Red Hat Field Engineer at Techniker Krankenkasse – 07.2021 – 12.2023 (as a freelancer)

In this project I`m working for Red Hat as an Red Hat Field Engineer on customer side to help the Techniker Krankenkasse with all their Red Hat technology related topics.

Focused on following technologies (subset):

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  • Red Hat Satellite
  • Ansible Core / Tower
  • GitOps with Github, Ansible Automation Platform and Red Hat Satellite
  • Openshift 4
  • Quay Image Registry
  • OpenLDAP / 389 LDAP
  • HAProxy

Infrastructure DevOps and Infrastructure Architect for an Austrian customer – 01.2021 – current (as a freelancer)

In this project I`m helping my customer to build up new datacenter environments in Germany for the german healthcare system based on Opensource technoligies. As an Infrastructure DevOps and Architect I`m responsible for designing Opensource based IT infrastructure solutions with a very strong demand for nearly zero downtime. And from the DevOps perspective I`m focused on automating as much as possible with Ansible and Python when implementing the things I`ve designed.

Focused on following technologies (subset):

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux / Rocky Linux
  • Debian / Ubuntu
  • Foreman incl. Foreman hook development
  • Red Hat Identity Management (IPA)
  • Ansible Core / AWX incl. Ansible module development based on Python
  • Gitlab CI/CD
  • Python / Bash
  • Kubernetes / Docker
  • Openshift 4 incl. different storage providers
  • oVirt virtualization platform
  • Proxmox
  • Opensearch
  • Operating system hardening according to CIS Benchmark

Project Phoenix – Opensource workplaces for the German Public Sector – 06.2020 – 06.2021 (as a freelancer)

Dataport is one of the largest IT service providers for the German Public Sector. The goal within this project Phoenix is to build a fully Opensource based platform to provide Opensource workspaces for customers from the German Public Sector. This platform uses tools like Nextcloud, OpenExchange, Matrix and other tools to offer services like groupware, mail, messaging and video conferencing.

I am supporting Dataport as an IT Infrastructure Architect and Infrastructure DevOps with a focus on automation and monitoring tasks to roll out the components in a Hybrid Cloud environment in a standardized and automated way. Therefore I have developed a configuration standard for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and 8 as well as the necessary Ansible playbooks to enforce this standard with the help of Ansible Tower and Red Hat Satellite 6.

In the process of defining this configuration standard I was focused on BSI (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnologie) and CIS (Center for Internet Security) hardening guides. As a Cloud Architect I am also responsible for deploying infrastructure automatically at a german public cloud provider. To run the Phoenix stack in the public cloud environment it was also necessary to build a couple of base infrastructure services like DNS, DHCP, identity management, repository and lifecycle management, Git, central logging and monitoring. I have implemented these base infrastructure services with Red Hat Satellite 6, Red Hat Identity Management, Gitlab, Elastic, Grafana, Prometheus and Thanos. In my role as Infrastructure DevOps I am also responsible for automating the installation of all mentioned infrastructure services as well as the automatic deployment of cloud services. Therefore I implemented Ansible Tower as automation platform and used extensive Python scripting.

Focused on following technologies (subset):

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  • Red Hat Satellite 6
  • Red Hat Identity Management (IPA)
  • Ansible Core / Ansible Tower
  • Python / Bash
  • Terraform
  • Kubernetes / Docker
  • MinIO Object Storage
  • Prometheus / Thanos / Grafana
  • Public Cloud
  • pfSense BSD based firewall incl. Ansible automation

Corporate Private Cloud – Red Hat Openstack implementation at a customer from the banking sector in Germany – 06.2019 – 05.2020 (as a freelancer)

The goal is to implement a Corporate Private Cloud based on Red Hat Openstack 13 in a HA / DR setup on baremetal with Cisco ACI and Huawai storage integration. Beside this a HA/DR capable Red Hat Satellite 6 environment should be installed. Furthermore a dedicated Red Hat Virtualization environment should also be implemented to run Satellite and the Openstack Director as virtual machines.

Within this project im focuesed on the implementation of all the mentioned products as well as the automation of the installation. Additionally I`m working on a proper architectural disgn for the product implementation.

Focused on following technologies (subset):

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  • Red Hat Satellite 6
  • Ansible Core / Ansible Tower
  • Puppet
  • Red Hat Openstack 13
  • Red Hat Virtualization
  • Jenkins / Git / Gitlab
  • Python / Bash scripting

Team-lead IT Infrastructure Architects at Kühne + Nagel (AG & Co.) KG – 03.2016 – 05.2019 (permanent position)

In this position I have built a team of five IT Infrastructure Architects based in Hamburg and in addition to that I have extended my team with so called IT Infrastructure Architecture delegates which are based in our datacenter branches in AMER and APAC. Together we were responsible for our global datacenter architecture. This enabled us to define a globally aligned strategy to become a global Corporate Private Cloud provider within Kühne + Nagel.

One of the first things I was responsible for was the implementation of a globally standardized and automated deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. Therefore I have implemented a global distributed Red Hat Satellite 6 infrastructure as well as a global distributed Red Hat Identity Management environment for user authentication. I have supported the required infrastructure automation with my knowledge about configuration management tools and scripting and programming skills accordingly (Puppet, Python, Ansible).

I was also working on Software Defined Networking and Software Defined Storage topics which are essential to become a global Corporate Private Cloud provider. I was also responsible for the architecture and the implementation of a global Red Hat Openshift Container Platform (Platform-as-a-Service) which was a huge step for our DevOps teams to work more agile and independent on their Micro-Services approaches.

Focused on following technologies (subset):

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  • Red Hat Identity Management (IPA)
  • Red Hat Satellite 6
  • Ansible Core + Puppet
  • Red Hat Openshift + GlusterFS
  • VMWare vSphere 6
  • Jenkins / Git / Gitlab
  • Python / Bash scripting

IT Infrastructure Consultant at Red Hat GmbH – 03.2015 – 02-2016 (permanent position)

At Red Hat I was working as an IT Infrastructure Consultant where I have supported different customers in implementing Red Hat technologies in the customers environments. One of my first projects was the implementation of a new virtualization platform based on Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization at a customer from the automotive sector. After I have created the new virtualization platform we have migrated the whole Oracle database workload from the former used virtualization platform.

A second long term engagement was at a customer from the finance sector where I have implemented a Cloud Platform based on Red Hat Openstack & Ceph. The goal here was to establish an on-premise cloud like platform for the internal software developers where services can be simply consumed via an according self service portal. I have also supported the development of this self service portal with scripting and programming. As a storage backend for Openstack I have implemented Red Hat Ceph storage.

In two other long term engagements where I was working at one customer from the pharmaceutical industry and one customer from the public sector I have implemented Red Hat Satellite which was required for automatic Red Hat Linux operating system deployments, operating system lifecycle management and automatic configuration management purposes. Therefore I was also working on the implementation of an according CI/CD integration.

Focused on following technologies (subset):

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  • Red Hat Identity Management (IPA)
  • Red Hat Satellite 6
  • Ansible Core + Puppet
  • Red Hat Virtualization
  • Red Hat Openstack + Ceph
  • Jenkins / Git / Gitlab
  • Python / Bash scripting

Senior Linux Systems Engineer at Wincor Nixdorf Global IT Operations GmbH – 12.2008 – 02.2015 (permanent position)

In this position I was responsible for the whole Linux operating and engineering in a highly secured environment because our customers were all from the financial sector. Infrastructure automation with HPE Server Automation was a key component I have implemented for all customer environments. It was used for automatic Red Hat Linux and Windows deployments and to ensure according operating system lifecycle.

During the implementation of the tool I have programmed many interfaces to ensure automatic infrastructure service deployments. Furthermore I have engineered the whole core banking platform based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Symantec Veritas Storage Foundation HA Failover Cluster solution to ensure uninterrupted service availability for core banking components. This was the foundation for the migration of core banking components which were running formerly on IBM AIX.

During my time at Wincor Nixdorf I was promoted to the position as Technical Lead for the global Linux engineering and I supported the construction of a nearshore center in Prague and Madrid. Furthermore I was engaged in a migration project in New York City at one of our customers branch offices were I have migrated the whole datacenter from outdated environment to a completely new hardware and virtualization platform.

Focused on following technologies (subset):

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  • Red Hat Identity Management (IPA)
  • Foreman / Katello
  • VMWare
  • Veritas Cluster + Volumemanager
  • Python / Bash scripting
  • Monitoring (Nagios)
  • IBM AIX

Systems Administrator at ISA Internet Service Agentur GmbH – 05.2007 – 11.2008 (permanent position)

At ISA Internet Service Agentur I was working as a full stack System Administrator responsible for the whole in-house IT operations. During this time I have implemented a complete new CISCO network infrastructure based on CISCO 3750 core stack switches and CISCO 2960 switches which were mounted on each floor using 802.1x MAC based port filter with Microsoft RAS authentication.

Beside this I have planned and implemented a new storage backend on our campus based on a NetApp metro cluster. I was also responsible for the provided internet hosting platform, where we managed and developed our customers e-commerce platforms. Furthermore I have trained the IT trainees.