Joe Winter Email & Phone Number

Engaged customers through various channels (ZenDesk, email, phone and face-to-face) to address and resolve hardware, firmware, software and initial setup related issues, including providing on-site solutions and managing product returns.Management of of a small hosting infrastructure running CentOS Linux, OnApp, and HostBill, ensuring up-to-date hardware / software packages and maintaining positive customer relations.Implemented customer-specific solutions, including networking (i.e. VLANs), iSCSI, host and VM configuration, in a redundant environment, alongside physical installations on customer sites.Specializing in Dell hardware (14th/15th gen), offering technical specification and configuration advice to customers, engineers and sales representatives of storage, network and compute. Inclusive of CPU, memory, PCI / Riser, power, and thermal.Supported customers and warehouse engineers in firmware upgrades for servers, storage, and switches, covering various vendors such as Dell, HPE, Cisco, Arista, and others.

South East

Provided triaging/front office support for various products at Curvature, enhancing front office skills from IBM and expanding expertise to cover server, storage, and networking for multiple OEMs (HP, IBM, Dell, Sun).Conducted specialized training on OEM products (Quantum tape libraries, supermicro servers, HPE and Dell) and played a key role in ensuring accurate spare stock for new and renewed contracts globally, creating a company used browser addon in JavaScript to increase efficiency.Completed project work at Curvature, including relocating an EMX VMAX system, setting up proprietary call home clients for EMC machines and IBM hardware, and engaging in detailed customer conversations to ensure proper configuration and timely issue resolution.Collaborated effectively within the Curvature team, sharing expertise during triaging and onsite engineering work, resulting in high-standard completion of calls and timely issue resolution.

Reading, United Kingdom

· Moving out from the Lloyds datacentre to support the South East region increased the range of products I was supporting, from mostly IBM / HP to include Lenovo, Fujitsu, Dell, Cisco, Apple, and other integrated products such as Netezza and DataPower.· Working on High-Availability products such as IBM System P / I, Enterprise Tape Library's, Virtual Tape Systems (e.g., Hydra), IBM DS8000 and XIV storage platforms and Mainframes. I completed both the Cisco Certified Technician (CCT) certification involving work on Nexus switches and similar devices, and Apple Certified Technician certification for Mac and iOS support.· Working from home instead of a fixed office, required management of my own time, scheduling appointments with customers for either break/fix work, new installs / moves and Engineering Changes work. These projects gave me a good understanding of various clients’ workflows and the processes involved to arrange parts, time, and resources to complete the work including help getting contracts written up for the work. This is time managed alongside education, admin, and critical severity 1 calls. Being field based enabled me to build strong relationships with both on-site customer and those that are remote in different continents.

· Supporting IBM Customer Engineers and the Customer, creating technical solutions to resolve hardware issues either for remote fixes or arranging an engineer site visit. Analysing raw support packages, speaking to the customer, and providing action plans to engineers. Products included but were not limited to IBM DCS Range; IBM DS Range; IBM Storwize V7000 & Unified; Brocade Switches; and NetApp storage.

Peterborough, United Kingdom

· Hardware support operating within Lloyds Banking Group’s primary datacentre and travelling to support additional sites and customers. Support included IBM products from; Enterprise servers; WebSphere devices; Blade Center; and Enterprise Storage Devices (DS8K / XIV), as well as multivendor products such as HP Enterprise Storage Library; HP EVA's; HP Blades and Rack mounted servers (DL / ML); and Cisco interconnect networking switches.· Working directly out of the customers datacentre ensured regular contact with the customer, allowing quick confirmation of fixes and requests for additional information, whilst demanding strict time restraints and turnarounds. When initial diagnosis did not fix a problem, quick thinking and problem-solving skills were required to resolve the issue during the allocated change window – in addition, strong communication skills were needed to work alongside front office, support, resource management, and part delivery resulting in a new challenge every day especially during night shifts.· During the role I completed several large-scale projects including a Power 7 Move between Datacentres, including Rack migration, Middleware / Firmware updates and AIX Installation; Concurrent IBM DS8000 Firmware / Code Load on 8300, 8800, 8870 across over 40 machines; and Organising and carrying out Tape Library Firmware updates across 2 sites with 5 Machines.· Completing on a regular basis, Tape Library Cell Replacements; DS8000 MES / Upgrade and installations; Decommission of X Series servers; and the Replacement / Configuration of IBM DataPower boxes. I also worked with two colleagues to design and code a new task management system using J Query, SQL, PHP, HTML5 to improve team efficiency.