About Me

Dedicated and hardworking IT professional with a wide range of experience in various industries. Specializes in providing solutions related to resolving issues identified by employers or clients. Committed to continuous training in the field of information technology.

Contact Information & Education
Locale: Central Texas
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tierreneal
Education: Baker College
Bachelors in Information Technology and Security
Certification History
Certification Status Year
Azure Solutions Architect Expert Active 2023
Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate Active 2023
Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert Active 2023
Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate Active 2023
Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Fundamentals Active 2023
Google Cloud Certified: Associate Cloud Engineer Active 2021
AWS Certified Solutions Architect U+2013 Associate Expired 2020
VMware Certified Professional 6.5 U+2013 Data Center Virtualization Expired 2018
Epic Client Systems Administrator: BLOB, Business Continuity Access, and Printing version 2019 Expired 2019
Epic Client Systems Administrator – Hyperspace version 2019 Expired 2019
Accomplishments

Hitachi Solutions

  • Promoted from Cloud Solutions Engineer to Architect at Hitachi Solutions of America (April 2021 – Present)
  • Redesigned Azure Foundation Assessment Client Delivery Presentation

Aspyr Media

  • Established networking strategy to effectively communicate between On-premises server room, Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS.
  • Established connectivity between on-premise networking infrastructure and cloud providers.
  • Creating documents related to ISO 27001 certification.
  • Establishing protocol for incident management and response.
  • Creating Backup, Business Continuity and Disaster recovery design.
  • Migrating on-premise compute and storage into Microsoft Azure and Amazon.
  • Consolidating disparate LDAP services into JumpCloud.
  • Establishing cloud-based Virtual Desktop strategy for the environment that caters to the various departments within the organization.
  • Provide training toward certifications for junior level system techs

Scripps Health

  • Promoted to manage all computing, storage and cloud architectures for one of the largest employers in San Diego County.
  • Designed Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity Architecture as it pertains to servers, storage and orchestration.
  • Leading everything as a service (XaaS) initiative surrounding the compute, storage and security infrastructure.
  • Leading Cloud First considerations when implementing new solutions such as: VMC on AWS, Office365, and Microsoft Azure.
  • Introduced Multi-Factor Authentication and Privileged Access Management to the organization.
  • Implemented multi-factor authentication for electronic prescriptions and external web application access.
  • Integrated ERP system with Core Secure to (de)provision employees into Active Directory and enterprise applications.
  • Implemented Staas service model into the organization.
  • Implemented CyberArk for password vault and designing privileged access management strategy.
  • Upgraded on-premise Active Directory environment from 2008 R2 to 2016.
  • Designed enterprise storage and compute infrastructure at two greenfield datacenters.
  • Designed hyper-converged transition strategy for the enterprise
Experience

Cloud Solutions Architect

Hitachi Solutions of America | April 2021 – Present

Summary: Responsibilities include leading a dynamic team consisting Azure Architects and Engineers in designing and implementing strategic cloud solutions, leveraging Microsoft Azure to drive digital transformation and operational excellence. My role encompasses guiding cloud architecture decisions, adhering to Cloud Adoption and Well-Architected Frameworks, while ensuring projects align with business objectives through effective leadership and stakeholder engagement. I champion innovation, best practices in cloud security, and continuous learning within my team to maintain cutting-edge solutions and foster professional growth.

  • Leadership and Strategy Development:
    • Spearheaded a team of 5 Cloud Solutions Architects and Engineers, driving the strategic planning and execution of cloud infrastructure projects to support digital transformation initiatives.
    • Championed the adoption of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices, enhancing deployment efficiency and operational agility across multiple cloud platforms.
  • Project Management and Implementation:
    • Managed the end-to-end deployment of scalable, secure cloud infrastructures, ensuring projects were delivered on time, within budget, and in alignment with business goals and compliance requirements.
    • Directed successful migrations of critical enterprise services to the cloud, minimizing downtime and optimizing performance for key business operations.
  • Technical Expertise and Innovation:
    • Led the design and implementation of robust cloud solutions leveraging Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365, focusing on high availability, disaster recovery, and information security principles.
    • Pioneered the development of custom APIs and automation scripts to streamline workflows and enhance system integration, significantly reducing manual effort and error rates.
  • Architectural Design and Strategy:
    • Led the architectural design and strategy for cloud solutions, focusing on leveraging Microsoft Azure to align with business objectives and digital transformation efforts.
    • Implemented Azure Infrastructure projects by adhering to the Cloud Adoption Framework and Well-Architected Frameworks, ensuring scalable, secure, and efficient cloud environments.
  • Continuous Learning and Development:
    • Maintained up-to-date knowledge of cloud industry trends and Azure updates, ensuring solutions leveraged the latest technologies and approaches.
    • Championed a culture of learning within the team, encouraging certifications and training in Azure and cloud architectures to foster expertise and innovation.
  • Team Development and Mentoring:
    • Fostered a culture of continuous learning and improvement, mentoring team members in best practices for cloud architecture and security, and encouraging professional development through certifications and training.
    • Implemented regular review sessions to assess project progress, identify areas for improvement, and share knowledge on emerging cloud technologies and industry trends.
  • Stakeholder Engagement and Communication:
    • Acted as the primary liaison between technical teams and senior management, translating complex cloud solutions into strategic business advantages and clear ROI analyses.
    • Developed comprehensive documentation and reports to keep stakeholders informed on project statuses, infrastructure health, and compliance with SLAs and security policies.
  • Operational Excellence and Best Practices:
    • Conducted thorough security assessments and best practice reviews to ensure the integrity and resilience of cloud infrastructure, adopting a proactive approach to risk management.
    • Leveraged expertise in enterprise storage solutions and cloud security to guide the optimization of storage architectures and data protection strategies, ensuring data privacy and regulatory compliance.

IT Operations Manager

Aspyr Media | March 2020 – April 2021

Summary: Hired on to assist in the digital transition of the organization. In addition, I provide a substantial amount of technical assistance to my direct reports in resolving complex issues and implementations. Primarily responsible for supporting the network, server, backup and cloud infrastructure.

  • Strategy and Planning
    • Align technical strategy with business objectives for the organization.
    • Design virtual desktop environment leveraging AWS Workspaces and EC2 Instances.
    • Migrate on-premises file shares and compute into Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure.
  • Team Development and Leadership
    • Create professional growth paths for my direct reports.
    • Provide guidance to my direct reports.
    • Assist the Director of IT with the creation of our incident, problem, and change management workflow.
  • Collaboration and Support
    • Work with artists, designers, engineers, and accounting teams on their issues and future needs.
    • Assist peers with onboarding and project deployments.
    • Provide solutions to challenges presented to the Information Technology Team.
  • Infrastructure Management
    • Support network infrastructure.
    • Manage all virtual machine instances across all Hypervisors (Amazon EC2, Azure VMs, VMware 6.7.1, Synology Virtual Environment).
    • Deploy AWS Storage Gateways for File and VTL services.
    • Complete management of desktop environments.
  • Policy and Process Development
    • Create foundational documents for the organization, including:
      • Internet Policy
      • Onboarding Process
      • Server build document
      • Network Design Diagram
      • Backup Design and Strategy
    • Create patch management policy.

Manager of Enterprise Architecture

Scripps Health | April 2015 – March 2020

Summary: Hired on to assist in the digital transition of the organization. In addition, I provide a substantial amount of technical assistance to my direct reports in resolving complex issues and implementations. Primarily responsible for supporting the network, server, backup and cloud infrastructure.

  • Strategy and Innovation
    • Implementing a cloud-first and everything as a service (XaaS) strategy through technology innovation and contract negotiations.
    • Align technical strategy with the business objectives of the organization.
    • Create 90-day, 1-year, 3-year strategic roadmaps surrounding our compute, cloud, and storage strategies.
    • Participating in steering committees that established the technical direction for datacenter and cloud initiatives.
    • Collaborating with management peers to create technology forecasts and strategy documents for senior management and executives.
  • Leadership and Team Development
    • Create Professional and Technical growth paths for current and potential future engineers.
    • Assist the team with triaging complex issues as well as designing and implementing new solutions leveraging Agile principles.
    • Managing on-call and escalation paths.
    • Participate in Employee All Hands Meetings and present roadmap strategies that pertain to my department.
    • Managing the incident, problem, and change management queues within ServiceNow.
  • Technical Management
    • Responsible for managing and designing the virtualization, server hardware, storage, backup, and disaster recovery infrastructure for the enterprise.
    • Environment is 95% virtualized leveraging VMware architecture for the Healthcare system.
    • Managed and Designed Disaster Recovery strategy for the organization.
    • Implementing Hyperconverged architecture to simultaneously alleviate compute and storage constraints.
    • Implementing and managing all enterprise storage and backup solutions.
  • System Implementation and Support
    • Leveraging tools such as vRealize Automation to provision virtual machines automatically.
    • Implementing VMC on AWS to leverage seamless compute services in the cloud.
    • Design, implementation, and support of the Exchange, Skype for Business, and supporting systems that protect the system.
    • Managing Exchange 2016 to Office 365 Migration Strategy.

System Engineer

Scripps Health | February 2013 – March 2015

Summary: Responsible for maintaining the server and storage infrastructure. Tasked with creating a majority of the technical documents within my department such as physical technological models, technical instruction sets, troubleshooting workflows and procedural documents.

  • Completely manage the storage fabric and arrays.
  • Creating and Validating technical design schematics.
  • Engaging our clients to understand their technology needs to ensure we deploy the appropriate solutions.
  • Complete Virtualization Management (vSphere 5.0 & 5.5).
  • Leveraging PowerShell scripts to automate redundant operational workloads.
  • Manage Multi-Domain Active Directory Environment.
  • Exchange 2010/Exchange 2016 Management.
  • Server hardware and software management.
  • Implementing Scripts and technologies that allow the team to proactively discover issues.

System Engineer

Eastridge Workforce Solutions | May 2012 – January 2013

Summary: Contract to hire opportunity with Scripps Health. My primary responsibilities were to assist in the management and deployment of Active Directory within the environment. Also tasked with building out and documenting the physical architecture of the electronic medical record system that supported the clinics.

  • Active Directory Environment
    • Deployed Domain Controllers and distributed appropriate FSMO roles across the environment.
    • Validated Domains and trusts and sites and services.
    • Diagnosed Domain controller replication issues.
    • Managed internal Active Directory integrated domain naming server (DNS).
    • Documented Active Directory environment and supporting infrastructure.
    • Maintained and updated login scripts for end users.
    • Created process documents for account creation for service desk and operations team.
    • Leverage PowerShell to streamline manual processes.
  • AllScripts Support
    • Assisted in the build-out of the server architecture that would run AllScripts.
    • Configured boot from SAN architecture.
    • Configured Active / Passive Windows Clusters.
    • Deployed Asynchronous replication for business continuation.
    • Documented the entire buildout and disaster recovery strategy for AllScripts.
  • General Server Support
    • Escalation resource for other team members when they required assistance.