
First Data CorporationVP of Infrastructure Architecture
Apr. 2013 - Mar. 2015Greater Omaha AreaFirst Data (now part of FISERV) is a global leader in payment processing technology, servicing over 63 billion transactions annually for 6M merchant locations, and 3,500 financial institutions and their customers. Nearly 50% of all non-cash commerce activities pass through First Data systems. As the leader of infrastructure architecture, reporting directly to the CTO, my team of Director and VP level technologists were charged with developing the architecture and engineering standards to be deployed globally. I helped build this team from the ground up, leveraging a mixture of existing resources and external key hires, charged with executing the design, integration and high-level engineering activities for data center, server, network, storage, database, middleware and end-user computing. - Drove adoption of BYOD program creating an annual run-rate savings in excess of $4M.
- Pursued the adoption of custom designed converged infrastructure, reducing TCO by 50%.
- Spearheaded a public cloud incubation program, creating a capital cost avoidance of almost $6M, and improving project timeline by more than 6 months.
- Established enterprise technology governance program to reduce the variability and increase the efficiency of the technology organization.
- Championed the establishment of a technology lifecycle program to maintain hardware and software supportability.
First Data CorporationVP of Distributed Computing and End-User Services
Apr. 2010 - Mar. 2013Greater Omaha AreaLed a multi-national team of over 200 employees, 9 teams and 12 locations across the US and EMEA. My team provided management and oversight of all Unix, Windows, VMS, AS/400 and VMWare servers, Windows desktop/laptops as well as communications/mobile technologies that included Exchange, RightFax, Office communicator, Good Technology and Blackberry Enterprise Server. They key operational priorities were to focus on stabilization, efficiencies and growth: - Consistently delivered year over year budget return on investments.
- Drove service quality improvements, reducing customer impacting issues by 90%.
- Improved configuration compliance, including patching, by over 400%.
- Maintained a flat operating budget in excess of $35 million while increasing productivity of team by 38%.
- Increased responsiveness to the business by reducing the time to deliver a server by over 87%.
- Initiated the effort to upgrade and consolidate 7 disparate, aging Exchange environments to a single global deployment.
First Data CorporationDirector of Distributed Systems Engineering
Jun. 2007 - Mar. 2010Dallas/Fort Worth AreaI was brought in to establish an engineering practice within the distributed compute domain. Reporting to the VP of Distributed Computing, this newly formed group’s task was to provide engineering and architecture services for a large-scale, global compute environment consisting of Unix and Windows/VMware engineers. Services included definition and maintenance of hardware/software standards, configuration and security compliance specifications, operating system builds, and patch management. - As part of a $250M, 2-year Data Center Consolidation and Modernization project, reducing 13 data centers to 3, acted as Server Domain Leader and designed critical next-generation virtual server environment to provide built-in redundancy and high availability.
- Awarded TLI Hard Driver award as a result of the Server Domain Leader role.
- Achieved 86% virtualization in next-generation environment through implementation of more than 2,000 virtual operating system images.
- Developed and launched capacity management model for open systems based on IDEAS international RPE2 benchmark.
- Decreased ESX server deployment from more than 2 hours to 17 minutes through automation.
GMAC ResidentialStorage Manager
Apr. 2005 - Jun. 2007Dallas/Fort Worth AreaGMAC (now part of Ally Bank) is a real estate finance corporation serving the residential real estate market. I directed a team that provided storage architecture and deployment of more than 2 petabytes of enterprise storage. - Successfully supported merger of two distinct divisions of GMAC.
- Created cost savings by deferring additional storage purchase for 8 months through successful completion of conversion from Raid-1 to Raid-5 with no downtime or impact on performance.
- Reduced provisioning time by 50% and doubled terabytes per administrator through automation of storage provisioning process.
- Completed data center consolidation project on-time and under-budget, involving storage architecture, design, implementation and management.
Fidelity InvestmentsStorage Architect
Jan. 1999 - Apr. 2005Dallas/Fort Worth AreaFidelity Investments is an international corporation providing financial services and investment resources to individuals and institutions. My role here was driving the evaluation, performance testing, selection and integration of storage hardware and software. - Co-authored SAN storage reporting and provisioning software to manage over 2 petabytes of storage and more than 200 provisions per month.
- Established industry standard of SPC-2 performance benchmark, as member of Storage Performance Council team. - Reduced performance-related application issues through optimization of storage layout design to consolidate all Exchange servers into single EMC DMX subsystem per site.
- Enhanced capacity to create multiple copies and ability to import copies on same host as source system by authoring tool to manage TimeFinder/Mirror and TimeFinder/snap on Solaris and AIX systems. Technologies included:
• EMC Symmetrix, DMX, Clariion
• HDS
• Brocade, McData
• Cereva, 3par, IBM Shark & others
Fidelity InvestmentsUnix Engineer
Mar. 1996 - Jan. 1999Dallas/Fort Worth AreaTechnical leader for team overseeing engineering and administration of AIX environment. - Orchestrated cross-country Data Center Relocation Project for 42-node SP/2 complex. - Coordinated lifecycle management and automation for more than 80 AIX images and 10 terabytes of storage. - Directed and implemented multiple Disaster Recovery plans for R40 class machines and SP systems. Focused on:
• Mission critical AIX deployments
• Automated many daily administration duties and AIX patch management
• Co-authored IBM AIX 5L certification tests
• Leveraged HACMP, VCS
• SP/2 management
Greyhound LinesUnix Engineer
Oct. 1992 - Mar. 1996Dallas/Fort Worth AreaInitially hired as a Computer Operator in Iowa, I relocated as a Unix Engineer within 2 years to Dallas. My core tasks were performing daily administration of AIX and Solaris systems, including user and storage management, issue identification and resolution, and capacity/performance management to address proactive monitoring and automation script development. Focused on:
• Tivoli Management suite deployment
• HACMP configuration for dispatch system
• Internet/sendmail configuration
• Automated form selection on Xerox printing
• Automated batch operations for key-to-disk system uploads
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