Whilst maintaining my Database Administration duties I am now responsible for configuring and maintaining Virtual Servers, storage and Active Directory amongst other things. I have a lot of new skills to learn and even more to improve on.

The primary focus for this role is to ensure that the Oracle 11g student record system (SITS) is highly available using Oracle Dataguard. Designing and supporting a backup and recovery model that is recoverable in good time as per the well documented scenarios and work instructions has been an interesting challenge.I am also responsible for maintaining over one hundred MSSQL 2005/2008/2012, Oracle 11g and MySQL database servers in a VMWare environment. These servers use technologies such as clustering, mirroring and log shipping to provide a stable environment.As my skillset and experience has increased I have become more confident and taken on extra responsibilities such as taking a lead role in developing the initial database and system architecture for a re-implementation of a COTS student record system and capacity planning.My SQL Server skillset has recently expanded as I now have experience of implementing three Always On Availability Groups in a production environment. This includes cross-site fail-over and the uses of both synchronous and asynchronous replication.

This role centred around using my years of experience using and supporting content management systems to ensure that our external web presence was always available and performant.I also acted as a gatekeeper and quality assurance tester for SharePoint deployments entering the live environment from our SVN code repository.Developing and supporting PHP coding on the student record system web portal within a change management environment.Over the course of this job I trained over one hundred end-users in the Communique and Dreamweaver.I was heavily involved in the implementation and support of a Scientia S+ timetabling system including the integration of it with our student record system.

This job centred around me being the primary support for both the external content managed website and the PHP template based intranet site. I was responsible for supporting the RedHat LINUX server and all the installed applications. Over the course of this job I became a proof-reader for all content managed pages including the prospectuses. I also coded HTML4 and CSS.When I started this job we were running a Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP) based architecture. I was the technical lead in migrating this from LINUX to a Windows server running a content management system.

Seconded to Ford Motor Company's training department. Primarily responsible for ensuring that one hundred and fifty training rooms across several sites were ready for every single course delivery. This role required self-motivation and planning skills to keep on top of a rapidly shifting schedule. This job involved liaising with printers for training materials and ensuring that every machine was tested and ready for a specific course every day. This is where I developed by organizational skills and ability to be a self-starter.