Taylor Sparks
Senior Novell Engineer / NetWare Administrator
(614) 783-1350
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Work History

Work History


OHIO DEPT. JOBS & FAMILY SERVICES, Columbus, OH 2003 - Present

Current status: Full time employee of the State. Previously on a two year contract through UNICON International staffing agency, placed with the MIS department located in the central campus in Columbus. Part of Remote Admin Group providing 2nd tier phone support for all counties outside the central Columbus Ohio campus location, this encompasses 88 counties and over 280 NetWare servers across Ohio.

·         Provide administration for all aspects of Novell accounts.

·         NetWare Server builds – prepare NetWare servers for total plug-n-play readiness to remote county sites. This includes all applications needed by users on the server and all information and configuration of the sites NDS container.

·         Manage Novell Application Launcher (NAL) objects through ZENWorks for distribution to county containers in the NDS Tree.

·         Monitor and manage ArcServe Backup solution across all county sites.

·         Administer GroupWise accounts on a daily basis.

·         Assist in the distribution and monitoring of Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition to servers and workstations.


M.W.SOLUTIONS, Houston, TX 2003

Three month contract evaluating network practices at University of Texas Health Science Center located in the Texas Medical Center. MWSolutions is a Media supplier and Master VAR, Consulted with them on the analyses and the resulting documentation.

 

·         Analyzed current SAN utilization and project future growth requirements.

·         Provided solution to meet new Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requirements.

·         Analyzed Backup practices and suggested methods to increase backup density for current and future growth.

·         Documented server consolidation methods for their Novell platforms.


JPMORGAN CHASE & CO., Houston, TX 1998 to 2002

Part of a team of six senior network engineers specializing in Fileserver Certifications, configuration, and Client-server R&D. Tasked with project development and documentation of new technologies introduced into the NetWare and NT server environment. Performed project lead role when working with LAN Administrator group in implementing new projects, and at other times as subject matter expert, and Level III support for the helpdesk and LAN Admins.

 

·         Upgraded NW 4.11 NDS replica servers statewide to NW 5.1.

·         Consolidated two dozen Profit Centers onto NetWare servers attached to the EMC Frame, resulting in enhanced DR and improved resource tracking.

·         Led in the design, build-out, and management of a 1960 sq. ft. raised-floor Engineering Lab that included 24 server racks and 8 testing stations shared by NetWare and NT, UNIX, Client Engineering and GroupWare Support teams.

·         Managed Lab resource allocation and inventory tracking of project related equipment through a specially designed Lotus Notes database.

·         Implemented Legato Standby Server on multiple NetWare and NT mission critical servers.

·         Managed the relocation of EMC Symmetrix 3930 frame to a newly constructed DR site. As project lead worked closely with EMC representatives on all phases of planning, moving and user acceptance testing.

·         Primary design team member for 250 seat DR site that included capacity for 75 Server racks and 2 EMC Frames.

·         Presentations of projects to both technical and executive level audiences of proposed technology solutions.


American General Insurance, Houston, TX  1997 to 1998
One of three senior network analysts.

 

·         Monitored and supported 58 production fileservers consisting of 27 NT servers, 14 Novell Netware 3.x servers and 18 other servers comprised of OS/2, AIX and SAA gateways.


HERMANN HOSPITAL, Houston, TX 1994 to 1997

One of three senior network analysts supporting a 57 Novell fileserver WAN system, consisting of NetWare 3.x, 4.x, and InternetWare 4.11.

·         Migrated 3000+ Novell 3.x license connections to NW 4.x. 

·         Designed NDS partitioning and load balancing in a NetWare Tree with 10,000+ objects. 

·         Installed multiple ARCServe Enterprise Edition NetWare 4.1 fileservers with auto-changer library technology. 

·         Developed project and installed ADSTARS ADSM backup system from Novell servers to IBM Mainframe. 

·         Converted IPX to IP only network protocols.

·         Introduced Maintenance Library processes for Novell fileserver configurations.

 


M.D.ANDERSON CANCER RESEARCH CENTER, Houston, TX 1993 to 1994

One of seven network analysts supporting 75 Novell file servers, 40 Macintosh/Ethertalk zones and 3 Novell SAA Gateways which comprise the UTMDACC Enterprise Wide Area Network.

 

·         Consolidated several profit centers onto an enterprise level file server to better enhance hardware resources and eliminate the need for network specialists within those departments.

·         Performed NetWare 4.x upgrades on 60 of the 75 existing 3.x and 2.x servers.

·         Installed and configured Novell NetWare Management System (NMS) 2.0 to monitor the institution’s complete networking infrastructure. 

 


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