Steven Armstrong's Email Addresses & Phone Numbers

A DevOps solution architect specialist and honours graduate in Computer and Electronic Systems, with a proven track record of streamlining companies development architecture and processes so they can deliver software at pace. Specialising in agile, continuous integration, infrastructure as code, continuous delivery and deployment, who to date has worked for 9 years for leading consulting, financial services,...

A DevOps solution architect specialist and honours graduate in Computer and Electronic Systems, with a proven track record of streamlining companies development architecture and processes so they can deliver software at pace. Specialising in agile, continuous integration, infrastructure as code, continuous delivery and deployment, who to date has worked for 9 years for leading consulting, financial services, benefits and gambling companies in the IT sector.Principal DevOps Infrastructure Automation Engineer @ Working as the technical lead for Betfairs new i2 project, which aims to create a new greenfield private cloud platform for Betfair using Openstack and Software Defined Networking in order to support continuous delivery of all Betfair applications. From November 2014 to Present (1 year 2 months) London, United KingdomDevOps Manager @ Took over the running of DevOps team, trusted after just 8 months in the job by senior management to lead the team, gaining a place on the Technology Management Team. Member of the cloud migration team that architected the new Thomson’s private and public hybrid cloud so it could be used for continuous delivery, liaising with the Thomson’s infrastructure team and selected cloud provider team, to successfully support continuous deployment and zero downtime deployments. Milestones Included: -Road tested vendors such as AWS, Rackspace, Datapipe, Azure, Cloudstack and VMware to pick the cloud vendor that could best support a Thomson’s deployment pipeline; -Created Citrix NetScaler automated load balancing process to support zero downtime deployments; -Created N-Tier scaling capability for all live environments to support peak use of the Darwin application; -Overseen the creation of performance test plan to benchmark the virtual machine specifications for the private and public cloud; -Implemented Chef to install Darwin pre-requisites on VM templates as a nightly build and generate golden templates, this allowed Thomson’s to generate infrastructure as code, so new VM templates were created each night, fully patched and could then be promoted down the deployment pipeline along with the code; -Architected and implemented a new continuous delivery deployment process to live so all VM's along with code were replaced in an immutable fashion at the click of a button, this meant the Darwin application could be deployed in under an hour in a zero downtime fashion as opposed to using a large deployment team that would need to contact a vendor for VM's then manually build the VM's and install applications; -Overseen the set-up of Nagios and New Relic monitoring in the new cloud, so new VM’s were auto-detected when they were set-up and destroyed; -Successfully implemented an end to end continuous delivery model at Thomsons Online Benefits in it's hybrid cloud. From January 2014 to November 2014 (11 months) London, United KingdomDevOps Engineer @ Implementation lead for a brand new DevOps team, implementing all new DevOps processes, working with the Development, QA and Operations teams to build out continuous delivery and automation capability. Milestones Included: -Created green field automated deployment pipelines from manual run-books using a combination of Vagrant, Chef, C#, IIS 7 API, MSBuild and Web Deploy for Thomson’s main applications; -Created automated release notes that were shipped with every release build, showing all the user stories that contributed to each release; -Created build and deployment framework using Jenkins, Artifactory and TFS for full traceability of release builds; -Replaced manual deployment process in QA environments with 5 minutes deployment process; -Created completely immutable infrastructure refresh process in the new on-premise cloud; -Created continuous integration database build process; -Created SonarQube implementation for tracking test coverage; -Created golden VM templates that were used in all environments from Quality Assurance through to Live in the new Thomson’s cloud; -Created continuous deployment process, based on pipeline promotion process results in Jenkins, so builds were promoted to pre-production in a continuous deployment model based on the test gates they had passed; -Overseen the automation of the release cut process that meant after a 2 week sprint release numbers were incremented and code was merged automatically; -Implemented a test runner framework in Jenkins so Selenium VM browser boxes were spun up and could run go-live checks, performance testing or regression packs as part of the deployment pipeline promotion. -Owned Jira project plan and worked with all technology departments to map out the ideal development process and derive user stories, task, defect and epic workflows for the new Jira and confluence change management implementation; -Administered TFS 2012/ 2013, Team Build, Jenkins, Jira, Chef, Rally, Confluence, Nuget and Artifactory From May 2013 to January 2014 (9 months) London, United KingdomSenior Configuration Engineer @ Technical innovation lead for the configuration management team. In charge of designing and automating the build and deployment of all Cofunds applications and database deployments to test environments. Tasked with designing build and deployment process of brand new applications to Microsoft Azure public cloud using continuous integration and continuous delivery principles. Milestones included: -Worked with Configuration Manager to create TFS streaming strategy for waterfall and agile releases -Created build and deployment framework using the Jenkins tool; -Created deployment pipeline in this framework using a combination of C#, IIS 7 API, MSBuild and Web Deploy; -Set up Azure cloud deployment process for new Cofunds applications using MSBuild, Web Deploy, CSPack and PowerShell Azure cmdlets; -Implemented multi-server deployments by utilizing paexec to distribute applications to clustered environments; -Implemented Automated Acceptance Tests in Jenkins so tests could run nightly on daily code builds and any failures were raised as Defects; -Implemented Nunit for .NET unit and integration testing and MSTest for database unit tests and OpenCover for Code coverage; -Created a Continuous integration build process for Database changes for Cofunds 22 databases; -Overseen the creation of database replication process that would replicate schema and data changes between databases; -Drove build times down to 5 minutes per application and 2 minutes for a deployment for all 24 web applications and services that made up the Cofunds website. Previously one application took 2 hours to build and deploy; -Implemented a Team Foundation Server Defect, Task and Requirement, Build and Deployment request process; -Administered TFS 2010/ 2012, Team Build, Jenkins, Cruise Control .NET and Microsoft Test Manager; From October 2011 to May 2013 (1 year 8 months) London, United KingdomConfiguration Management Lead - EDF Energy (Voyager Project) @ Configuration Management Lead in charge of architecting the configuration management process and selecting the tooling in the design and Implementation phases of the project. Charged with leading a team in the UK, India and Manila to automate the build and deployment pipelines for all Oracle B2B applications used by EDF which spanned multiple technology stacks. Milestones Included: -Wrote Configuration Management plan to govern the build and deployment of the Oracle B2B utilities suite consisting of Oracle Customer Care and Billing, Meter Data Management, Oracle Fusion, Oracle Webportal, StreamServe and Quotations Manager which were hosted on Weblogic and IIS; -Lead CM team to implement deployment pipelines for all EDF B2B applications using a combination of Maven, Perl, Python, MSBuild, Jython, Ant, Jenkins and ADT Moose for all the Oracle B2B suite; -Created customized Change Management implementation to manage Risks, Issues, Defects and Change Requests and Deliverables on the project; -Set-up Eclipse, Microsoft Visual studio and JDeveloper developer desktops on distributable VM images; -Wrote the CM approach for each Oracle B2B application and how each configurable item should be built, tokenized for deployment and then deployed; -Set up ClearCase streaming strategy that allowed parallel release management; -Project won awards for the best use of Accenture shared service and best project industrialization for the Configuration Management implementation. This implementation meant the project could carry out over 200 automated builds and on average over 100 automated deployments a week to central development, linktest, component test and integration test as well as pre-production and production environments; From March 2011 to October 2011 (8 months) Exeter, United KingdomConfiguration Management Lead - AESS (Accenture Embedded Software Solutions) - Android and iphone @ Configuration Management Lead, primarily in charge of the UK and Latin America implementation teams. Tasked with supporting the Rational Team Concert Application Life Cycle Management (ALM) roll out on the AESS project which was used to standardise the tooling. In charge of integrating all existing development tooling, so it followed best practice processes such as continuous integration and deployment methodologies.Tasked with implementing Rational Insight Cognos suite to standardise weekly and monthly reporting. Milestones Included: -Set up Requirements Management process for Rational Requirements Composer and Requisite Pro; -Set up Agile configuration management process using Rational Team Concert, Microsoft Team Foundation server, Subversion, GIT, Mercurial, JIRA for mobile phones division to cater for the varied development projects build and deployment pipelines on Accenture cloud estate. -Created customized Rational Team Concert agile and waterfall process templates that allow earned value metrics reports to be generated using Rational Insight Cognos reporting tool; -Created disaster recovery documentation for cloud computing server estate for AESS project; -Supported Accenture’s first Rational Team Concert implementation of 500 developers; -Created Continuous integration process using Rational Team Concerts maven release plug-in which has been adopted by all AESS projects; -Created Accenture’s first Rational Team Concert customized incident management system. Ticketing system is used by over 800 global users; -Created customized Defect management process using Rational Team Concert. -Implemented Requisite Pro integration with Rational Team Concert; From January 2010 to May 2011 (1 year 5 months) London, United KingdomLead Configuration Engineer - SABMiller (Horizon Project) @ Lead Configuration Engineer, in charge of designing the change management process and supporting the data migration from the legacy system using api automation. In charge of integrating all build, deployment and testing tooling with the new change management system so release notes of orders could be traced through an integrated tool stack. Milestones included: -Key team member that architected a global Configuration Management SAP change management solution for Europe, Latin America and Africa for this Accenture diamond client -Integrated a system using ARIS which was used to author SAP Business Objects, ClearQuest as the Change Management system, SAP solution Manager for build and deployment and HP Quality Center was used for automated testing. -System went live in July and allowed SABMiller to process all beer orders at the South African 2010 World Cup; -Created customized training material for client; -Created a support ticketing system using ClearQuest to support requests from SABMiller’s 800 global users, this includes a weekly burn down report on hours spent on support work which is used to bill the client each month; -Trained resources to take on daily support of the solution; From January 2010 to May 2011 (1 year 5 months) London, United KingdomConfiguration Management Lead - Board Gais (BG Project) @ Configuration Management Lead in charge of leading a small UK implementation team to automate the build and deployment process for Maximo which was deployed on Websphere Application Server. Milestones included: -Led a Configuration Management team to roll out ADT Moose Websphere plug-in which automated Websphere deployment pipeline for the Maximo application; -Enabled the client to run on average 50 deployments a week to component and integration test, pre-production and production environments using a re-usable asset I created; -Created Client specific Build and Deployment user guides and training material; -Agreed weekly support charge with client; -Trained offshore resources to take on daily support of the solution; From February 2010 to December 2010 (11 months) London, United KingdomConfiguration Management Engineer - Norwegian Pensions (NPS Project) @ Member of a Dev Arch team tasked with delivering the Norwegian Pensions government website to market. A small UK based configuration management team worked alongside the Norway based environment team. The UK team, which I was a member,was in charge of the green field build and deployment front-end automation, while the the Norwegian team was in charge of server builds and back-end components. Milestones included: -Set up deployment pipeline for Norwegian Pensions government website while working in Norway and remotely in London. The website was hosted on Websphere Application Server and the pipeline was automated using a combination of Apache ANT, Maven, Jython and Perl; -The build and deployment process automation meant that the project went from being able to carry out 3 code builds a week and 1 deployment manually to on average 200 code builds a week and 500 deployments. Deployments were distributed to component, system, pre-production and production environments. -Created Websphere plug-in in Java for ADT Moose (Accenture build/deployment tool). Websphere Application Server web applications on any Accenture engagement can now be build and deployed globally using this re-usable asset; -Created customized ClearQuest implementation to manage Risks, Issues, Defects and Change Requests on the project; -Set up ClearCase streaming strategy that allowed parallel release management; -Developed a reporting tool for HP Quality Centre, creating reporting macros in Microsoft Excel using its Visual Basic driven API meaning 120 hours a year of manual work was automated; -Helped develop a sync tool to sync Defects from HP Quality Centre to ClearQuest and when a modification occurred to a Defect in ClearQuest it was synced back to HP Quality Centre meaning continuity of information in the two tools; -Administered ClearCase, ClearQuest, ADT Moose (Accenture build and deployment tool), HP Quality Centre, Subversion, Maven, CruiseControl and Nagios for Accenture diamond client; From May 2007 to October 2010 (3 years 6 months) Oslo Area, NorwayConfiguration Management Engineer - Fortis Bank (Nitro Project) @ Member of a UK based Dev Arch team tasked with automating all applications build and deployment processes and controlling all release and change management. Milestones included: -Administered ClearCase, ClearQuest, ADT Moose (Accenture build and deployment tool). -Carried out ClearQuest customizations to implement defect and change request management process for the client; -Created a deployment pipeline using Perl which interfaced with Websphere Application and Process Server which hosted the company website; -Translated all ADT Moose (Accenture build and deployment tool) deployment pipeline scripts so they worked with IBM Build Forge due to a client requirement to use only the IBM suite; -Trusted by senior management to go over to Belgium to train Belgian Dev Arch Team on the translated build and deployment process. This allowed Accenture to offshore the Fortis Project to reduce the running costs for the client; From August 2007 to January 2008 (6 months) Computer and Electronic Systems (BEng), Electrical and Electronics Engineering @ University of Strathclyde From 2002 to 2006 Steven Armstrong is skilled in: DevOps, Continuous Delivery, Agile Methodologies, Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment, Automation, Configuration Management, Software Development, Technical Architecture, Java, SQL, Jenkins, Maven, WebSphere Application Server, Linux