Daniel Whicker

Principal Consultant, DevOps Consulting — Infrastructure Automation & CI/CD

Austin, TX · dwhicker@bifrost.cc · LinkedIn

Summary

Principal Consultant focused on infrastructure automation, with a track record of migrating 6,500+ VMs and 100+ physical servers across dozens of large-scale enterprise engagements — automating environments from dozens of servers to 10,000+ server estates. Builds CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure as code with Ansible, Terraform, Packer, Python, GitHub Actions, and Azure DevOps to automate new hardware deployment (Cisco UCS, Dell, HPE, storage, NetApp, VMware, F5, Cisco MDS) and operate Kubernetes, VMware Tanzu, and Azure environments. Brings nearly 30 years of enterprise infrastructure depth (storage, virtualization, backup/recovery with Veeam and Veritas NetBackup, clustering) and a long history of mentoring engineers to bear on making that automation reliable at scale.

Industries Served

Retail · Oil & Gas · Financial Services · Healthcare · Education · Local Government

Core Skills

Infrastructure Automation & CI/CD

• VM migrations and new hardware deployment automation (Cisco UCS, Dell, HPE, storage, NetApp, VMware, F5, Cisco MDS)
• Infrastructure as code with Ansible / Ansible Automation Platform (AAP), Terraform, and Packer
• CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions and Azure DevOps (ADO); scripting and automation in Python, Bash, and Perl
• Azure environments and automation
• Kubernetes and VMware Tanzu deployment and operations
• Network automation and source-of-truth tooling (NetBox/Nautobot, golden-config workflows)
• Load balancer automation (F5); edge-network virtualization deployment automation (Riverbed)
• Azure Local (Azure Stack HCI) automated rollout — OS install, firmware/driver updates, networking, clustering, and storage build-out
• Observability and monitoring of automation pipeline output (Grafana, Prometheus, Kuma)
• Secrets management (HashiCorp Vault, Azure Key Vault, CyberArk)

Data Center Platforms

• Cisco UCS, Dell, and HPE servers — blades and rack-mount — data center compute architecture
• Cisco MDS storage switches, Fibre Channel SAN design, zoning, and troubleshooting
• NetApp, Dell, and HPE storage subsystems; storage architecture, capacity planning, and migration
• VMware vSphere virtualization design, deployment, and migration

Backup, Recovery & Clustering

• Veeam and Veritas NetBackup — design, implementation, and architecture
• High-availability clustering for Unix environments
• Backup, recovery, and disaster recovery architecture

Systems Administration

• Solaris, Linux, and AIX administration
• General Unix/Linux systems architecture and administration

Experience

Computacenter US

Principal Consultant, DevOps Consulting · November 2020 – Present · Austin, TX

• Joined as Consulting Architect following Computacenter’s acquisition of Pivot Technology Services in November 2020; now Principal Consultant in the DevOps Consulting group.
• Migrated 6,500+ VMs and 100+ physical servers across dozens of large-scale enterprise engagements, automating environments from dozens of servers to 10,000+ server estates.
• Automate new hardware deployment (Cisco UCS, Dell, HPE, storage, NetApp, VMware) with Ansible, Terraform, Packer, and Python — including configuring and deploying thousands of Cisco UCS/Red Hat servers within a single 6-hour maintenance window.
• Deployed and operate Ansible Automation Platform (AAP/AWX) as the automation engine behind multiple large-scale initiatives, including full lifecycle automation — deployment, upgrades, and a complete single-source-of-truth (SSoT) application — for 80+ F5 rSeries devices and 40,000+ VIPs, and lifecycle automation (deployment, clustering, upgrades) for hundreds of Microsoft SQL Server instances.
• Developed deployment and provisioning automation, including VM provisioning, for Riverbed edge-network virtualization devices for a large retailer, and separately for an automated Azure Local rollout onto Dell hardware for remote sites (oil rigs) — OS installation, firmware/driver updates, networking, clustering, and storage build-out. Neither project was ultimately executed for its original engagement, but the automation was reused on other projects.
• Deployed, configured, and customized 40+ VMware Tanzu Kubernetes sites; operate Kubernetes and Azure environments with CI/CD pipelines in GitHub Actions and Azure DevOps.
• Architect backup/recovery solutions with Veeam and Veritas NetBackup, and network automation/source-of-truth workflows (NetBox/Nautobot, golden-config).
• Mentor engineers and consultants across the practice; lead pre-sales and post-sales engagements and help codify deployment standards.

Pivot Technology Services Corp.

Consulting Architect · February 2012 – November 2020 · Austin, TX

Acquired by Computacenter in November 2020.

• Consulting Architect in the Datacenter Practice, executing pre-sales and post-sales engagements across Backup, Automation, Archive, Clustering, Virtualization, Systems, and Storage.
• Helped codify deployment practices and standards for the practice’s core service offerings.

Sr. Systems Engineer · May 2007 – February 2012 · Austin, TX

• Professional Services engineer performing pre- and post-sales engineering specializing in Backup & Recovery, Clustering, Virtualization, and Storage Area Networks.
• Designed and architected systems and storage solutions for enterprise customers.

Sun Microsystems

Sr. Systems Engineer · August 2005 – May 2007

• Sr. Systems Engineer in the Storage Group, providing pre-sales support on clustering, SANs, backup and recovery, and general systems/storage architecture.
• Developed an interactive DiskMap tool (Solaris/Perl) to report on enterprise storage allocation, configuration, and usage for EMC Symmetrix and Sun SSA storage devices.
• Built a NetBackup configuration, usage, performance, and tuning data-collection and reporting tool.
• Performed general Unix/Solaris/AIX systems administration.

Pivot Technology Services Corp.

Sr. Systems Engineer · 2003 – August 2005

Continued following Pivot’s acquisition of Solid Systems in 2003.

• Pre- and post-sales Systems Engineer. Assisted with solutions design before the sale and delivered professional services after, specializing in Clustering and Backup solutions.

Solid Systems

Sr. Systems Engineer · 2001 – 2003

Acquired by Pivot Technology Services Corp. in 2003.

• Pre- and post-sales Systems Engineer specializing in Clustering and Backup solutions.

Sprint Enterprise Network Services

Technical Solutions Engineer · 1997 – 2001

• Technical Solutions Consultant for Sprint ENS (formerly Sprint Paranet), contracted to organizations including QuestLink, Entergy, and Sprint PCS for systems administration and backup/recovery projects.

IBM

Technical Specialist · 1996 – 1997

• Phone support specialist on the AIX Support Line, Backup and Recovery group.

Education

The University of Texas at Austin · 1992 – 1997

Legacy Certifications

Earned earlier in career (1996–2018); included for historical context.

Cisco

• CCNP Data Center (2015)
• CCNA Data Center (2015)
• Data Center Unified Computing Support Specialist — DCUCSS (2015)
• Data Center Unified Fabric Support Specialist — DCUFSS (2014)
• Cisco Storage Design Fundamentals (CSDF), course completion (2008)

Red Hat

• Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE), RHEL 7 (2018)
• Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA), RHEL 7 (2018)

NetApp

• NetApp Certified Implementation Engineer — SAN Specialist, E-Series (NCIE-SAN E-Series) (2018)

EMC / Isilon

• EMC Proven Professional — Data Domain Deduplication, Backup and Recovery (2012)
• EMC Information Storage and Management Associate (2012)
• Isilon Certified Integration Engineer, OneFS 6.5 (2012)
• Isilon Certified Storage Professional, OneFS 6.5 (2012)

Veritas / Symantec

• Veritas NetBackup Catalog Manipulation (CatMan) Technical Assessment (2016)
• Authorized Symantec Consultant — Data Protection / NetBackup (2012)
• Symantec Technical Specialist — Veritas NetBackup 6 for Unix (2007)
• Symantec Technical Specialist — Veritas Storage Foundation 5 for Unix (2007)
• VERITAS Certified Professional — High Availability Specialist for UNIX (2004)

IBM

• IBM Certified Support Technician — Power Systems for AIX and Linux (2010)
• IBM AIX Certified System Administrator (AIX 4.x)
• Tivoli Certified Consultant — Tivoli Storage Manager V4.1 (2002)

Sun Microsystems

• Sun Certified Network Administrator, Solaris 8 (2004)
• Sun Certified System Administrator, Solaris 8 (2002)
• Sun iForce Partner Certification — Data Center, Enterprise, Network Storage, StorEdge, Sun Fire, Workgroup, and Channel Partner product tracks (2001–2004)

Updated periodically — reach out directly for the most current details.