Steve Ridley Email & Phone Number

Chicago, Illinois, US

Strategic and tactical consulting in cloud architecture; database engineering (MongoDB and RDBMS); high availability and disaster recovery designs; technology and vendor assessment and selection; information security; agile & DevOps methodologies; and other diverse facets of technology operations.

• Architected, implemented, maintained and enhanced Google Cloud Platform (GCP) architectures supporting over 175 Docker microservices across multiple Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) environments
• Designed, provisioned and administered highly available MongoDB implementations hosting website content and order-related data for online and retail channels
• Conceived, deployed, tested and maintained backup & recovery and disaster recovery capabilities for GCP, GKE and MongoDB implementations
• Designed and built automated provisioning and configuration capabilities with Infrastructure as Code (HashiCorp Terraform), virtual machine images, and various custom scripts
• Led MongoDB efforts for multiple data conversions from DB2 for technology modernization initiatives
• Provided ongoing technical leadership in database and systems engineering, network administration, information security, monitoring and alerting, and other areas of technology operations

• Planned and conducted application and infrastructure discovery meetings to assess Google Cloud Platform utilization
• Presented recommendations related to GCP networking, Identity and Access Management (IAM) and other security configuration, Cloud SQL (MySQL), Cloud Storage (GCS), monitoring, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

• Assessed business requirements and provided detailed input to proposal (subsequently accepted) recommending a Google Cloud Platform architecture to host web applications
• Designed and implemented GCP architecture including a Shared VPC network, Google Kubernetes Engine clusters, Cloud Armor with IP whitelisting for Kubernetes ingress endpoints, and Stackdriver Logging and Monitoring.
• Provisioned cloud resources with Terraform and trained personnel on its usage
• Presented pros and cons of alternative GKE upgrade strategies and implemented node auto-upgrades

• Designed SQL Server Always On availability group architecture with Windows failover clustering
• Revised and tested Transact-SQL (T-SQL) backup implementation to accommodate SQL Server upgrade and Always On design
• Evaluated cloud provider proposal for data center migration and advised customer to consider an opportunity to migrate to Microsoft Azure instead of pursuing this proposal
• Identified and resolved configuration issues preventing successful on-premise to cloud VPN connectivity
• Consulted on various additional technical operations topics

• Performed independent review of third-party network and security assessments to solidify customer understanding and prioritize findings
• Interviewed internal staff and existing support provider to assess technology portfolio and vendor capabilities, and identify improvement opportunities
• Performed detailed review of proposal and contract documents from suitor technology firm to clarify service offerings and contractual terms, analyze costs, provide a gap analysis, improve contractual protections for.
• Coordinated transition of responsibilities and IT assets from existing support provider to successor
• Provided recommendations for achieving compliance with the NYDFS (New York State Department of Financial Services) Cybersecurity Regulation and FINRA’s (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) Small Firm Cybersecurity.
• Provided strategic recommendations for improving overall technology posture

Completed transitional projects in hybrid cloud management, channel-based data separation, deployment automation, email infrastructure, database administration, reporting, monitoring, networking and other areas of operations

• Provide vision, leadership and hands-on support for physical and cloud infrastructure, application operations, DevOps and data analytics in a SaaS environment, reporting to the General Manager and previously to the CTO.
• Defined and executed strategies to migrate internal infrastructure and applications to the cloud, preventing capital expenditure, reducing administrative overhead and increasing operational flexibility
• Improved deployment accuracy and efficiency through revamped change control and release processes
• Evaluated, implemented and managed Domo SaaS BI solution to provide visibility into key metrics
• Implemented software-defined networking capabilities to improve cloud infrastructure manageability, visibility and flexibility
• Led SQL Server and MySQL administration and architecture activities, achieving performance improvement of over 85% for a large white label customer

• Directed all infrastructure activities across multiple hosting environments, reporting to the COO.
• Led hosting partner relationship management and contract renegotiation, resulting in 22% cost reduction and improved internal capabilities in information security, monitoring and operational control
• Redefined and validated disaster recovery capabilities, achieving a 15-minute recovery time objective
• Directed efforts to migrate operations from a managed hosting provider to the cloud, reducing infrastructure deployment times from weeks to minutes
• Navigated multiple software license sales, completing a time sensitive data separation and migration effort as well as a secure shutdown of payment platform operations
• Defined and implemented ITIL-based operational processes

Denver, CO, US

• Directed all Information Technology initiatives as a member of the senior management team, reporting to the CEO.
• Assumed a lead role in functional requirements definition and deployment of new e-commerce website
• Built an IT team performing website development and design, systems & network operations and POS / store infrastructure support
• Helped increase website conversion rates by 1.4% through development of improved search capabilities, targeted behavioral marketing, enhanced product reviews and drop shipper integrations
• Led integration with Amazon Marketplace, setting the stage for a 52% increase in channel sales revenue
• Performed PCI gap analysis and defined a phased approach to achieving compliance

US

• Directed a team of technical operations professionals across multiple locations, with responsibilities including design and administration of systems, databases, networks, storage, telecommunications and email.
• Increased e-commerce revenue by $1.5 million annually through monitoring enhancements, database performance tuning, architectural upgrades and load testing, achieving 100% uptime during six critical holiday shopping.
• Directed upgrade of production network infrastructure
• Improved operational effectiveness and efficiency through team development and restructuring, achieving annual savings of over $330,000
• Coordinated and executed multiple physical data center migrations with minimal website downtime
• Reduced annual maintenance and telecommunications costs by over $150,000

• Technical consulting engagements with e-commerce, telecommunications, and wireless clients.
• Converted website database infrastructure and stored procedures from SQL Server to Oracle
• Analyzed business requirements and wrote functional specifications for a streamlined order entry system
• Developed order tracking reports from an Oracle database using Oracle Reports, HTML and CGI
• Scripted batch scheduling and monitoring routines using the UNIX Korn shell
• Developed, tested and administered SQL Server components of custom benefits enrollment application

• Managed technical consultants through all phases of several large projects to customize proprietary software for major oil and gas corporations, interacting directly with upper management of PwC and our clients.
• Developed and tested customizations to software encompassing over 1500 programs in COBOL and CICS, with approximately 1000 DB2 and Oracle database tables
• Led systems and database administration across distributed HP-UX / Oracle platforms and a centralized mainframe MVS / DB2 environment
• Reduced unplanned mainframe application downtime from over 21% to under 4%
• Coordinated all database release activitiesMaintained and operated software to process tax data and print investor reports for master limited partnerships.
• Analyzed annual tax law changes to identify required enhancements to existing code base