Stephanie Chester

Senior Systems Administrator

• Collaborated with a team of systems administrators to provide comprehensive support for cloud-based and on-premise servers and applications, ensuring smooth operation and optimal performance.
• Worked closely with the internal IT Security team to ensure cloud environments aligned with IT Security compliance requirements.
• Proactively remediated vulnerabilities in on-premise applications, physical servers, and cloud-based virtual environments.
• Applied agile methodologies like SCRUM to project management, facilitating streamlined workflows and timely delivery of results.
• Contributed to ongoing Linux server administration tasks such as disk space maintenance, security updates, and OS upgrades.
• Configured and managed virtualized environments built on VMware vSphere, providing a stable and secure platform for critical applications.
• Monitored system performance and capacity using Nagios Core and PRTG, proactively identifying and resolving potential issues before they impacted operations.
• Successfully assisted with DNS record creation, deletion, and modification and implemented DKIM and SPF, resulting in improved email deliverability and a 30% reduction in email-related issues.
• Created and kept up-to-date documentation of current technologies for end-users and support staff, facilitating knowledge sharing and improving efficiency.
• Facilitated skill development for help desk staff by providing regular training sessions on various technologies.

Systems Administrator

• Led a successful initiative to convert a 90% physical data center to a VMware ESXI infrastructure, which significantly impacted the organization by providing greater scalability and flexibility while reducing support for aging hardware.
• Played a crucial role in the migration of a single file server to a three-node DFS cluster, which improved data availability and redundancy.
• Implemented and provided ongoing management of Tenable Security Center, enhancing the organization's ability to detect and respond to potential security threats.
• Monitored and maintained backup jobs in Barracuda Backup and Veritas Backup Exec, ensuring data integrity and business continuity.
• Configured and installed a PRTG network monitor high availability cluster, migrating data from the previous PRTG single node cluster to improve system performance and availability.

Systems Administrator

• Managing backups of production servers and databases using EMC Networker and Zmanda
• Maintaining patches for workstations with System Center Configuration Manager.
• Administration of McAfee Enterprise Antivirus on servers and workstations.
• Managed device encryption policies using Lumension Endpoint Security.
• Implemented and managed ManageEngine ADSelfService password reset software tool
• Training service desk group on new implementations and upgrades
• Participation in 24/7 on-call rotation
• Responding to and resolving assigned tickets in the IT operations ticket queue
• Regular review of existing infrastructure for improvements
• Monitoring uptime of all production systems using Nagios
• Created and kept up to date, documentation of current technologies for end users and support staff

University of Massachusets Boston