Peter Lowdon Email & Phone Number

Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom

Peter moved to HP joining the Midrange Sun Farm team supporting/maintaining the DWP Sun server estate ranging from V240 entry level servers to E25K high end servers. After 4 months Peter moved into the Team Leader role, monitoring/scheduling work for the team as well as liaising with other teams in the DWP estate and external suppliers.In September 2011 Peter moved to the Production Engineering group, specialising in Unix/Linux integration. Working across several projects concurrentlyKey achievements- Part of a team maintaining 500+ Sun server estate in a 24/7 environment- Design and key implementation role in replatforming 20 year old bespoke client/server DWP overseas pension system, removing significant risks of ancient hardware, out of support software through virtualisation. This involved recompilation of the bespoke COBOL and C batch applications and client/server infrastructure s well as refactoring supporting Unix scripts.- Requirements capture/specification including space, power and networking for multiple Data Center Consolidation project cycles, making most efficient use of existing space and releasing space for creation of new cool corridors. Each tranche of work involved around 50 servers.- From April 2012 onwards as a Technical Lead in the Infrastructure Team on Universal Credit programme. Main duties include capturing cloud infrastructure requirements for hosting partner developed software solutions. - As a Technical Lead in the DWP Cloud Service project capturing cloud infrastructure requirements for hosting partner developed software solutions including Personal Independence Payments (PIP).

Peter provides the Registers of Scotland Programme with infrastructure consultancy to development projects within the programme as well as a central infrastructure design/build resource. As well as the more mundane day to day system administration activities Peter also provides Unix/network/security services to service projects as and when required.

Peter worked on a short term contract for Computacenter on a BT project designing LAN/WAN installations for Department of Work and Pensions many local offices as part of a larger convergence programme

Peter took over as technical project manager for the GC Exchange project, the CGI supplied component of a much larger Government Connect Programme. Peter led a small team developing GC Exchange, a central resilient messaging service for the translation and routing of XML formatted messages within secure HMG network environment. Peter had overall responsibility for the delivery of the project including financial management, delivery scheduling and tracking, regular customer meetings/highlight report production and attendance at other supplier forums.

Oct 03 – Jan 05 (Individual Learning Account Scotland)Peter had sole responsibility establishing a stable, fit for purpose infrastructure for the ILA system which he accomplished through ;- Production of an Infrastructure Plan detailing environment and server configurations, together with a Microsoft Project delivery schedule for each phase, server build, software install, commissioning test, disaster recovery test and security signoffApr 01 – Sep 03 ( Scottish Criminal Record Office)Peter was involved in this project right from the bid stage through to delivery, carrying out a number of roles and responsibilities on the bid/project. Peter received a Syntegra Recognition Award for his efforts during the bid phase including;- Acting as the infrastructure technical design authority for the bid team, validating any proposed solutions for viability and cost- Liaising with Security Practice over infrastructure issues and throughout the Risk Review process and generation of System Security Policy for management of the service- Designing secure connectivity between Disclosure Scotland infrastructure and Police Information Technology organisation (PITO) via Police National Network (PNN2), which Peter presented at PITO headquarters to a technical audience for approvalApr 00 – Mar 01 (Student Awards Agency for Scotland)Apr 98 – Jan 00 (DFTS Internet Gateway )Peter joined the project whilst it was still at the bid stage, performing many ad-hoc tasks necessary to prepare the project for sign-off, including supplier liaison, accommodation issues, power requirements etc. Peter checked and built all hardware components as they arrived on site, installing memory, SCSI cards, hard discs etc, identifying and installing a minimum Solaris O/S build on a number of Sun hardware platforms.

On moving to ITSA Peter was initially employed as a programmer where I was part of a team on a large project developing software on a Unix based client-server platform using expert system tools. In November 92 Peter was temporarily promoted to an Analyst/Designer, the main duties being designing and prototyping amendments to current software, as well as developing new software. Peter was the primary technical co-ordinator during two commissioning phases of the system, ensuring that hardware, software and communications were set-up correctly

Upon joining the Polytechnic staff Peter’s main duties as a computer operator were the general running of the Polytechnic's main student computer facilities, as part of a team on a shift basis. Upon transfer to the User Services section Peter became a Computing Officer. Where his duties then changed to maintaining systems and development of new software and techniques for various departments throughout the Polytechnic