IT Projects
Below are the projects that I have worked on for the last 5 years. This page will highlight majro projects that have involved cross-functional interaction or a large degree of complexity. Other projets are listed with a quick overview of the projects in sub-pages, which you can browse.
Major Projects at TCS Education System
Exchange 2007 to 2010
The Exchange 2007 to 2010 project is a new project that I am assisting on. The purpose of this project is to take advantage of Exchange 2010's new distributed database DAG and the Personal Archiving solution. My role in this project is to assist the technical lead with testing procedures, issue identification, and documentation. We are at the discovery phase at the moment and will not enter the pilot phase until at least 3rd or 4th Quarter 2011.
System Domain Migration
This is one of the complex multi-year projects that I am leading as a project lead. This project is Phase 4 of the overall Domain migration project from the CSOPP AD domain at The Chicago School and the PacificOaks.edu AD domain from Pacific Oaks College to TCSES domain. This project started in Quarter 2 2010 and is expected to be complete in 2013.
The system domain migration project is a combination of many sub-projects, each being the migration of a specific system (Exchange, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Sharepoint, etc...) from CSOPP or Pacificoaks to TCSES. To read more on this project and its status go to the project subpage.
User Active Directory Migration
This is one of the complex multi-year projects that I am leading as a project lead. This project is Phase 3 of the overall Domain migration project from the CSOPP AD domain at The Chicago School and the PacificOaks.edu AD domain from Pacific Oaks College to TCSES domain. This project started in Quarter 1 2010 and is expected to be complete in 2012.
The user domain migration project is a combination of many sub-projects, each being the migration of a specific type of user account (employees, students, generic accounts and groups) from CSOPP or Pacificoaks to TCSES. To read more on this project and its status go to the project subpage.
Exchange 2003 to 2007 Migration
Exchange 2003 to 2007 project was part of Phase 3 of the overall Domain migration project from the CSOPP AD domain at The Chicago School and the PacificOaks.edu AD domain from Pacific Oaks College to TCSES domain. The project was partially considered an independent project because I was not the project lead but a technical assistant to the project. The project started in Quarter 2 2010 and was completed in Quarter 2 2011 right before the user domain migration.
Technically, we implemented a CCR cluster in Exchange 2007 as a means to provide system high-availability. Furthermore, we virtualized all the Exchange roles (Hub transport, CAS, Edge, and Mailbox roles) via Vmware. To read more on the project go to the project subpage.
HP to Dell Vmware and SAN Upgrade and Migration
This project was a two-fold project: to upgrade VMWare from ESX 3.5 to vSphere 4.0 and to replace HP DL 380 G5 ESX servers/Lefthand SANs with Dell R710 ESX servers/Dell Equallogic SANs. The project duration was from Quarter 1 2010 to Quarter 3 2010. I was a technical resource as I had strong knowledge of the prior HP setup.
This was a push to shift our system equipment to Dell as we had negotiated a new and reduced contract for better savings than we were receiving for the HP hardware. Secondarily, we wanted to replace the Lefthand SANs with Equallogic SANs because the Equallogics were more reliable and better performing. An explanation of why we switched from HP to Dell SANs can be found at my blog.
Selection process for new Student Workers
In the summer of 2009, I co-project lead a team of 5 I/O Psychologist to create a selection process to hire new student workers for the IT department. The selection process was created to select student workers that could perform entry level field desk related task. The selection process was a combination of:
- A structured interview with documented questions
- Situational questions based on issues that might come up
- A work sample of helpdesk related task to show compentency
The team presented the results to the different IT directors and VP of IT for a successful go-ahead to implement the selection process.
See other Projects at TCS Education
Major Projects at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology
West Coast Campus Implementation in LA
The west coast campus implementation project referenced around the design, creation, and implementation of the institution's first major geographically dispersed location outside the Midwest. The project started in Quarter 3 2007 and finalized in Quarter 4 2008, at the start of student orientation. This project was the overarching project for the Avaya to Cisco VOIP, Vmware, SAN, and Google Apps for Education implementation projects. As a result of this project, all subsequent new campus and college technical implementations in the US after 2008 were modeled after the knowledge and lessons learned from this project.
The LA site was design to contain our backup datacenter via an Internet2 backbone via ICN and CalREN feeds. The server systems used the newly designed VMWare infrastructure with SAN backbone. The network included Foundry switches with Cisco ASA firewalls. The telephony system was based on Cisco CallManager Express system.
Avaya Analog to Cisco CallManager Express VOIP phone project
The Avaya analog to Cisco VOIP project was a high-level project meant to prepare the organization for a Voice Over IP digital infrastructure, The project timeline was from Quarter 2 through Quarter 4 2007. The project scope was to enhance phone functionality, "simplify" telephony management, provide voicemail to email services, standardize on an industry leading technology, and finally to make it easier for multisite phone operations. I was a project and technical assistant during the scope of the project, a project led by the network administrator. Due to the complexity of the project, a contracting tech firm, Burwood Group, was used for the large part of the implementation. This project was completed before Quarter 3 2008 in preparation for the West Coast campus launch in LA.
Vmware ESX Implementation
The Vmware ESX implementation project was a project that started in Quarter 4 2007 through Quarter 2 2008. At the time, the organization's growth had outpaced the growing headaches of the hardware, power, and heating issues our DataCenter was experiencing . We had implemented Vmware Server 1.x 6 months prior, but realized that the system was very limited for our needs. I led the project to design, test, and implement the hardware requirements for the multi-campus Vmware ESX 3.5 environment. I was leading this project in conjunction with the Lefthand SAN project. This project was completed before Quarter 3 2008 in preparation for the West Coast campus launch in LA.
Lefthand SAN implementation
The Lefthand SAN project was a project that started in Quarter 4 2007 through Quarter 2 2008. The SAN project grew out of a need to expand the space on our Exchange 2003 environment and provide a repository for the Vmware VMs. I was the project leader, technical implementer, and vendor manager for the entire project. The project scope was to evaluate different SAN vendors, obtain competitive bids, chose the best system for our needs, and implement before the Quarter 3 2008 deadline. This project was completed before Quarter 3 2008 in preparation for the West Coast campus launch in LA .
Google Apps for Education
The Google Apps for Education project was an ambitious project to change the email system that students used for email access at the institution. The organization had a mandate that every graduating student would have email for life from the organization. Additionally, there weren't quotas on student email usage, as dictated by the administration. Our Exchange 2003 system was not capably of handling the increased number of mailboxes. As such, we used Northwestern and other universities' approach and provided email services for all incoming Fall 2008 students with Google addresses. I was the technical lead on the project and project coordinator. As project coordinator, I setup meetings among the administration and staff to help push the need for this new system. This project was completed before Quarter 3 2008 in preparation for the West Coast campus launch in LA.
Addition of technical writer to IT Department
As a result of the numerous major projects that we undertook in 2007 and 2008, I wrote a plan to justify creating a dedicated position for a part-time technical writer in IT. Unfortunately, our IT department was heavily understaffed for the growth and it was out of the question to get a full-time technical writer. As such, I successfully wrote a business case for a position that would require a person with exceptional communication skills with a lack of fear of IT and technology as a whole. This person was hired in Quarter 3 2008 and, under my supervision, quickly created a standardized documentation templates, provided assistance in documenting project management statuses, and was a communicational liaison between the students and the IT department. The position lasted until late 2009, at which point, plans were in effect to create a position for a full-time person whose job role would include technical writing.
See other projects at The Chicago School