Damian Penny

York, United Kingdom dpenny7uk@hotmail.com

I am an Application Support Analyst skilled in IT Operations Management and System Administration for financial and data anayltical systems. Experienced with Azure private cloud and hybrid cloud IaaS environments.

I have a demonstrated history of turning difficult projects into successes by pinpointing problem areas, eliminating obstacles, implementing process improvements, and improving team dynamics and morale. My enthusiastic attitude, strong work ethic, creative problem solving, and commitment to continued professional education are an asset to any team or project.

Visits: 0

Experience

Application Support Analyst

Hiscox Ltd
  • Designs and implements cloud infrastructure resources including EC2 instances, Load Balancers, CloudFront distributions, Auto-Scaling Groups, Databases, S3 storage and static websites using Amazon Web Services (AWS) in both commercial (public) and GovCloud environments.
  • Performs AWS system configuration to include creation/change/deletion of IAM users, roles, and permissions, management of Simple Notification Service (SNS) and Simple Email Service (SES), creation and changes to VPCs, Security Groups, network ACLs, and DNS records, configuration of CloudWatch alarms and CloudTrail API logging.
  • Performs weekly maintenance for tenant sites, including S3 bucket and lifecycle maintenance, CloudFront configuration, WordPress patching, tenant site decommissions, configuration of AWS Web Application Firewalls (WAF), deployment of AWS Elastic Beanstalk environments, and policy updates.
  • Creates hardened, STIG AMI images that comply with DOD standards and best practices, works with IA/C&A teams to conduct security scans and audits, performs patches and updates as necessary to remediate security vulnerabilities via AWS Systems Manager.
  • Develops scripts using AWS Lambda, Python, PowerShell, and Bash to automate tasks, workflows, and processes.
  • Monitors performance of remote and local systems to identify problems, performs analysis to identify root cause of performance issues using AWS CloudWatch and CloudTrail, takes appropriate action to resolve issues.
  • Documentation of cloud architecture and operational processes, including maintenance processes, installation guides, configuration guides, user access and security, backups and restoration, and software dependencies.
June 2020 - Present

Application Online Technician and Application Support Lead

STEM Learning Ltd
  • Designed cloud infrastructure for the development project architectural runway using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Terraform in both commercial (public) and GovCloud environments, enabling other project teams to work on their features without further delay to the project.
  • Creation and configuration of cloud architecture, including Security Groups, VPCs, network ACLs, EC2 instances, AWS RDS databases, Load Balancers, and user accounts/roles/permissions.
  • Worked with application vendors on architecture, deployment, and configuration of applications into the AWS cloud environment using infrastructure as code. Created custom scripts to handle the deployments using Terraform, PowerShell, and Bash to provide an immutable process that could be replicated and run automatically through a CI/CD pipeline.
  • Created continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline using GitHub and AWS CodePipeline.
  • Created and managed testing and training environments for Agile Release Train teams to support vendor training and classes.
  • Created AWS Lambda functions using Python to automate EC2 instance shutdowns and restarts within the development environment during off-business hours to save on costs.
  • Created hardened, STIG AMI images that comply with DOD standards and best practices, worked with IA/C&A teams on security scans and audits.
  • Worked with other Agile Release Train teams on troubleshooting application, system, and database issues at the cloud level.
  • Provided AWS training and guidance to other teams as necessary so that they could work within the AWS management console and CLI more efficiently.
  • Documentation of cloud architecture and applications, including installation guides, configuration guides, user access and security, backups and restoration, and software dependencies.
June 2018 - June 2020

Application Specialist

The British Library
  • Administration of VMWare vCenter 7.0 environment, including configuring ESXi hosts, storage, and compute, configuration of tenant/application clusters, vCenter environment upgrades, and designing custom reports, metrics, and super metrics via vRealize Operations Manager.
  • Installation, Configuration, and Administration of Operations applications, including Solarwinds, JIRA, Ivanti Shavlik, and Tenable Nessus.
  • Windows Administration, including Active Directory, DNS, replication, account creation, password changes, and Microsoft Exchange administration.
  • Identifies system vulnerabilities by creating and reviewing Nessus scans of cloud environment and providing security analysis and risk identification.
  • Patches all management network systems using to ensure that security vulnerabilities have been eliminated and OS and application upgrades are up to date.
  • Cisco UCS administration including setup and replacement of blades, memory, and other hardware, and configuration of blades.
  • Conducts new product studies and performs requirements analysis, new product installations, and testing to determine what products should be recommended for procurement and production.
  • Assist customers with troubleshooting, requests for additional resources, and other service requests as needed.
  • Coordinate new tenant requests with engineering teams to ensure that all customer requirements are met.
  • Documentation of SOPs, system configuration information, customer QRGs, and marketing materials.
Dec 2017 - June 2018

Senior Support Analyst and Trainer

Optix Software Ltd
  • Received personal commendation from Agency Administrator for excellent service and performance.
  • Received Contractor of the Quarter award in 2017.
  • Managed the Service Desk through major contract transition.
  • Drastically improved Service Desk SLAs/KPIs while also improving team morale.
  • Managed two separate Call Center System launches, eventually moving the Service Desk to a modern VOIP solution with remote support.
  • Provided career development coaching to Service Desk technicians.
Jan 2011 - Dec 2017

Education

Lancaster University

Bachelor of Science
Degree Subject: Physical Geography
2003 - 2006

Skills

Programming Languages & Tools

Passionate About
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Infrastructure as Code: Azure Serverless Application Model & Cloud Formation
  • Agile Development & Scrum

Proficient In
  • VMWare vSphere
  • Linux
  • Windows
  • HTML/CSS
  • Team Collaboration: JIRA & Slack

Knowledgable About
  • Programming/Scripting: Python & JavaScript
  • CI/CD: GitHub, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, AWS CodePipeline
  • Serverless Technology: AWS Lambda, AWS ECS, Docker, DynamoDB

Certifications