SQL Server DBA / HA – DR Consultant (Contractor) at Avnet Inc (2022-09 – 2026-05)
Working independently to deliver the migration and modernisation of 100+ services. Providing Subject Matter Expertise within Global Infrastructure Services.
- Database Migration, including cross domain with upgrades ranging from 2005 to 2025. Where appropriate creating detailed documentation of new or existing systems in-scope and creating graphical migration 'battle plans' for stakeholders and providing clear, concise communication on the delivery of tasks.
- Acting as a technical project manager preparing detailed plans, SOEs highlighting Risks, Assumptions, Issues and Dependencies, including complex data flow schematics.
- Providing Application Database system support to developers and infrastructure teams, with testing, operations, and maintenance.
- Assisting product owners and users when performing a hyper care role post migration, performance tuning and troubleshooting server and application issues using tools such as Extended Events.
- Implementing SQL Security monitoring, policy and controls including TLS 1.3 Strict Encryption & Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) with Availability Groups, Managed Service Accounts, Application Roles, User Role based management, best-practice monitoring with CIS security benchmarks.
- Designing, documenting and building solutions for mitigations for legacy account usage.
- AlwaysON, including Contained AAG & Clustering implementation.
- DR design including SAN replication implementation.
- SSIS & TSQL Development, as part of migration including refactoring/redeveloping from DTS to SSIS 2019.
- Implemented across the estate a refreshed database maintenance process for the backup, integrity and optimisation of mission-critical, data warehouses, highly available, ring fenced and business-critical databases.
- Implementation and documentation of server build automation and cumulative update deployment using PowerShell and TSQL scripting.
- Acting as an agent in a ServiceNow workflow, using ITIL practices for Incidents, Requests and Change.
- Best Practice Assessment, using scripting tools to identify performance issues and security risks, with the preparation of reports and remediation plans.
Consultancy - Principal SQL DBA (Permanent) at Version One (2021-04 – 2022-08)
A team lead, consultant and developer working in multiple project streams within the cloud platform practice.
- Assembled a new eight-person team SQL Server team within the cloud platform consultancy.
- Consultant, SME for the Cloud Platform Practice that delivered solutions for various organisation types including financial and public sector, and wider organisation including Site Reliability delivering managed server support.
- SQL Architecture Low Level / Detailed Design for SQL hosted within Azure and AWS.
- Database migration from on-Premises to Public Cloud, including using Azure Blob Storage / Backup to URL.
- Provided realistic estimates for delivery, as proposals in a pre-sales capacity and in the creation of tasks at a project planning phase.
- Implementation of SQL consultancy standards for design (T-Shirt Models) and migration.
- Preparing of proposals for Sales and Bidding Teams.
- TSQL Development, refactoring and testing stored procedures.
- TSQL and Server Performance tuning and optimisation using standard SQL toolset.
SQL Developer (Contractor) at DS Smith (2020-03 – 2021-03)
Application modernisation of the of paper mill system handling product management from production, forecasting, stock verification, forecasting and distribution.
- TSQL Development to requirements within an agile project team, managing code base through TFS and Azure DevOps GIT Repository.
- Planning and advising on approaches to resolve technical debt.
- Optimisation, refactoring, and performance tuning complex stored procedures.
SQL Server DBA – Project (Contractor) at Lloyds Banking Group (2018-09 – 2020-03)
Working within Lloyds Banking Group on the Windows Server Migration Programme which is moving all legacy SQL instances from Windows Server 2003 to 2012.
- Performing analysis, design and migration activities for moving various SQL versions (2000 to 2008 R2) to SQL Server 2014 both On-Premise, Off-Premise and Azure Stack.
- Developing PoSH scripts to automate migration tasks in addition to TSQL scripting.
- Building and implementing AlwaysON availability groups, TDE (Transparent Database Encryption), SSL/TLS In-flight Encryption.
- Ensuring compliance to all regulatory standards and maintaining understanding of the current standards as applicable to the SQL Server estate.
Data Engineer (Contractor) at Piksel Inc (2018-06 – 2018-08)
- Deployment and configuration to customer environments.
- Managed Service support and Consultancy for various retail customers.
- SQL On-Premise, Azure and AWS.
SQL Server DBA - Project (Contractor) at Royal Bank of Scotland (2017-07 – 2018-05)
A project and BAU resource for the RBS SQL estate of 2500+ thousand instances.
- Supporting Developers with deployments and maintaining test environments.
- Providing optimisation recommendations to development teams, troubleshooting production issues with database performance, SQL jobs, batch jobs and SSIS.
- Documenting and reviewing Standard Operating Procedures and managing change management in ServiceNow.
- Migrations to SQL Server 2016 from various versions including SQL 2000.
- Implementing database security and build standards.
- Installation and upgrades for SQL Server including clustering.
- Acting as an agent in a ServiceNow workflow, using ITIL practices for Incidents, Requests and Change.
- Ensuring compliance to all regulatory standards and maintaining understanding of the current standards as applicable to the SQL Server estate.
SQL Server DBA – SharePoint Mission Critical Support (Contractor) at Microsoft (2016-09 – 2017-05)
Supporting and troubleshooting the SQL Server tier of the SharePoint Online platform.
- Troubleshooting and root cause analysis to SLA targets and participating in bridge calls.
- Supporting 15,000+ SQL instances.
- High transaction throughout 20,000+ trans/sec.
- VLDB support.
- Maintenance and troubleshooting of automated procedures using TSQL and Powershell.
- Providing development teams with query optimisation and database design recommendations.
SQL Server DBA / Consultant (Contractor) at Oxford University Press (2015-06 – 2016-09)
- SQL consolidation and migration to Cisco UCS environment.
- Designed and implemented SQL 2012/2014 environment for an IT Transformation to new Cisco UCS/vSphere 6 Environment.
- Designed, documented and implemented the AlwaysON and Windows Failover clusters.
- Built servers to VMWare and SQL best practice.
- Migrated database from various versions of SQL to the new environment.
- BizTalk Migration. Designed and build of new BizTalk environment in secure VLAN.
- Implementing Ola Hallengren Database Maintenance throughout the SQL estate.
Lead / Dev Ops DBA at dotMailer.com (2012-12 – 2015-02)
Product development, design and technical lead for SQL server on the dotMailer solution. Supporting the mission-critical application through the lifecycle of testing, deployment, operation, maintenance, and enhancement via the back log.
- Migration to SQL Server 2012 and migration from on-premise to cloud AWS.
- Database Scalability - AlwaysON implementation and partitioning of VLDB.
SQL Server DBA at Avis Europe Ltd. (2008-04 – 2012-11)
Server Administrator at Irish Life (CHL Mortgages) (2006-07 – 2008-03)
Solution Support Engineer at Cable and Wireless (2004-02 – 2006-07)
