Neil Riches Email and Phone Number

20 years of experience in the IT Industry.

Design and implementation of a large (400,000+) mailbox Office 365 migration for a public sector client.Both the source and target infrastructures were heavily bespoke hybrid infrastructures and so the migration process was both complex and non-standard. The multi-phase manipulation of attributes in AD and Exchange was automated with almost 20,000 lines of PowerShell script and tailored instructions.

Same role as for HP for the same timeline (same project)

Designing, documenting and implementing a secure infrastructure for an public sector client. This work was on a range of technologies for the interoperability gateway including messaging, directory services (including replication and synchronization systems), PowerShell scripting and message hygiene.

Designing and implementing Active Directory, Federation Services and Exchange to migrate 4500 users to Office 365 while maintaining cross-platform interoperability. Cloud and hybrid technologies were used to provide additional functionality and resilience as per requirements.This role a required range of my technical skills to provide a complete design and solution for IMGROUP’s client. I implemented the design while working with the client’s IT staff and proceeded through the full life-cycle of the project, including documenting and supporting the infrastructure as needed. The design itself used both best-practice design and tailored elements in order to meet the customer’s requirements.

Designing and implementing a secure infrastructure for a public sector client.This involved initial designs of Active Directory, Exchange and the Metadirectory through testing, pilot and first users live. I customized parts of the design and implementation as customer requirements evolved and new project work was obtained. As the project progressed I was technical team lead for various aspects of the design. After the initial design and approval phase I resolved design issues and wrote a custom set of PowerShell deployment scripts used throughout the project to deploy key parts of the infrastructure.The role required a unique combination of different technical skills listed to resolve the unique requirements of the project.

Working as a consultant designing and implementing Active Directory and Exchange solutions for a variety of clients. Highlights include;• Designing and Implementing an Active Directory and Exchange infrastructure for a large (6000+) public sector site. This ran through over 2 years, from an outline design all the way through to supervising the migration of the users to the new system. Particular emphasis was put on security and deploying to Microsoft best practice.• While the above project took most of my time, in addition I designed AD and Exchange solutions for a range of clients and was occasionally deployed to troubleshoot Active Directory issues for clients.• These included public sector (local government and NHS) and private sector deployments.

Part of a team designing, planning and implementing a migration from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003 for a large (30+ site) law firm. The project team dealt with the following;• Designing an Exchange/Windows 2003 Architecture that would be the target of the migration.• Implementing a migration plan for the company• Providing the company with a list of pre-migration tasks to be completed.• Testing the migration documentation and demonstrating a Proof of Concept.• Deploying Exchange servers and supporting infrastructure (AD, ADC etc).• Executing the migration and co-ordinating regional offices where necessary.• Ensuring the migration had minimal impact to the business as it proceeded.• Constant monitoring, analysis and trouble-shooting to facilitate a smooth migration.

Helping to plan, implement and document a migration from a distributed NT4/Exchange 5.5 system to a single Windows2003/Exchange 2003 Data centre. I was hired in the time leading up to the initial deployment for pilot users. My job role was to facilitate the migration and to ensure it was as smooth as possible for Avis. Main highlights were;• Documenting limitations with the current migration method and explaining these drawbacks to both technical and non-technical users.• Creating multiple alternate migration strategies and presenting them for approval.• Working with migration engineers to ensure user data and settings were migrated correctly.• Helping to specify hardware and storage utilisation for the new systems (both local storage and SAN).• Troubleshooting technical issues with the migration (firewall configuration, security, directory synchronisation, interoperability issues etc)• Fleshing out interoperability techniques to allow full communication between the new and legacy systems.• Implementing a ‘quick and dirty’ solution for client-side archiving as well as laying the groundwork for a more complete future server-side implementation.

Planning and Implementing an Exchange 5.5 Directory split and Exchange 2000 upgrade for Man Investments (About 3000 users) as part of a Windows 2000 migration. Man Investments were planning a migration of half their global Exchange 5.5 infrastructure to Exchange 2000. After this was accomplished a separate Exchange 2000 system was to be merged into their organisation. I was hired to drive the technical side of the project and implement the migration with the local Exchange administrators. This included (but wasn’t limited to);• Planning and documenting the procedure to split the organisation, upgrade to Exchange 2000 and merge another Exchange 2000 organisation.• Configuring an accurate replica in the test environment and running through all the procedures to ensure accuracy.• Creating the design for the Exchange 2000 organisation and supporting Windows 2000/Active Directory infrastructure.• Implementing the split of the Exchange 5.5 organisation and ensuring there was no loss of functionality to the Exchange users.• Ensuring the Active Directory contained all the Exchange 5.5 directory information and the two directories were kept fully in sync.• Helping to maintain and troubleshoot issues that occurred during the migration with the Window 2000/NT4/Exchange 2000 services.• Deploying Exchange 2000 and ensuring all data was replicated to an off-site server (to allow smooth transition in case of a disaster scenario). This included everything from server specification to security lock-down.• Ensuring all mailboxes were migrated to the new infrastructure without any disruption to normal mail activity.• Setting up new Windows/Exchange sites as required during the migration process.• Merging the two Exchange 2000 organisations together to allow all the clients full access to Exchange 2000 functionality (calendar sharing, free/busy etc).

Contract at KPMG Headquarters planning, documenting and deploying Exchange 2000 At KPMG I was involved with the Exchange 2000 Project team, a small group of consultants and permanent staff members dedicated to rolling out Exchange 2000 worldwide. The deployment as a whole was a large one with KPMG having 120,000 users and 160,000 mailboxes worldwide. Main elements and highlights of this role were;• Deploying KPMG’s first Exchange 2000 server and the subsequent servers in their hub site.• Providing support for sites that were in the process of migrating to Windows 2000/Exchange 2000 from NT4/Exchange 5.5• Supporting, maintaining and improving the Active Directory infrastructure where required (new sites, GC placement etc)• Working as part of the global migration team to design, manage and implement the project.• Working with the initial pilot countries to get their first Exchange 2000 servers live.• Testing and documenting Exchange 2000 deployment procedures. These documents would be used for the global rollout once the pilot was complete, and so had to be stringently tested in a large environment. Some of the topics covered were;o Installation of the base system and applicationo Securing the OS and applicationo Antivirus implementationo Inter-server connectivityo Disaster recoveryo Inter-operability between 5.5 and Exchange 2000o Administration guides• Ensuring the Active Directory connections between AD and the Exchange 5.5 environment were deployed correctly so the directories were fully in sync.• Customising the IIS Lockdown scripts for KPMG’s environment to ensure the Exchange 2000 servers were both functional and secured.

This role involved progressing the mail-system for Elsevier Science, an 8000 user company and ensuring smooth communication with the parent company (40,000 user). The work mostly concerned with the topology of the system as a whole (with particular reference to Exchange).