Ross Sargent Email & Phone Number

Madison, Wisconsin, United States

As a Technical Account Manager, I assist customers with a variety of Azure-related needs on a day-to-day basis. Acting as a trusted advisor to my customers, I'm looking for ways to optimize their Azure environment from a cost management, resourcing, and overall governance perspective. Towards that end, I assist with high level architectural and design elements of the environment. I also act as an escalation point where needed to ensure engineering is appropriately troubleshooting and remedying resource issues, whether those are internal or third-party vendor engineering resources.

Madison, Wisconsin Area

Building off of my experience as an Engineer II, I worked as an Engineer III, Subject Matter Expert/Technical Owner, and Team Lead for the on-shore Azure engineering team within Managed Services. As the Team Lead, my expanded responsibilities included handling high level customer escalations when previous engineering resources could not resolve the problem or when customer satisfaction issues arose when existing troubleshooting efforts did not return expected results. As the Technical Owner, I developed, tested, and pushed updates to our ScienceLogic monitoring platform for Azure support needs in an effort to improve upon or fix issues with the monitoring solution's default configurations. I also owned process documentation for the Azure engineering team as a whole, which culminated in automation efforts meant to reduce engineering workload while reducing onboarding time for new customers into Managed Services.I regularly partook in Azure Expert MSP audits with Microsoft on a number of fronts. These efforts included preparing supporting materials for assigned audit points, rehearsing and providing feedback to audit resources in the lead up to the audit, as well as presenting on assigned sections and answering questions or assisting others as needed during the audit itself.

Fitchburg, Wi

As part of CDW's Managed Services division, I work with a variety of businesses to manage, maintain, and troubleshoot the Windows Server ecosystem deployed with each customer's organization. Day-to-day activities vary widely, but include duties such as:* Performing root cause analysis for systems with unplanned outages/downtime* Troubleshooting Citrix XenApp errors* Writing change plans (implementation, backout, and post-validation steps) for alterations to a customer's environment* Documenting work steps for both the customer's benefit and as part of on-going coaching loops to improve on our Engineering capabilitiesWithin the Windows group, I help support the following technologies:* Windows Server (primarily Server 2008/R2 and Server 2012/R2) core components, including Hyper-V and cluster management* Microsoft products such as Data Protection Manager, System Center Configuration Manager, and virtual machines through the Azure cloudMost recently, I have been a member of a project team working to migrate all our managed Windows Servers over to a new monitoring platform from ScienceLogic. For my part, I have been heavily involved with remediation preparation for over 1500 Windows devices across many customers.

Middleton, Wi

Provided server system administration in a heavily virtualized Hyper-V environment running off Windows Server 2012 R2. Installed, maintained, patched, and troubleshot 80+ virtual environments ranging from Windows Server 2003 and up, as well as provided initial configuration of Linux-based systems. Configured user accounts within both Office 365 and Active Directory, along with maintaining local and public DNS entries for our numerous servers. Assisted in the network planning, hardware deployment, and server migrations to a colo with multiple VLANs which was actively accessible to our primary location. Employed a combination of Observium and Zenoss to monitor our networks and provide system alerts to email and mobile phone contacts, as well as pulled reporting data for system availability metrics. Utilized a local Spiceworks installation as an end-user ticketing and backup monitoring system for both servers and workstations. Updated documentation as needed, and investigated hardware and software platforms as needed to support our day-to-day operations.

Fitchburg, Wi

Managed a variety of IT roles (wore many hats), such as hardware support, infrastructure installations, troubleshooting, network setup and server maintenance. Supported client’s infrastructure, including Windows Server 2003 – 2012, Active Directory, Exchange (2003-2010), desktop OS (Windows XP through 8.1, some OS X), and Hypervisors (ESX/ESXi, Hyper-V 2008/2012, with some XenCenter). Configured network infrastructure with secure WAN, LAN, and VPN (site-to-site and client-based) requirements. Recorded work tickets, job history, server hardware and software licenses, and other information pertaining to the support of our customers. Provided desktop, server, and network infrastructure recommendations as they pertained to a customers budget and technical needs.

Dubuque, Iowa

Provided technical services to fulfill client's outsourced storage area networking needs. Handled the configuration and presentation of LUNs from back-end SAN systems, along with the logical setup of SAN switches. Worked with various vendor equipment, including products by IBM, Hitachi Data Systems, NetApp, and EMC.

Assisted in the day to day operations of various Walgreens around the Madison, WI area, including opening and closing stores, interacting with customers and providing conflict resolution where applicable, creating and initiating action plans for our assigned departments, and various other administrative tasks.

Bachelor Of Science, History

Capstone Paper: “The Misadventures of R.J. King Wingwalker: Neolocalism, Microbreweries, and their Impact on La Crosse, Wisconsin.”

Diploma 2005