Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Certifications
References
Professional Courses/Qualifications
Timeline
Generic
Alistair McKeown

Alistair McKeown

Tunbridge Wells,Kent

Summary

A proactive and flexible technical consultant with a diverse background across various sectors, including Telecommunications, Cable ISP, OSS, Retail, and Financial Services.

Skilled in both cloud-native microservices and legacy system architectures. Involved in numerous Linux based integration, migration and remediation projects.

Worked in both triage production groups, solutions and development areas, within different business domains.

Applying principles of security, automation, code-first development, API reusability, identity management, and orchestration.

Proficient in CI/CD pipelines, AWS cloud practices, services, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) configurations.

Good interpersonal skills and proven strong client facing experience who enjoys working within a team resolving challenging issues and completing demanding projects. Worked in the UK, Australia and parts of Europe.

A keen interest in Automation, Security and Platform Engineering.

Overview

33
33
years of professional experience
3986
3986
years of post-secondary education

Work History

Principle Automation and Infrastructure Engineer

NatWest Group
London
04.2021 - 12.2024
  • HBO (Home Buying and Ownership domain) sits within Natwest Digital X Strategic view. Involved in several RHEL based HBO projects of migration and remediation.
  • Redhat RHEL 7 and 8 System Administration with VMs and AWS EC2 in zero-trust networks and harderned environments.
  • Building out a standardised AWS EKS platform to work with their GitLab source control for development groups, utilising Argo CD and Helm charts.
  • Automating BAU common processes to support their GMS (Group Mortgage System) with Ansible playbooks and Redhat AAP in production.
  • Scripting used includes, Bash, Python and Perl.
  • Modelling Sopra Steria solutions in development with Kubernetes Clusters and self styled Docker images, both on premise and on AWS Cloud, EKS, EC2, ELB with Terraform configurations.
  • Working with CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins, GitLab and Ansible playbooks. Using standardised GitOps with GitLab.
  • Using day to day tools of GitLab, Jira, Confluence, AWS CLI, ServiceNow, enTrust, Artifactory, Prometheus, Grafana and Splunk.

Middleware Lead (Contract)

Wipro (John Lewis Partnership)
London
10.2020 - 04.2021
  • Managing and Supporting the Middleware Infrastructure of the John Lewis Partnership and Waitrose
  • Working with Oracle, IBM, F5 and open source products as part of their partnership retail infrastructure.
  • Using Redhat Satellite v6 to adminstrate their Redhat 7 estate for patching updates and wider configuration changes, in conjunction with Ansible and Redhat Insights.
  • Introducing a Kerberos/PAM solution for their Linux environment.
  • Using Maven, Jenkins and JUnit within CI/CD pipelines.
  • Acting as a mentor to Wipro staff to facilitate a trained and supported domain.

Middleware Consultant (Contract)

Natwest Group (formally RBS)
08.2014 - 09.2020
  • As part of the HBO (Home Buying and Ownership) group, supported several projects including, RBS GMS (General Mortgage System) major upgrade, and Williams and Glynn onboarding.
  • Skills used, Oracle Fusion Middleware and open source design, security, federation, high availability, tuning, load balancing. Redhat Linux 7 and 8 Administration.
  • Used Ansible, with bash, Jython and Perl for automation.

Middleware Consultant (Contract)

MasterCard
02.2014 - 07.2014
  • MasterCard acquired Prepaid Card Program Management (CPM) from Travelex.
  • Supported the full migration and administration of APW Java based applications from Travelex's systems in Peterborough to Mastercard's two data centres at St Louis, US.
  • Skills used Java, WebLogic, network design, administration, F5 load balancer configuration.

Oracle Fusion Middleware Consultant (Contract)

WorldPay (working for Estafet)
London
01.2013 - 10.2013
  • Estafet was brought on board to help WorldPay visualise, build and configure the delivery of customer and contact management solutions based on SOA with complete governance using an Agile approach.
  • Oracle products worked with included, OBIEE, BPM/SOA, WebCenter Portal, Webtier, AIA, Documaker, BAM, OSB, EDQ, ORMB and ODI, all integrating with IAM and OEM
  • Also designed and delivered a Fusion CI (Continuous Integration) solution which included Jenkins, Selenium, Junit, SOAPUI, Ivy, Ant, Sonar and Jdeveloper
  • Using VMware vSphere v5 for custom VM for the Administration of Development, Test and Production environments.

Senior Middleware Specialist (Permanent)

LCH.Clearnet SA (London Clearing House)
London
02.2010 - 12.2012
  • Working with the middleware production team and solutions teams, participated in several projects.Client Services Portal, NASDAQ OMX, SwapClear Replacement
  • Group Risk Infrastructure (GRI), Nodal Migration.
  • Skills used, designing Liferay Portals, SSO, Federated security, Java, JMS, SWIFT, FIX Protocol and Redhat Linux.

Senior Middleware Specialist (Permanent)

WorkCover Queensland, Australia
04.2009 - 01.2010
  • WorkCover QLD is the main provider of worker's compensation insurance to Queensland employers for both statutory and common law claims.
  • WorkCover's main application CPS is Oracle Forms based with mainly java applications interacting with backend data ware housing
  • Skilled gained, SSO, WebLogic clustering and tuning, Jython, Java and Perl scripting.

Middleware Specialist (Permanent)

LCH Clearnet SA (London Clearing House)
02.2008 - 04.2009
  • LCH.Clearnet (now part of the LSEG) is the leading independent clearing house group (CCP), serving exchanges and OTC markets.
  • Projects involved in: EquityClear Plug and Play, SYN PSE (Group Derivative Program), LME enhancement.
  • Skills gained, Solaris, Linux Administration, WebLogic Tier 1 HA design, SWIFT SAG and SWIFT SAA, IBM MQ Series design and administration.

Technical Consultant (Permanent)

Jacobs Rimell (AMDOCS)
London
04.2001 - 02.2008
  • Jacobs Rimell a start up (now part of AMDOCS OSS) was predominately a middleware integrator for self provisioning OSS/BSS solutions to the cable industry. Their customers were in Europe, UPC, GET and Virgin Media, in the US, Comcast, Cbeyond.
  • Gained skills in Java, Solaris UNIX, WebLogic Clustering, Cisco routers (CNR) and VoIP software switch provisioning.

Technical Officer

BT Plc - BT Research Labs (Adastral Park)
Ipswich
09.1991 - 09.2000
  • After successfully completing BT's three-year apprenticeship scheme and gaining ONC, HNC and HND qualifications was placed into several different divisions within the research and development park
  • Worked on several projects such as BT’s joint IMS Interactive TV trial, IQ Ports Lotus Notes between NatWest Bank and BT, acquiring expertise in Solaris, networking, RAID solutions, database management, and customer engagement.

Education

BTEC ONC and HND - Software Engineering

University Campus Suffolk UCS
Ipswich, Suffolk
09.1993 - 07.1997

BTEC - First Diploma in Engineering

University Campus Suffolk UCS
Ipswich, Suffolk
07.1991

GCSEs - 9 GCSEs

Kesgrave High School
Ipswich
07.1990

Skills

  • Linux
  • Python, Bash scripting
  • Kubernetes, Argo CD, Jenkins
  • AWS
  • Terraform
  • SQL
  • Redhat AAP (Ansible)
  • Kafka
  • Java
  • TOGAF
  • SWIFT Gateway and SAA
  • FIX protocol

Certifications

  • Certified Kubernetes Administrator (ID – LF-0dxl2uriy5)
  • AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, Solutions Architect Associate (AWS01649008)
  • PCEP Certified Entry Level Python Programmer
  • CloudBees Certified Jenkins Engineer (29232800)
  • HashiCorp Terraform Certified Associate
  • TOGAF 9 Certified Practitioner (CID 36763)
  • Certified Oracle WebLogic Administrator
  • Cisco (ID CSCO11028266)

References

On Demand

Professional Courses/Qualifications

23/02/2021 Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)  / KodeKloud / UDEMY

7/02/2021 Ansible and Ansible Tower overviews / UDEMY

19/12/2020 Terraform Associate course and exam practice / UDEMY

5/09/2020 AWS Practitioner, AWS CSAA / Digital Cloud Training

23/11/2011 Redhat Enterprise Directory and Satellite (Redhat at Baker St, London)

13/04/2011 ISEB Intermediate Certificate in Enterprise and Solutions Architecture

25thMarch 2011 TOGAF 9 Course and TOGAF 9 Practitioner Certification

18thFeb 2011 ISEB Systems Modelling Techniques (UML)

22th September ISEB Systems Development Essentials

19thApril 2010 Oracle SOA Architectural Concepts and Design Principles (Oracle Reading)

11/08/2008 Oracle WLS 9/10 Monitoring and Performance Tuning (Oracle Reading)

5/08/2008  SWIFT SAG Messaging (SWIFT, London)

20/07/2008 LCH Clearnet – Knowing the financial markets.

17/07/2008 Certified WLS 9/10 Administrator (0B0-108) (Global Knowledge, London)

4/07/2008 Oracle AquaLogic Service Bus 3 System Administration (BEA, High Wycombe)

15/04/2008 Managing SWIFT Alliance Access (UNIX) (SWIFT London)

7/06/2006 CCNA Cisco Certified Network Associate (ID CSCO11028266)

12/03/2004 Sun Solaris 9 System Administration Part 1 (Exam)

26/01/2004 Sun network Security using Sun-Screen, SKIP, EFS and SPF.

28/09/1999 Netscape Directory Services, Enterprise and Messenger Course

20/07/1999 Solaris 7 System Administration Part 1 and 2

30/04/1999 MCSE + I Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer + Internet

4/02/1999 MCP Microsoft Certified Professional (ID 996181)

20/04/1997 Lotus Notes System Administration 1 + 2 V4 (Azlan Training)

Sept 1991 – Sept 2000 16 various, BT lead courses.

Timeline

Principle Automation and Infrastructure Engineer

NatWest Group
04.2021 - 12.2024

Middleware Lead (Contract)

Wipro (John Lewis Partnership)
10.2020 - 04.2021

Middleware Consultant (Contract)

Natwest Group (formally RBS)
08.2014 - 09.2020

Middleware Consultant (Contract)

MasterCard
02.2014 - 07.2014

Oracle Fusion Middleware Consultant (Contract)

WorldPay (working for Estafet)
01.2013 - 10.2013

Senior Middleware Specialist (Permanent)

LCH.Clearnet SA (London Clearing House)
02.2010 - 12.2012

Senior Middleware Specialist (Permanent)

WorkCover Queensland, Australia
04.2009 - 01.2010

Middleware Specialist (Permanent)

LCH Clearnet SA (London Clearing House)
02.2008 - 04.2009

Technical Consultant (Permanent)

Jacobs Rimell (AMDOCS)
04.2001 - 02.2008

BTEC ONC and HND - Software Engineering

University Campus Suffolk UCS
09.1993 - 07.1997

Technical Officer

BT Plc - BT Research Labs (Adastral Park)
09.1991 - 09.2000

BTEC - First Diploma in Engineering

University Campus Suffolk UCS

GCSEs - 9 GCSEs

Kesgrave High School

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