5 month contract to migrate firewalls from ASA to FTD

Working as a contractor on major projects as belowMigration from Check Point firewall solution to Cisco FTD Solution:Install New Cisco Stealthwatch solution:Cisco DNA Center

Bakkavor is a company producing branded food for most of the major supermarkets in the UK.I joined the network platform team as a contractor to assist the team working 80% on projects with 20% BAU responding to the calls that the second line team needed to escalate. I worked on the following projects.Single points of failure: An issue in the current architecture identified sites where there was only a single link between a site and the rest of the company.Designed and worked with 3rd party supplier to identify suitable mounting locations for a short range (1km) line of sight radio link to provide a backup link, produced high and low level design documentation to hand over to support teams.Network switch upgrades:As part of a project to install IP telephony it was found that a number of network switches either didn’t have the capacity to take the new telephone handsets or were not PoE capable.Built and installed new switches (either Cisco 2960-X or 9200 series depending on the location) on multiple sites.Vlan redesign:The network structure at Bakkavor had evolved and each of the sites was configured slightly differently. As part of the work I designed a new vlan structure and rolled this out to each of the 16 sites that required them. I also built the DHCP scope on the active directory servers and tested operation. The final stage was to start migrating all the end users onto the new structure.Firewall replacements:Several firewalls were End of Life, worked on building new firewalls and replacing them as required, swapping out Cisco 5500 series for Cisco 5506-x units. The firewalls used Firepower services for ASA as an IPS solution and upgraded the Firepower Management Console as well as the separate modules on each chassis.Corona virus preparation:In the space of 3 days worked with other members of the team to provision 3 new VPN firewalls (Cisco 5508-X) to give the company capacity for an additional 900 simultaneous VPN users.

I joined Thomas Cook as part of the team brought in to insource the network management and reduce costs for the company. I was working 30% on firewall changes, 50% network security improvements and 20% general network support. Unfortunately the company folded a year after I started. I worked on the following projects:Migration from Vodafone MPLS to colt MPLS platform:This project was to migrate the MPLS platform to a lower cost solution. The work consisted of writing the Low Level Design, and then working with Colt to migrate the services for each site to their platform.Implemented Solarwinds Network monitoring platform:Integrated 1500+ network devices into solarwinds for monitoring, building reports and alerts to ensure all the systems could be checked from a single view.Cisco Identity Services Engine:The work on ISE consisted of several sections. The first was to build the platform to provide tacacs AAA services to all the devices on the network, and implement different levels of access control for network admins and the service desk.The second stage was to secure the corporate Wi-Fi network and ensure that only company owned computers could connect to it. This involved working with the EUC team to push out configuration changes and enable 802.1X authentication on the client machines, before changing the authentication on the Meraki wireless access points to work with the ISE servers and ensuring that unauthorised devices could not connect.BAU:Part of a team of 3 people responsible for all firewall changes on the Thomas Cook network, the platforms used included Cisco ASA (various hardware) and FTD (4110 and 2110) and Juniper firewallsImplemented Cisco Identity Services Engine - Designed and implemented a secure wireless solution with Meraki access points Implemented Wireless 802.1x machine authenticationOther ResponsibilitiesMeraki Wireless Network Management- Configure and maintain Meraki wireless APsManaged Cisco Web Security Appliance

Achievements• Migrated 1000 Line Access Control List to Cisco FTD Appliance • Installed FTD Appliances and Firesight Management Centre • Implemented Nexus infrastructure. • Implemented Cisco ISE Solution. - Designed, installed and implemented ISE for a 2000 endpoint wired LAN - Designed and implemented a secure wireless solution with Meraki access points - Produced HLD & LLD for full configuration • Commissioned multiple new sites for company. • Redesigned internal network to accommodate VOIP infrastructure as well as data services. • Designed system for connecting 3 offices running multiple VLANs with redundancy • Designed Network structure for connecting branch offices to head office. Cisco Nexus 7000, 5000 and 2000 - Implemented Nexus to replace existing 4500 series core switches. - Configured Nexus 7000 with multiple 2000 series fabric extenders from Out of box to fully operational state. - Produced LLD to ensure compliance with CIS standards • Cisco Firewall Management (ASA and FTD platforms) - Manage firewalls through CLI, ASDM and Cisco Security Manager. - Design and Implement Firewall solutions. - Produced LLD document to align firewall configurations with CIS security benchmark • Cisco Wireless Network Management. - Manage and maintain a Cisco wireless network using a variety of APs and 5508 Wireless LAN Controllers. - Produced LLD document to align WLC configurations with CIS security benchmark • WAN and LAN Design. - Designed networks including OSPF and BGP routing. - Commissioned new buildings, installing and building the network infrastructure. - Produced HLD for new buildings covering overview of network functionality - Produced LLD for new sites • Cisco IOS and IOS-XE switches. - Produced standard switch configuration guides - Configuration guide aligned to CIS Security StandardsResponsibilities • 3rd Line support of network infrastructure.

Responsible for administering Novell Netware platformChanged role to move to Networking in 2007