eXPerience

When I came back to Brussels, I was asked to return to the European Parliament to work on handling automation for the updated infrastructure. I am now working on auditing the existing scripts and bringing them up to date, as well as upgrading the data migration system I put in place a couple of years ago. I'm also tutoring members on my team on PowerShell.

Relocating abroad for personal reasons, I found an opportunity to learn new skills and was hired as an Oracle database administrator by one of the biggest French bank services company. There, I worked mainly on Oracle, but also on MySQL and SQL server, and worked also on infrastructure within the Service Desk, mainly on Red Hat Linux. I used my automation skills to streamline database creations and administration, and worked on scripts to ease Windows/Linux interaction.

At the European Parliament, I worked for the DG Itec, that provides IT services mainly for the Members and their assistants and other VIPs. I was hired as the main automation expert, rewriting old VBScript, command files or more exotic solutions to PowerShell. I was the main provider of data the service manager was needing for his reports, consolidating informations from SQL server DBs, Active directory, SCCM, log files, workstations registry and event logs, etc. A main project has been to conceive, develop and put into production a system to handle local workstations and user data for the members during a hardware replacement campaign. It was done entirely in Powershell, using Group policies, security groups, scheduled tasks, queues, GUI portions when needed for operators, and CMDLets written to administrate the system on the console.

I was part of the small infrastructure team who was providing and maintaining the underlying systems used for workstations on one hand, and professional software packages for the plant production on the other one. Working under the supervision of the global Audi system engineering teams, my main role was being the site administrator for Windows servers, workstations, SCCM and Active Directory, through Active Roles. I also was the main technical referent for the Windows 7 upgrade plan. Secondary roles included automation, on call third line support for servers, Linux administration, etc.

In continuation from the previous experience, I switched to the System Administration team. During the years I spent there, some of my main roles were Active Directory administration, Microsoft SMS server administration, packaging, Workstations image building, data security, users administration, automation, network administration, servers installation, etc. Versions I worked on there were NT4, 2000, 2003 and 2008.

Hired for a support role, as first and second line support operator. I ended up doing a lot of debugging and general problem solving, as well as handling VIPs for support and during migrations. Another important role was to be an informal liaison officer between the Support Team and the System Team.

Main tasks were Exchange administration, workstations installation an upgrades, network administration, users administration, user support. The environment was mainly Windows NT 3.51, NT4 on PCs and Alpha stations, NT Server 4.0. Macintoshes were being phased out. A mainframe was used for production purposes, but I only had very punctual interventions on it. I switched the local culture from walk-on to remote administration, using Sysinternals tools, VNC, and other such tools.

IT Gopher: Windows Workstations installation, Hardware support, Mainframe mail server administration, cable cutting and the like.