Manager of four IT production support teams of 30 UK-based and off-shore resources supporting more than 50 critical Category A & B systems

Managed failures on database systems, including prioritising & driving investigatory work, liaising with senior managers & other support teams, representing the DBA team at Incident review meetings and working closely with Oracle Advanced Customer Support to ensure timely resolution of failures Scheduled, managed & prioritised workload, including support of production database systems, Planned & Emergency RFCs and project workProject-managed & co-ordinated rollout of Oracle Grid… Show more Managed failures on database systems, including prioritising & driving investigatory work, liaising with senior managers & other support teams, representing the DBA team at Incident review meetings and working closely with Oracle Advanced Customer Support to ensure timely resolution of failures Scheduled, managed & prioritised workload, including support of production database systems, Planned & Emergency RFCs and project workProject-managed & co-ordinated rollout of Oracle Grid software across a complex production environment, including handling technical difficulties and maintaining “snagging list” of installation problems which had to be fixed latterlyCreated workload planning diary allowing daily planning and prioritisation of work, resulting in greater team stability, less disruption and better productivityDeveloped procedure that clearly defined ownership of databases as they pass from project phase into production support through collaboration with fellow team leaders and Database ManagerProduced operating rhythm to facilitate routine DBA work, such as password changes, test database restores & checks for new Oracle Critical Patch Updates Show less

Drove improvements in system availability through close co-operation with Service Management team. Led database-related investigation, worked to identify trends & root causes and delivered permanent technical solutions. Business hours lost fell from a peak of 96 hours per month in January 2008 to 12 hours per month by the end of the same year.Leading member of Change Approval Board. Ensured all DBA changes were planned in detail and also carefully reviewed other teams’ changes for… Show more Drove improvements in system availability through close co-operation with Service Management team. Led database-related investigation, worked to identify trends & root causes and delivered permanent technical solutions. Business hours lost fell from a peak of 96 hours per month in January 2008 to 12 hours per month by the end of the same year.Leading member of Change Approval Board. Ensured all DBA changes were planned in detail and also carefully reviewed other teams’ changes for possible impact on databases or wider IT systems. Problems or Business Critical outages resulting from failed changes fell by 65% from Jan – Dec 2008.Oversaw the Project Management of the migration of two major AS400 systems out of the UK & to a Prague data centre with no impact to business.Instrumental in transforming some underperformance and discipline-related matters, whilst handling health issues extremely sensitively, whilst ensuring that the team emerged well-motivated, loyal and stronger.Publicised the DBA team’s skills in order to involve the DBA team in system design decisions. Over 50 Tech Specification Documents were reviewed & improved that would never previously have had DBA input. Show less

Team member supporting over 100 Tesco production SQL Server databases and 300-400 test & development instances. Devised responsibility matrix so that each production system had a dedicated primary support DBA.Wrote standards for SQL Server databases & project-managed the configuration work for over 100 new & existing production instances. Result was standardised and easily-supported databases, which also adhered to much higher security standardsDirected & delegated writing of… Show more Team member supporting over 100 Tesco production SQL Server databases and 300-400 test & development instances. Devised responsibility matrix so that each production system had a dedicated primary support DBA.Wrote standards for SQL Server databases & project-managed the configuration work for over 100 new & existing production instances. Result was standardised and easily-supported databases, which also adhered to much higher security standardsDirected & delegated writing of Oracle standards, before then driving work to configure new databases and to retro-fit standards to existing databasesConceived & implemented a phased 3-month plan to address weak system knowledge by rotating team members around all Oracle systemsDevised & initiated use of DBA team’s Critical Information Requirements Document, which proved to be extremely useful when supporting production databasesWrote Acceptance Into Service procedure so that new Oracle & SQL Server databases were entered DBA support in a structured, standard and controlled fashion Show less