Upgrading Desktop Systems - Essay Example

Project: Served as project manager and worked with a small group of system administrators to upgrade desktop systems and migrate servers. Duration: Duration (months) Started (dd/mm/yy) Finished (dd/mm/yy) Total Hours* 9 01/01/07 30/09/07 1440 Experience: For this project, I experienced working in all the five phases of project development that is, initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling, and closing. I selected a group of competent system administrators and provided them guidelines about how the project will be led from start to end and what deliverables we needed at the end of every phase. I made sure all of them had good knowledge about upgrading desktop systems; and, migrating, installing and managing servers (primarily Linux and Solaris; also Mac OS X, and Windows NT/2000/2003/XP). I laid out an effective technical plan as to how system upgrades and server migration would take place. I served as the liaison to internal and external auditors. I chaired the monthly patch review meeting. In the execution phase, I directed the system administrators make a journal that would record all changes being made to the desktop systems so that we could recover in case of a mistake. I held meetings on daily basis to keep a track of every step. My company wanted to move to a server which had different PHP deployment method. I created, on the destination server, duplicates of each extra SSH/SFTP user, database and application that were on the original server, copied all files to the destination server, and created DNS overrides for the testing part. I told my teammates to make entries in the website to access the content of destination server. I told them how to upgrade the DNS overrides to point to the migrated server. Lastly, we waited for these changes to propagate, and cleared the original server. Project: Designed and maintained the Intelligence Community (IC) Post Doctoral Program website, https://www.icpostdoc.org. Duration: Duration (months) Started (dd/mm/yy) Finished (dd/mm/yy) Total Hours* 15 01/03/05 30/05/06 2400 Experience: I was responsible for the first four phases of project management in this project. I helped my teammates with the concept development for the website. I defined the purpose, stakeholders, the basic outline of the organization’s biases, limitations and initial requirements, and the deliverables. I analyzed the executive requirements, business benefits and goals, implementation requirements, functional and financial requirements, infrastructure requirements, and technical analysis and design which included an analysis of the hardware and software tools needed. I, along with other members, wrote down the briefs, set the milestones, and assigned tasks. After briefing the client visually, I laid down basic components of the website and plotted out how they were going to work along. Risk evaluation was one important step in which I balanced the project’s time and cost. I created the staging environment and began the production guide to which I added all the project specifications. I planned all the graphics and animations to be added and handed over the plan to the programmer to create the code. I coded HTML files and reviewed the internal production and an image of the final product that was going to be delivered. After recording the specifications, I broke down the project into tasks so that they could map over the timeline. I also worked on workflow, version control, Gantt charts and content supervision. Throughout the project, I held meetings with team members and the client, and kept a constant track of project’s cost, schedule and scope. Project: Managed projects such as server and OS upgrades, and Mac server acquisition, installation, testing, and deployment. Duration: Duration (months) Started (dd/mm/yy) Finished (dd/mm/yy) Total Hours* 5 01/06/04 31/10/04 800 Experience: For this project, I led and directed all the five phases of project management. For server upgrade from one edition to another, I made sure, before purchasing the required edition of server, that the edition was appropriate for the business needs of the company. For this, I conducted meetings with the client and my team members and discussed with them whether the upgraded server will be able to meet all the requirements or not. I also made sure that the upgrade path was supported, and considered the licensing requirements for the upgrading. For OS upgrades, I conducted sessions with the team members and discussed with them all the pros and cons of the operating system which we wanted to upgrade to. I made sure there were no hardware and software clashes with the upgraded operating system. I also have experience in leading my team in MAC server acquisition and its successful installation after testing. I directed this project right from its initiation through monitoring and controlling, and then closing the project. One thing I always emphasize upon is the communication plan that is, collaborating with the client on a regular basis to know any further requirements and to update him on the progress of the project. For the closing phase, I organized a formal closing ceremony to give the project development an emotional conclusion. Project: Project Monitoring and Controlling (PMC) at L3-Communications. Duration: Duration (months) Started (dd/mm/yy) Finished (dd/mm/yy) Total Hours* 12 01/03/03 30/02/04 1920 Experience: For this project, I experienced working with the monitoring and controlling phase of project management. I monitored the status of the project using recognized procedures, analyzed risk issues, and, in case of any discrepancy that I caught after reviewing and interpreting the data, performed re-planning actions. I kept a track of that no project action deviates from the original project plan. I controlled the development of quality metrics and testing benchmarks for computer systems and equipment. I kept track of the project’s planning parameters and assessed the involvement of the stakeholders. The planning parameters which I most importantly monitored included the project’s task and activity attributes, effort, cost, budget, schedule, resources provided and used, and deliverables. I verified the implementation of all processes and also kept a check on the team members’ commitment to the project. For this, I evaluated the personnel’s knowledge and skill and performed capacity planning to make sure that project deadlines were being met. I took necessary corrective actions, managed them to closure, and resolved coordination issues. I tracked the process of risk resolution and communicated them to the stakeholders. I monitored data management and conducted regular progress and milestone reviews. I also made recommendations to the stakeholders about vendor operations, service level agreements, and product offerings. I also identified the best testing strategy for the project’s outcome. In short, in this project, I made records of project performance and any significant deviations from the basic plan. Read More