About Me

I enjoy connecting with like-minded individuals and fostering strong teams by developing their skills.

Originally from the DFW area in Texas, I later moved to Michigan to experience all four seasons with my wife and three kids.

I appreciate the outdoors and enjoy walking whenever I get the chance.

R&D has been a longtime hobby, particularly in 3D printing. I’m also passionate about IoT home automation, using Home Assistant and custom-built ESP32 controls.

Lately, I’ve been diving into coding AI models in Python.

Over the years, I've served in many different IT administrative roles, from  managing  backups, antivirus, exchange, systems monitoring , serving as a SQL DBA , to serving as service solution architect while managing a team of great group of skilled individuals in maintaining large enterprise environments.

I have also worked in performing audits, security pen tests , and data recovery just to name a few other skills. 

Operating Systems

Scripting / Programming
• Python • C# • PowerShell v2-7 • Bash • Chron • Batch • YAML • PineScript
Microsoft Server Editions
• Server 2022 • Server 2019 • Server 2016 - R2 • Server 2012 - R2 • Server 2008 • Server 2003 • Windows NT 4.0
Linux/Unix
• UBUNTU • CENTOS • RedHat • Synology • Fedora
Virtualization
Citrix , Docker , Hyper-V , VMWare , ProxMox, Unraid

Active Directory

Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS)
With an AD FS infrastructure in place, users may use several web-based services (e.g. internet forum, blog, online shopping, webmail) or network resources using only one set of credentials stored at a central location, as opposed to having to be granted a dedicated set of credentials for each service. The former enables them to use the same set of credentials in a different network.
Active Directory Administrative Center
Centralized Management interface for Active Directory
ADSI Edit
Advanced AD object editor
AD Trusts
One-way trust Two-way trust Trusted domain Transitive trust Intransitive trust Explicit trust External PAM trust
Group Policy Objects and OU
Having a good structure layout really helps in maintaining ease of managing permissions and security policies.

Database / Clusters

SQL "Failover Clusters"
These are going to be your standard Failover clusters, you may see one active and multiple passive nodes for failovers.
SQL "High Availability Groups"
These are typically either clustered/standalone or even hybrid , "Azure replica" that create a complete replica for either running reports independently from the main production DB or for simple backups. " Additional Licensing needed" This give you the ability to place data closer to your site where you may have a central DB and a read only copy that's closer on the edge to your applications.
MS Distributed File Services
This allows you to "flatten" your file shares into a single point. Really handy if you have remote offices spread out. You can create replication points where the files exist locally to each office, but are addressed through a central file service point. This removes the mess of having to hunt down files across multiple file servers.
AD Trusts
• One-way • Two-way • Trusted domain • Transitive • Intransitive • Explicit • External • PAM trust
Other Databases
• MySQL • Postgress DB • MongoDB

Storage

Symantec
• Net Backup • Symantec Storage Foundations • SQL Net Backup
HP Data Protector
Discontinued- HPE's older backup technology decent for it's time but later replaced with better products.
NetAPP SNAPVAULT
Great Product for vaulting VM Snapshots as a backup strategy.
Other SAN technologies
• Brocade • HP Virtual Tape Libraries • 3Par Storage • NDMP • ISCSI "SAN over Ethernet"
NAS Technologies
Synology 3par Netapp Anything that can host SAMBA

HP Enterprise

HPE Blades Enclosures
• C3000 • C6000 • Synergy 12000 Framework • Storage Drawers
HP Oneview
Vendor Integrated hardware monitoring for all of HP equipment in managing alerts and automating hardware tickets for warranty replacement parts
HP "Systems Insight Manager"
Precursor to OneView but supports the older legacy G1 - G9 generation hardware.
HP ILO "AMP"
Advanced ILO management and configuration.

Dell

Dell Blade Enclosures
M1000e

Monitoring / Reporting

Microsoft System Center Operations Manager
Microsoft's extensive monitoring software for everything Microsoft. They have Management Packs for all of their products including AZURE in giving you a deep view for performance and diagnostics and notifications.
SolarWinds
Interestingly, this originally was developed off a Fork of Microsoft MOM, Great tool, Very Similar to SCOM but has a very granular licensing model.
Dynatrace
Great for monitoring application level pathways , being able to generate synthetic transactions along the process to test the performance and monitor for bottlenecks.
Splunk
This is a great tool for centralizing your Logs and device Syslogs into one location for tracing down an issue.

Firewall / Gateway

OPNsense
OPNsense is an advanced opensource software firewall with many options you find in much larger enterprise products. https://opnsense.org/
OPNWRT
Firmware Alterative for many devices with additional features for advanced Mesh networks, along with your standard firewalls features.
SonicWall
Sonicwalls are great SOHO small business solutions for firewall and internet security.

IOT and AI

ESP32
ESP32 - programable chipsets that are compatible with arduino. A lot of fun in such a small package. Think Custom Automations for home or custom micro PLC
PyTorch
AI LLM's that I've been coding lately are: LTSM, Transformers, GANN, DQN, DDQN , RL
Hardware Automations
Home Assistant MQTT and Zig-Bee
Other Hardware
Raspberry PI and OrangePC, Beaglebone These are great low level single app servers. Great for lightweight applications.

Root Cause Analysis

  • Deep Log Review
  • Dependency chaining
  • Timeline Journal

Vulnerability Remediation

  • Corrupt Registry Repair
  • MS Culmulative Update Corruption
  • 3rd Party application Patching

Data Recovery

  • RAW Raid data Recovery
  • Partition Data Recovery
  • Password File Lockouts
  • Password Recovery or Bypass
  • Forensic Data Recovery

Security

  • Cypher Hardening
  • Encryption " Inflight" and "at Rest"
  • Intrusion detection and Response