About Me
I was born and raised in Edmonton, Canada. I graduated from the University of Alberta with a Computer Science degree.
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 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 Technical Leader of 3 separate teams.
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.
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 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 include 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
Nutanix Frame
As the Technical Leader of the VDI Support team I assisted with the implementation of Nutanix Frame and various associated application upgrades including the deployment of the CIS Benchmarks and hardening policies. Managing various members and contractors and user feedback.
Active Directory Certificate Services
I’ve overhauled and redesigned PKI infrastructure to both improve security and reduce hands on maintenance of our Certificate Authority Infrastructure. This included redesigning the CRLs, updating and rotating root certificate authorities and implementing best Microsoft Practices
Octopus Deploy
As part of the Platform Services Team I’ve built maintained and improved upon our Octopus Deploy Processes. This includes numerous PowerShell scripts, automations and Upgrades
Microsoft Azure
At Nuna Logistics Limited I assisted with the migration to the Cloud. I successfully integrated our On-Premise Active Directory with Microsoft Azure.
I was charged with creating and configuring the ADFS authentication complete with Multi-Factor Authentication for All users.
I also configured and integrated the Azure AD Connect component.
For running VM’s and other services we provisioned an Azure ExpressRoute and
integrated the routing tables via BGP and OSPF allowing quick access to the whole company.
Nutanix Karbon & Kubernetes
I was part of the Product evaluation team for Nutanix Karbon/Kubernetes including the implementation of Helm, Docker, Certificate issuing, F5 Gateways and application configuration
Nutanix
I manage and automate the deployment of Nutanix VMs. My projects include automation of VM deployment, automation of diskspace expansion, migration from VMware to Nutanix, configuring AFS, Nutanix Frame, and Nutanix CALM
Big IP F5
I assist with the management of our F5’s including Certificate issuing, Website and Application configuration, and automation of our Maintenance Pages
Windows Server
I maintain, upgrade, deploy and use Windows server as part of my daily duties. I’ve got an extensive knowledge of the Windows Registry, GPO’s, Active Directory, Certificate Services and PowerShell automation
Lync, Skype for Business, Teams
In 2022 I assisted with the migration from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams
In 2015 we successfully migrated from Lync 2013 to Skype for Business 2015.
Skype for Business allows the company to quickly and effectively locate and route calls and messages to individuals in the company. Skype for Business has been deployed to all the major offices including several of our smaller offices. Skype for Business offers major benefits to our organization allowing users to quickly setup meetings, calls, and desktop sharing. This is of major benefit since users can be in remote difficult to contact locations at any time. IT uses Skype for Business to offer quick support sessions to remote users.
VMware Horizon View High Availability
In 2015 Packt Publishing contacted me to write a book about VMware Horizon View High Availability. The book was completed and published in Nov 2015.
This book includes 9 chapters on VMware Horizon View and how to configure and build an environment to maximize build time.
Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager
I manage, upgrade and maintain our SCCM infrastructure as part of my duties. This includes building deployment applications, scripts and packages. Automating Server configuration changes, monitoring and Windows Patching. As leader of the Technical Debt team we leveraged SCCM to greatly improve our environment.
VMware Horizon Workspace Essentials
I was included in the review process of Packt Publishing’s VMware Horizon Workspace Essentials.
I provided feedback and advice regarding the guide and the information contained within.
I was accredited as a reviewer for the book.
Active Directory
I am responsible for maintaining and configuring various aspects of active directory, including user permissions, Domain controllers, group management and security. I’ve configured cross forest trusts and sub-domains in AD. I’ve been actively involved in RBAC in an RBAC overhaul project to improve our security stance and best practices.
I deploy and maintain our installations of AGPM.
I’ve designed large amounts of the current group policies in the domain including hardening and security policies to comply with PCI-DSS, and CIS Benchmarks.
Splunk
I use Splunk in my day to day monitoring of our mission critical applications, including monitoring service issues, dashboards and reporting, in depth troubleshooting of related events and at a glance application health.
CentOS & Redhat Enterprise Linux
I’ve run and managed various flavors of Linux including CentOS, Redhat, Ubuntu, KaliLinux, ext…
I’ve used automation tools with Linux such as Puppet and Salt Stack
Azure DevOps
I’ve developed with and work with Azure Dev Ops daily including Git Repos, Azure Boards and YAML pipelines.
VMware
I’ve maintained and deployed ESXi, vSphere, NSX, vCenter, VCSA, and VMware Horizon View products, including hardware infrastructure and networking.
I hold a VMware Certified Professional 5 Data Center Virtualization Certification
Microsoft Exchange / Exchange Online
As part of the Tech Debt team we were tasked with cleaning up and improving the security of our Email systems.
This included migrating various applications to more secure configurations including isolated subdomains, SPF, DMARC, MX, and DKIM configurations
PowerShell
As part of my daily roles I spend a lot of time automating tasks in PowerShell.
My scripts and automations include, Certificate Authority configuration and certificate issuing, IPsec GPO deployment, Application deployment, Log Cleanup, Disk Expansions, VM Automation, Big IP F5 Automations, Automatic Patching and maintenance scripting.
Networking, IPsec, and Firewalls
While my background may be in System Administration, I have a strong set of Networking skills that I bring to the team. Products I’ve worked with include Palo Altos, Ubiquiti Unifi and UNMS, Big IP F5, Windows Firewall, IPsec Tunnels, OpenVPN, PFsense, Azure, OSPF, BGP, VLANs and more
Microsoft Office 365
I am proficient in Microsoft 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019 and Office 365. I can deploy (silently or otherwise) all Microsoft Office products, and can diagnose and solve almost any issue with them. I am proficient in using these products as well. I commonly build Visio diagrams for IT documentation. I’ve packaged Office 365 using Chocolatey packaging and using the SCCM deployment tools. I’ve completed setup and management of Office 365 with ADFS authentication and Directory Synchronization. In addition I’ve setup Multi Factor Authentication Company Wide.
VMware Horizon View 6 Desktop Virtualization Cookbook
I was included in the review process of Packt Publishing’s VMware Horizon View Desktop Virtualization Cookbook.
I provided feedback and advice regarding the guide and the information contained within.
I was accredited as a reviewer for the book.
What My Coworkers Say
A sampling of the kind things my coworkers have said about me
Andrea, you are the one who supported me the most post go-live of (Internal Application) and take the top spot for number of changes implemented. Thanks a lot!
I haven’t seen such quality work in a long time. Great job, Keep it up!
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