James Sillett

Multi -disciplined IT Professional

Skills spanning strategic development, technical expertise, project management, and system integration, combined with a long and established career in the professional services accountancy sector. Leadership skills with the ability to combine IT expertise with business requirements to solve complex IT problems that align with a business’s overall objectives. Active and vocal participant in the IT community in both professional associations complimented by authoring a number of technical YouTube videos, demonstrating practical use in combining relevant IT technologies and skills to resolve modern -day challenges. Founder and developer of the in2platform, a SAS platform that facilitates rapid development of in-house web-based solutions with minimal programming expertise, requiring simple drag-and-drop.

Work Experience

Blick Rothenberg Ltd

Technical Director - IT Project Team

2019 - Present

Though my performance in the previous role at Blick Rothenberg and due to several acquisitions and mergers, to handle the expanded employee strength of over 680 employees, it was impractical for me to be able to deliver both BAU and technical projects effectively on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, I was placed at the head of a team of technical personnel to architect, project plan and implement the ongoing requirements of a much larger and complex organisation.

Achievements include office 365 tenant to tenant migrations, complex email routing to a combination of on-premise, and 365 email estates. Collapsing existing and multiple active directory/forests through ADMT into a single active directory. Architecting, in partnership with Inawisdom, to move all infrastructure into AWS. As digital transformation adopted a cloud-first strategy (SaaS) focused design on SSO (ADFS), 2MFA using Microsoft Azure, and conditional access to provide a security layer and adopt agile working. With data siloed in different SaaS applications, I have overseen the architecture on automation and synchronisation with multiple SaaS platforms through the development of automation through Boomi middleware, PowerShell scripts, rest API and C#.

With employees spread over different geographies, we developed the expansion of a Citrix environment (Xenapp, Xen Desktop), Citrix profile management, Citrix machine creation services (MCS), and implementation of load balancing through Netscaler.

Application consolidation, consolidating of applications, and data from acquired businesses into the central Blick Rothenberg datacentre.

As part of the larger Cogital Group (4000 employees), I am with the design and security authority group. This group is responsible for reviewing, providing technical inputs, and overseeing all the projects that involve IT in the Cogital group in the UK.

Blick Rothenberg Ltd

IT Manager > Senior IT Manager

2010 - 2019t

From my previous role at Blick Rothenberg my focus shifted to delivering key projects (both infrastructural and client-facing), through formal project planning and the use of delivery methodology. I assisted the IT director in aligning the IT strategy with the firm’s core objectives, using a breadth of technical skills and considerable experience in the sector to provide technical support to project stakeholders through a digital transformation project. The work underpinned the firm’s core infrastructure as the company expanded considerably (to 300 employees).

Achievements included delivering and implementing IT stream for the Salesforce. This, included the synchronisation with Practice Management through Boomi (middleware). Delivering IT stream for a new intranet including synchronisation between it and HR systems, delivering hybrid office 365, architecting and implementation of disaster recovery through Zerto replication to both Microsoft Azure/AWS. Replacement of firewalls with Palo Alto’s and implementing global protect VPN.

Duties included staff appraisals, shift management, staff learning and development, and mentoring. Additional responsibilities included assisting the IT director in budgeting CapX vs op-ex, vendor relationships, and IT roadmap planning and sitting on the business continuity team.

Blick Rothenberg Ltd

Technincal Lead

2007 - 2010

Part of the Cogital Group, a forward-thinking technology-focused professional service group.

The initial role requirements were to supervise day-to-day IT operations of the service desk and infrastructure, reporting service level agreements (SLA), and KPIs. Efficiencies gained through standardisation with the implementation of system centre configuration manager (SCCM), responsibility for backups, server patching, network infrastructure, firewall security, and two-factor authentication remote access.

Achievements include transferring server state to a full VM environment with VMware, implementing Netapp storage area networks SAN, introducing monitoring via System Centre Operations Manager (SCOM). Implemented a light-touch ITIL methodology. Developed continuing efficiencies through automation and self-service through orchestrator.

Morris Crocker

IT Manager

2000 - 2007

A successful and independent firm of accountants comprised of 60 users. Achievements include bringing all IT back in-house, introducing efficiencies via standardisation of PC builds, centralising group policy, and introducing centralised software deployment, and designing and implementing email exchange server. Identified the need for a document management system and designed, developed, and implemented a DMS in dot.net and SQL. The project was managed and executed to migrate from Novell to Windows in the early 2000s.

My Five steps to running a productive IT department

(1) People

Listen to Staff Feedback
Mentoring
Invest in training
Lead with building Respect
Promote Self Learning

(2) Service Desk / Users

Set KPI
Set SLA’s
Implement ITIL Standard
Understand the Business Requirements from IT
Change Control

(3) Infrastructure

Review current infrastructure
Review of PaaS vs On Premise
AWS / Azure / Office 356
Backup / DR / RPO / RTO
Documentation / Visio
WAN / LAN / Citrix / RDS

(4) Security Improvement Program

Review Current Security
Engage with Business to Capture Requirement
Implement Security Improvement program
Implement Risk Register

(5) Digital Transformation

Review Business Processes
Lead to Order / CRM
Order to Cash
Automation
RPA

Skill Set

Infrastructure

Advance Group Policy Management
Standard Networking more
- DHCP
- DNS
- Routing
- Subnets
- ARP
- VLAN
- RADIUS
Active Directory
Multi Forest Trust Relationship
Firewall more
- McAfee Enterprise
- Sidewinder
- SonicWALL
- Smoothwall
- Palo Alto
Citrix more
- Xen App
- Xen Desktop
- Sharefile(Integrations)
- NetScaler
VMware more
- Vcentre
- ESXI 5.5 - 6.5
- Iscsi
  - Performance Monitoring
Storage Area Network (Isccsi) more
- Netapp
- Dell MD3200
- DELL confluence
OS more
- Windows Server 2000 - Windows Server 2016
- Windows XP,7,10
System Centre Suite more
- System Centre Operations Manager
- System Centre Service Manager
- System Centre Virtual Machine Manager
- System Centre Configuration manager
Meraki Wi-Fi
SQL Server more
- Write SQL
- Installing, Monitoring And Securing
Exchange 2010, 2016, 365

Security

Mimecast email more
- Anti-Spoofing
- Sandbox Attachment checking
- URL Protection
- Journaling
Mcafee EPO more
- Antivirus
- Hard disk Encryption
- USB Encryption
Firewall(see Infrastructure)
SAML(ADFS)
Azure MFA + Conditional Access
SafeNet
VPN more
- Global Protect
- NetScaler
- Dell SonicWALL
Rapid 7
Cybsafe Training
Web Content Filtering
- Mcafee Gateway
Security Audit Of Acquisitions

Cloud

AWS Migration more
- AWS Storage Gateway
- FXSL
- RDS
- S3
- EC2
- IAM
- VPC
Azure more
- Blob Storage
- VMware
- Virtual Networks
Exchange Online more
- Tent To Tent migrations
- Multi Hybrid setup
- Intune MAM
Azure Active Directory more
- Security
- Condition access
- Multi Forest AD Connect
- Domain Federation (ADFS)
- Contact Resolution
- Device Hybrid
Teams
SharePoint
Planner
Salesforce more
- API
- APEX(Basic)
- oValidation

Management

Assisting IT Director With budget
Appraisals
Project Management
System Architecting
Staff Management more
- Scheduling work
- Archiving solution
- Project review

Mentoring Of Team
Cost analysis (On-premise vs AWS)
Capacity planning (Storage)
Member Cogital Design And Security Authority Group
Member Of the Business continuity team
IT Policies design

Scripting / Automation

PowerShell more
- REST
- SQL
- Object
- Office 365
System Centre Configuration Manager (SCCM)
Boomi Middleware platform
C# Coding
VB Script
Excel Macro
JavaScript(JQuery)(Basic)
Basic HTML (Basic)
Microsoft Flow
Microsoft Power app (Basic)
RESTful API
Post Man
Visual Studio

Major Achievements

Migration to AWS

Amazon Cloud Migration

2021

Over the past 12 months, I have undertaken a migration from an premise VMware infrastructure into the AWS VPC infrastructure. This has included using cloud formation techniques to create the appropriate VPCs, using multiple accounts, transit hubs and transit gateways to allow separation of accounts. Additional configuration of security groups and complex routing to allow for load balancing of Palo alto firewalls.

In addition AWS services such as Database RSD and Filesharing FSX have been learnt and implemented to make the most of AWS’s software as a service.

COVID 19

2020

The strategic response to the immediate challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic was a massive effort by the entire IT department and leadership team.

Having the capacity to allow a moderate number of people to work remotely, the technical task of scaling up remote access capabilities for all staff fell to my team.

I was able to reconfigure the NetScaler to allow everybody to connect their PCs securely and directly through a web browser. We were then able to scale our Citrix environment into AWS as a standby in case the PCs became unavailable. We scaled out the Azure MFA and linked it directly to the NetScaler to maintain full two-factor security. The result was evident within two days—the entire company was able to work from home.

We were able to test our DR failover capabilities into Azure and allow carefully selected 365 applications, such as Microsoft Teams, to be installed on mobile devices while controlling access through conditional access and MFA

Remote Access

Implementing Netscaler

2019

With the number acquisition, we opted for a standardised way to transition to a remote access system with some staff using RDS and others using Citrix. By standardising access through the NetScaler, I was able to create a central point of access and then route to the relevant servers based on the office over the VPN.

This process also allowed two-factor authentication to be standardised on Azure MFA.

Key Skills

Load Balancing
AAA Security Virtual Server
SAML
ICA Proxy
RDP Proxy
Domain inter-fraction
Storefront Integration

Networking Trusts And Forests

Acquisition and Mergers Active Directory Migrations

2019

Having only worked for organisations that have a single office, after the first acquisition, there was a need for me to upskill. We were required to handle multi-forest environments, multi-365 tenants, site-to-site VPNs and Active Directory Migrations.

My responsibility was to deal with the architecture of WANs, routing and latency. Not only were their technical challenges but also challenges in dealing with new staff members who were apprehensive about the changes we were going to implement. The immediate task was to bring levels of security, such as multifactor authentication remote access, up to the minimum standards.

The final stage was consolidating the active directories. On the first acquisition, ADMT was used to transfer the users maintaining SID history. Then, ADMT was used to update the local computers’ registry and profile settings with the new SID.

I duplicated all the existing group policies in the destination directory.

Cloud Office 356

Office 356 Tenant to Tenant Migrations

2019

The first tenant to tenant migration for Office 365 was achieved using a third-party product called BIT-Titan. This process required the upskilling of 365 PowerShell to migrate users/delegates and security from the existing tenant into the Blick Rothenberg 365 tenant. Emails needed to be synced, and users provisioned by updating Active Directory Connect as well as ADFS Federations. I used PowerShell to maintain GAL sync between Office 365 and Contacts on the on-premise hybrid. All of this work was completed within a weekend.

Key Skills

Hybride
Federation Domain
AD Connect
Vanity domain transfer
PowerShell, calendar permission
Federated calendar sharing
Autodiscover
Synced GAL
Bit-Titan

SaaS Automation

Salesforce - Middleware

2019

I was the IT lead on the delivery of the Salesforce implementation project.

This project included architecting custom objects and setting up ADFS single sign-on. I developed this using Boomi middleware integration with a third-party database. I created Active Directory sync to automatically add users into the system.

In terms of middleware, I create a workflow that allowed Salesforce to be the master record and replicated customer data to Practice Management software.

Key Skills

Salesforce API
Validation syntax
Custom Objects
User management
Bulk data import
Salesforce workflow/Process
License Management

Automation

System Centre Service Manager

Identified processes that could be improved from automation, such as mailbox permissions, on -boarding new starters and leavers, or any other service request that can be handled through automation. Used service manager to capture the information from the end-user, passed this through to orchestrator and then, using a combination of power shell or standard integration packs, wrote custom packs when required.

Network Design

Office Move

Worked closely with the key stakeholders and the IT director in orchestrating the move of the IT infrastructure to new offices over the course of just one weekend:

Designed and then relocated the data centre
Oversaw the installation of the new VoIP phone system
Replaced and installed new firewalls
Designed and implemented a brand-new local 10 Gb fibre network
Installed a new wireless system

Process Efficiencies

Advance Excel Macros

Implementation of complex macros written in pure VBA to allow for the manipulation of data that is sent in from clients into a format that can be processed by our systems. Efficiencies from these macros can often be measured in man hours per month.

My Youtube Channel

How to setup a Netapp SAN (Part 1 Introduction to SAN's)

How to setup a Netapp SAN (Part 2 Understanding IOPS)

How to setup a Netapp SAN (Part 4 Planning)

How to setup a Netapp SAN (Part 6 Setting up Managment interface)

How to setup a Netapp SAN (Part 7 High Avalibility)

How to setup a Netapp SAN (Part 8 Adding Disks)

How to setup a Netapp SAN (Part 9 Setting up Aggregate)

How to setup a Netapp SAN (Part 10 Setting up ISCSI interface)

How to setup a Netapp SAN (Part 11 Connecting to ESXI)

How to setup a Netapp SAN (Part 12 ESXI Multipath I/O)

How to setup a Netapp SAN (Part 13 Jumbo Frames)

How to setup a Netapp SAN (Part 14 VLANS)

How to setup a Netapp SAN (Part 14 Netapp Vcentre Addin)

How to setup a Netapp SAN (Part 15 Monitoring Performance)

How to setup a Netapp SAN (Part 15 Thin Provisioning)

Playlist

Netapp System Service Manager Mcafee Web Gateway

Testimonials

James was an extremely capable manager with a broad range of technical understanding, and a forward thinking approach to getting the job done. I would have no hesitation in working with James again he always provided a clearly defined requirement, and manages to keep things moving even in very pressured and busy environments.

Grant Carter-Moore

Technical Infrastructure Engineer

James is an outstanding IT professional. I always knew that, if there was an issue that he was dealing with, then it would be resolved. No matter how trying the circumstances, he never complained and always got the job done. James is forward thinking and possess a great deal of ingenuity. He has a positive "can-do" attitude to any problem he faces.

Gavin Whitter

Director at Gibson Whitter

Personal

In my spare time I am a keen cinematography and photography enthusiast. I have been lucky enough to photograph wild animals in Africa, and the Northern Lights in Iceland and; I combine this with my other passion – motor -racing – by filming with Aston Martin at Lemans. My other passion is sailing – many years ago I sailed in the tall ships race, and recently I had the opportunity to sail on the original tall ship. My ambition is to crew in an international event such as the BT global challenge.

If you would Like any further information about any Of the projects past Or present Or have any ideas On New YouTube videos an drop Me a line