Mark Laforest

Mark Laforest Email and Phone Number

Austin, TX, US
Mark Laforest's Location
Austin, Texas, United States, United States
Mark Laforest's Contact Details
About Mark Laforest

A leader with proven experience. I have over 15 years leading both large and small teams. I have worked for some of the largest companies in the world as well as startup companies. I have a proven track record with projects, reducing cost, increasing profits, and getting the best out of the people who work for me. I have extensive engineering and data center management experience. Recently I have specialized in coming into small companies helping them make the transition to becoming a medium size company; focusing on mentoring both manager and employees during the transition phase. Specialties: Linux, Unix, Solaris, HPUX, Windows, PHP, Java, Oracle, MySQL, Apache, .Net, SQL, Perl, C programming

Mark Laforest's Current Company Details
The University of Texas at Austin

The University Of Texas At Austin

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Sr. IT Manager
Austin, TX, US
Mark Laforest Work Experience Details
  • The University Of Texas At Austin
    Sr. It Manager
    The University Of Texas At Austin
    Austin, Tx, Us
  • The University Of Texas At Austin
    Sr. It Manager
    The University Of Texas At Austin Jul 2023 - Present
    Austin, Texas, United States
  • The University Of Texas At Austin
    Sr. It Manager
    The University Of Texas At Austin Nov 2015 - Present
    Austin, Texas Area
    Provides support to the College of Liberal Arts web development staff. Managing multiple RHEL/Centos 6/7 systems running in HA cluster configuration. Automated installation and configuration of systems using Ansible and internally developed CMS tools. Installed ELK stack for log management purposes. Manage iSCSI, NFS, MySQL, Postgres, WordPress, Drupal, Varnish, RBD, Atlassian, Oracle 8i, and Linux enviornments for the University.
  • Nimbusmon
    Lead Developer
    Nimbusmon Nov 2015 - Present
    Austin, Texas Area
    NimbusMon is an open source monitoring monitoring tool designed using open source technologies focusing on providing information System Administrators need to do their jobs.
  • Golden Frog, Gmbh
    Director Of Operations
    Golden Frog, Gmbh May 2014 - Oct 2015
    Austin, Texas
  • Inmotion Hosting
    Director Of It
    Inmotion Hosting Mar 2012 - May 2014
    Austin, Texas Area
    Manage six groups: System Architecture, Development, Managed Services, Tier 2 Call Center, Data Center Operations, and Corporate Support – Manage an organization of over 60 employees and 3 managers. Responsible for quality assurance, defining and reporting key performance indicators, defining best practices, playbooks, and mentoring employees. I am responsible for hiring decisions, performance reviews, disciplinary action, and employee training programs. Oversee technology operations for all aspects of the company. Responsible for IT department’s budget, manage vendor relationships, defining service level agreements and signing contracts. In the past two years, Renegotiated most of the company’s contracts and services, reducing operating costs by over 30%. Currently involved in developing strategies to increase sales, improve products, find new revenue chains, and improve customer relations. Responsible for corporate security and PCI compliancy. Manage the company’s business continuity and disaster recovery plan. Worked with the development team to deploy Agile Methodologies and implement SCRUM. Under my direction, the development team deployed Jira, Jenkins, staging/test environment, and Trac to enhance the development team’s productivity. Transitioned the Systems Architecture group from poor internal practices to industry best practices. Deployed PXE boot environment, OpenStack, CloudStack, PFSense, Puppet, BetterLinux, and many other tools. Deployed network DDoS defense mitigation using BGP, PBR, ACL, and network scrubbing. Improved network uptime from 98.5% to 99.95% and improved system uptime from 96.5% to 99.9%. Responsible for product and system lifecycles.Created an employee pipeline by working with the company’s recruiting and training groups. Developed advanced training program to develop employees skills. Reduced employee churn from nearly 50% to less than 3%. Work closely with the project management office (PMO) on internal and external projects.
  • Oracle Corp
    It Manager, Data Center Operations
    Oracle Corp Apr 2004 - Mar 2012
    Austin, Texas Area
    The data center team provided support to a 120,000 square foot data center. The other team was responsible for supporting a development and engineering lab. I managed eight employees: One senior manager and seven senior system administrators. Provide support to over 18,000 customers located in over 20 countries. Responsible for more than 8,500 servers and 20,000 virtual machines. Maintained an average uptime of 99.995%. Responsible for supporting multiple operating systems: Windows, Linux, HPUX, AIX, Solaris and Tru64. Supported and provided input to improve Oracle’s EM Cloud product. Managed and maintained over three petabytes of storage on EMC, Network Appliance, Pillar, and Sun storage arrays. Experience with virtualization technologies such as Sun LDOMs, Xen, OVM, VMWare ESX and ESXi. Provided backup and restore services, system monitoring and system security. Maintained organizations business continuity management plans (BCMP), customer SLAs, and disaster and recovery services. Have extensive experience with database technologies: Oracle 10g, 11g, MySQL, and Postgresql. Developed a wide range of scripts and programs to reduce workload, monitor systems, and manage infrastructure.
  • Watchcollectors.Org
    Board Of Directors, Technical Advisor
    Watchcollectors.Org Jun 2009 - Dec 2011
    WatchCollectors.org is a small non-profit organizaiton dedicated to horology and collecting of time pieces. I provide techical advice and help with the redesign of the web site.
  • St. Edward'S University
    Adjunct Faculty Professor
    St. Edward'S University May 2008 - Dec 2009
    Taught MCIS Graduate Courses.
  • Tercet Consulting
    President
    Tercet Consulting Mar 2002 - Dec 2006
  • Amd
    Consultant
    Amd May 2002 - May 2004
    Austin, Texas Area
    Provide technical support for 64bit development. Installed and configured systems. Manage Storage. Developed web applications.
  • Times N Systems
    Sr. Qa Analyst
    Times N Systems Nov 2000 - Mar 2002
    Provide QA testing and support for corporate products
  • Motorola
    It Manager
    Motorola Nov 1998 - Oct 2000
  • Newsbank Inc
    It Manager
    Newsbank Inc Jan 1998 - Oct 1998
  • Acxiom
    Software Engineer
    Acxiom Nov 1996 - Jan 1998
  • Usaf
    Tsgt
    Usaf Mar 1984 - Oct 1996
    Kunia, Hawaii
    Intelligence Analyst.

Mark Laforest Skills

Linux Solaris Apache Perl Servers Operating Systems Virtualization Unix Storage Mysql Databases High Availability Shell Scripting System Administration Php Pl/sql Html Sql Red Hat Linux Software Development Hp Ux Java Javascript Css Jquery Unix Shell Scripting Web Development Bash Performance Tuning C Postgresql Programming Scripting Netapp Visual Basic Python Sql Server Oracle Sql Vmware Agile Clustering Server Architecture J2ee Architecture Tcp/ip Vagrant Docker System Monitoring Agile Methodologies Data Center

Mark Laforest Education Details

Frequently Asked Questions about Mark Laforest

What company does Mark Laforest work for?

Mark Laforest works for The University Of Texas At Austin

What is Mark Laforest's role at the current company?

Mark Laforest's current role is Sr. IT Manager.

What is Mark Laforest's email address?

Mark Laforest's email address is ma****@****att.net

What is Mark Laforest's direct phone number?

Mark Laforest's direct phone number is +158648*****

What schools did Mark Laforest attend?

Mark Laforest attended Hawaii Pacific University, St.edward's University, Hawaii Pacific University, Fair Haven.

What are some of Mark Laforest's interests?

Mark Laforest has interest in Pocketwatch Collecting, Soccer, Scuba Diving.

What skills is Mark Laforest known for?

Mark Laforest has skills like Linux, Solaris, Apache, Perl, Servers, Operating Systems, Virtualization, Unix, Storage, Mysql, Databases, High Availability.

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