Gufran Ali

• Mainframe – Performance and Capacity Management.
• Client: AXA - AXA Japan Holding Co. Ltd is an insurance company based in Tokyo, Japan, providing life insurance products to customers.
• Client: Royal Bank of Canada - RBC is a Canadian multinational financial services company.
• Client: CSX - CSX is a leading supplier of rail-based freight transportation in North America.
• Technology/Tools: JCL, WLM, RMF, SMF, Monitor I, II, III, Post-Processor, TSO, SDSF, SCRT, Service Now, CPC, Jira, Capping, OmegaMon.
• Team Size: 06.

Responsibilities:

● Analyzed SMF and RMF records (Monitor I, II, III & Post Processor) for CPU, memory, I/O, and workload trends.
● Developed enterprise performance reports using MXG and SAS statistical programming.
● SCRT Billing
● Built and maintained Splunk dashboards for real-time system health visibility.
● Monitored daily system performance and identified anomalies in:
o CPU utilization
o Paging rates
o DASD I/O
o WLM service classes
o Coupling Facility structures
o SCRT Billing
● Tuned WLM policies to improve workload distribution and response times.
● Managed LPAR weights and capping (PR/SM) to optimize CPU allocation.
● Performed capacity forecasting and trend analysis for infrastructure planning.
● Delivered performance improvement recommendations to clients.
● Led performance bridge calls during critical system health incidents.
● Participated in 24x7x365 on-call rotation for performance restoration.
● Supported z/OS upgrades and validated performance baselines.
● Used AI-driven analysis tools for faster root cause identification and report automation.
● Designed and documented technical performance solutions for Operations teams.

• Mainframe - Performance and Capacity Management.
• Client: Northern Trust - Project Description: Northern Trust Corporation is a financial services company headquartered in Chicago that caters to corporations, institutional investors, and ultra-high-net-worth individuals. Northern Trust is one of the largest banking institutions in the United States, and one of the oldest banks in continuous operation.
• Technology/Tools: JCL, WLM, RMF, SMF, Monitor I, II, III, Post-Processor, TSO, SDSF, Service Now, CPC, Data Analysis, Jira, Capping, and OmegaMon.
• Team size: 02.
• Responsibilities
• Documented system configurations and changes meticulously, maintaining a reliable reference for troubleshooting.
• Monitored system performance using advanced tools, proactively identifying and resolving issues, and implementing WLM changes.
• Monitor the system performance.
• SMF, RMF, CPC, Monitor II, Monitor III, and Post-Processor.
• Monthly report, weekly reports.
• Ad hoc request - Create or provide the reports per request.
• Participated in Z/OS upgrades.
• System Health Check.
• Abend Fix.
• Drive the call during the issues.
• Preparing the reports and client presentation.

• Technical Services Specialist - Lead.
• Client: Goldman Sachs (U.S): The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a leading global financial services firm providing investment banking, securities, and investment management services to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments, and high-net-worth individuals.
• Technology/Tools: JCL, OPC/TWS, RMF, SMF, SDSF, TSO, Assyst, Lotus Notes, Net View, and Maximo.
• Team size: 08.
• Responsibilities:
• Monitor the system performance.
• Participated in Z/OS upgrades.
• System Health Check.
• SMF, RMF, CPC.
• Scheduling jobs and AD into the current plan.
• Updating and deleting existing jobs.
• Add or remove the dependencies to the batch jobs that are in the Current Plan (CP).
• Amending the Production JCLs on request and rerunning the jobs that encountered errors or abends.
• Changing workstation (WS).
• Setting time dependency for the jobs in OPC and TWS.
• Re-run, delete, and force OK jobs.
• Abend Fix - B37.

• HP Availability Centre.
• Client: Aviva (U.K): It is the biggest life insurer in the UK and has a strong position in the U.K. It is part of the Aviva group, which was created by a merger of Norwich Union and CGU plc in 2000. Aviva continues to operate in the UK under the Norwich Union name.
• Technology/Tools: JCL, OPC/TWS, TSO, Assyst, and NetView.
• Team size: 12.
• Responsibilities:
• Monitoring of batch failures in OPC/TWS and providing L2 support.
• Escalate to the Application team if intervention is required.
• Fixing abends such as SB37, SE37, FTP errors, and S222.
• Rerunning jobs that are failing due to contention.
• Force completion of the jobs as per the request or documents.
• Changing workstation (WS).
• Setting time dependency for the jobs in OPC and TWS.