About Me
I was born and raised in Edmonton, Canada. I graduated from the University of Alberta with a Computer Science degree.
May 2023
Promoted Platform Services Team Lead
I was promoted to Platform Services Team Lead
March 2023
Servus Presidents Award of Excellence
I was presented with the Servus Credit Union Presidents Award of Excellence
Oct 2022
Tech Debt Technical Lead
I was asked to take on the role of Technical Lead of the Technical Debt team
Feb 2021
VDI Support Technical Lead
I was asked to take on the role of Technical Lead of the VDI Support team
2006-2011
Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Specialization in Computer Science
From University of Alberta.Notable courses include: Physics, Calculus, Linear Algebra, Computer Graphics, Computer Networking, Network Security, Image and Multimedia Processing, databases, Linux, C++, Java, Python.
What Skills and Services I'm Providing
What I bring to the team!
Platform Monitoring
I’ve built and designed various monitoring and automatic remediation solutions for our platforms using tools such as Dynatrace, Splunk, SCCM, SysTrack, and PowerShell Automations.
My solutions include monitoring of critical infrastructure, log ingestion and reporting, compliance reporting, and various email and report based alerts.
Leadership
I’ve been the Leader of 4 separate teams.
Platform Services: I manage the day to day operations, upgrades, and challenges of operating of high performance platform team.
Technical Debt: Here I managed a small team of contractors on upgrading critical infrastructure including Servers, RBAC and various internal projects and problems
VDI Support: I assisted in the implementation of a VDI solution to replace legacy infrastructure. I coordinated both internal and external resources across multiple teams and touched the majority of our services
Nuna Logistics IT: Here I was the senior technical resource for the company where I directed and oversaw the implementation and architecture of the majority of their systems
Automation and Dev Ops
I have an extensive knowledge and passion for automation and automated solutions to every day problems.
I come with an extensive background in PowerShell, Nutanix Calm, Octopus Deploy, and Azure Dev Ops
My projects include automatic deployment of internal applications, automatic patching and maintenance cycles, Automatic Certificate Issuing and renewals, and Docker.
I’ve designed product lifecycles in Azure Dev Ops, Octopus Deploy and Nutanix Calm.
I was part of the pilot group of testers for Microsoft Co-Pilot and actively use AI in my day to day automations.
Developing With a Passion for Automation.
No matter where I go I always see new opportunities for streamlining and automation. It’s one of the key ways that we can improve our response time and free up resources for new and interesting projects. Any thing worth doing is worth automating.
In addition to my regular work projects I also have a huge passion for automation on the home front! Developing various home lab and automations solutions that make my day and life easier.
This site is hosted entirely in Docker on my own infrastructure and includes automatic certificate issuing and renewals, offsite backups, automatic patching and a full package security solution monitoring traffic in and out of the site.
Work Experience
Previous roles and positions
In May 2023 I was promoted to a Platform Services Team Lead for Servus Credit Union.
As the team lead my roles involve the direction of the Platform Services team in their mission to deliver excellent support and project management to Servus Credit Union overseeing numerous upgrade projects, application deployments and updates.
My role has evolved to guiding my team through the challenges of modernizing and securing vital infrastructure. Ensuring 24/7 operation and continuing to improve automations and maturity of the platform.
In Dec 2021 I was promoted to a Platform System Administrator III for Servus Credit Union.
As a System Administrator III I have been part of the Platform Services team as a valued member providing high level support, knowledge and implementation skills.
My responsibilities included Automating deployments of applications, monitoring and remediating issues with our systems and improving security and best practices in the organization. I’ve been leading the Technical Debt team since Oct 2022
As a Platform System Administrator II, I was responsible for deploying custom applications in an automated pipeline, configuring AD permissions, critical infrastructure monitoring and maintenance.
I was the team leader of the VDI Support team and assisted Servus Credit Union with initial deployments of Nutanix Frame.
As an IT Support Administrator I was the senior technical lead at Nuna Logistics Partnership.
I maintained, planned and managed: Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Lync/Skype for Business, System Center Configuration Manager, VMware View, VMware ESXi, Cellphones, Internet, Firewalls, Routing, Software Upgrades, Storage, Server, and NetApp hardware.
Starting as a summer student I worked as an IT Support Technician until my promotion in April 2016
Responsibilities included end user support, management of VMware ESXi, VMware View and various internal applications
My Projects
Projects, Upgrades and Products I’ve worked with
Microsoft Exchange / Exchange Online
Big IP F5
Kubernetes
VMware Horizon View High Availability
Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager
Nutanix
CentOS & Redhat Enterprise Linux
Microsoft Azure
Active Directory Certificate Services
Networking, IPsec, and Firewalls
Splunk
Windows Server
VMware
PowerShell
Microsoft Office 365
VMware Horizon Workspace Essentials
Nutanix Frame
VMware Horizon View 6 Desktop Virtualization Cookbook
Lync, Skype for Business, Teams
Azure DevOps
Servus Presidents Award of Excellence
Octopus Deploy
Active Directory
What My Coworkers Say
A sampling of the kind things my coworkers have said about me
I just wanted to give a shout-out to Andrea for always being on top of any issues/outages that she is pulled into. I always know when I see Andrea is on the case that it will be handled and always includes the additional follow-up of things like adding alerts/monitoring. Thanks for the great work Andrea!
Andrea is a self-driven, goal-focused team member who has brought huge improvements to the Platform Services and Systems team these years. She is constantly expanding her skillset to new technologies that can benefit the organization and present a clear summary of pros and cons. continued…
Stay In Touch
I can be reached via email at andrea@andreaalloway.com
Or by Phone at 1 (780) 901-3123
To send me a message you can use the Contact form below