Garry Slater

> Hello, I'm Garry
|

IT Support & Systems Administrator
// SAIT Networking Focus (4.0 GPA)
// 10+ Years Customer Service Experience
// CompTIA A+ & Azure Fundamentals
// Home Lab: Cisco, Cloudflare, Web & Game Hosting

I turn coffee into closed tickets and robust networks.

Technical Portfolio

Applied Infrastructure & Design

Azure AD Intune Palo Alto
Cloud Migration Strategy

Served as the Project Lead for a critical digital transformation initiative supporting a 100-user call center. The project aimed to eliminate single points of failure inherent in legacy on-premise hardware.

I designed a migration to a Microsoft Azure hybrid topology, implementing Azure AD (Entra ID) for centralized identity management and Intune for endpoint compliance. To secure the perimeter, I deployed Palo Alto Next-Gen Firewalls, effectively neutralizing ransomware vectors and achieving 99.99% uptime.

vSphere 8 Synology SAN HA Clustering
Infrastructure Refresh

I architected a virtualization strategy to replace an aging, out-of-warranty 8-server environment that was creating daily performance bottlenecks.

My solution consolidated the infrastructure into a compact 3-node cluster: dual Lenovo ThinkSystem SR640 hosts (192GB RAM) and a Synology RS3621xs+ SAN, connected via 10GbE. I configured tiered storage—leveraging RAID 1 NVMe pools for "hot" data like Exchange/SQL, and HDD arrays for archives. This reduced the physical footprint by over 60% and enabled vSphere High Availability (HA) to ensure business continuity.

pfSense Hyper-V Veeam
Enterprise Home Lab

I treat my home network like a small business environment. It’s my personal sandbox for testing enterprise concepts, breaking configurations, and validating backups before I ever touch a production system.

  • Network Core: Built on pfSense and Cisco switches. I use VLANs to isolate IoT devices and Guest traffic from my production servers, with WiFi 6E backhauled via Ethernet.
  • SysAdmin Ops: Running Windows Server 2022/2025 domains to practice Group Policy and AD management. I also host game servers for friends and use Veeam for disaster recovery.
  • Self-Hosting: Managing 40TB+ of storage on Unraid/Synology. This website is hosted locally using Cloudflare Tunnels to enforce Zero Trust without exposing my IP.

Academic Focus

Southern Alberta Institute of Technology

Hardware Architecture

Comprehensive breakdown of components: CPUs, memory hierarchies, PSUs, and safe assembly protocols.

Windows Ecosystem

Mastery of OS deployment, multi-boot configurations, clean installs, and patch management strategies.

Power & Cooling

Wattage calculation for high-performance builds and implementation of effective thermal solutions.

Diagnostics

Systematic troubleshooting for mobile and desktop hardware, utilizing diagnostic software and hardware tools.

Network Fundamentals

Deep dive into OSI & TCP/IP models, network topologies, and the physics of data communication.

Subnetting & IP

Efficient IPv4/IPv6 addressing, VLSM, and CIDR to design scalable logical network architectures.

Routing & Switching

Configuration of OSPF/RIP, VLAN segmentation, and Inter-VLAN routing on enterprise gear.

Simulation Tools

Extensive packet tracing and topology design using Cisco Packet Tracer for real-world scenarios.

Storage Architecture

Analysis of SAN, NAS, and DAS systems with RAID optimization for performance and redundancy.

VMware Management

Deployed ESXi hosts, vCenter Server, and managed licensing and VM lifecycles.

Virtual Networking

Configuration of vSwitches, Port Groups, and VMkernel adapters for segmented traffic flow.

iSCSI & Fibre Channel

Implementation of IP storage protocols to connect virtual hosts to shared storage pools.

Core OS

History of Unix/Linux, kernel components, and open-source licensing models.

CLI Mastery

File manipulation, piping, grep/sed, process management (ps/top), and permissions.

SysAdmin

User/Group management, disk partitioning, package managers, and SSH configuration.

Hands-on Experience

root@server:~# Configured GNOME GUI, managed X Window systems, and automated tasks via Bash scripting.

Windows Server

Unattended installs, WSUS patch management, and performance tuning.

Active Directory

Promoted Domain Controllers, designed OU structures, and managed Security Groups.

Infrastructure Services

Deployed DNS zones, DHCP failover scopes, and NAT routing.

Group Policy

Enforced security baselines, mapped drives, and managed RBAC via GPO.

Advanced Routing

Optimized OSPF, EIGRP, and BGP with route redistribution and load balancing strategies.

High Availability

FHRP implementation (HSRP, VRRP, GLBP) to ensure network redundancy and zero downtime.

Security & AAA

Role-Based Access Control, Multi-Factor Authentication, and device hardening.

Monitoring

SNMP, Syslog, and SPAN port configuration for real-time traffic analysis.

Automation

Introduction to SDN, Python scripting for networks, and Ansible playbooks.

SYSTEM_STATUS

Physical Location
Calgary, AB [Ping: <2ms]
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Open for Work: Currently accepting new tickets (Job Opportunities) for SysAdmin & Support roles.

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