Karthick K

DevOps Platform Automation Engineer

image+91 9840585161                                                                         image karthick.kk@hotmail.com
https://github.com/karthick-kk    Chennai

TL;DR - DevOps and Cloud Automation Engineer

Currently employed at Ericsson as a Senior Infrastructure Automation Engineer, I specialize in optimizing developer workflows and facilitating seamless releases. With a fervent dedication to automating intricate processes through customized tooling and robust CI/CD pipelines, I consistently strive to enhance operational efficiency and drive innovation.

My focus lies in pioneering advancements in MLOps, Containerization, GitOps, and DevSecOps to enable continuous deployment and elevate project outcomes.

Certifications

CKA: Certified Kubernetes Administrator
The Linux Foundation, Issued Sep 2020
Automation with Ansible (D-407)
Redhat, Issued May 2017
Red Hat Certified System Administrator in Red Hat OpenStack
Redhat, Issued Mar 2019
Sun Certified Solaris Administrator
Sun Microsystems, Issued Jun 2008
Non-Technical
IELTS, ITIL

Experience

Ericsson Global Services [2021 - Present]:

Role: Senior Infrastructure Engineer

Responsibilities:

  • Spearheading MLOPS integrated product development, ensuring uplift of dependencies and incorporation of security fixes upstream.
  • Managing the lifecycle maintenance of Kubernetes API upgrades.
  • Developing and overseeing Helm charts for new releases and upgrades.
  • Enforcing policies and design rules as integral components of the development process.
  • Implementing backup and restoration procedures for application services operating on Kubernetes clusters.
  • Optimizing various services and components to minimize application footprint.

Achievements:

  • Successfully reduced direct infrastructure expenditure by over 75% by transitioning from standalone Kubernetes clusters to k3s-based vclusters.
  • Facilitated dynamic provisioning of TLS certificates, resulting in a 25% reduction in lead time effort for pipelines.
  • Implemented Vault-based secret management and design guideline rules within the CICD framework, significantly enhancing security posture with an index score increase from 80.9% to over 94.7%.

CoreStack [2019 - 2021]:

Role: Technical Lead - DevOps Automation Engineer

Responsibilities:

  • Utilized problem-solving skills to address use cases and develop proof of concepts (POCs) for sales initiatives.
  • Provided support to the internal team by assisting with deployment pipelines for product development and new releases.
  • Implemented AIOps solutions to automate deployments directly from Microsoft Teams.
  • Orchestrated server configurations and monitoring using CloudFormation (CFN), Azure Resource Manager (ARM), and Terraform.
  • Developed application manifests to facilitate the deployment of services on Kubernetes via Argo CD.
  • Created custom tools in Golang and Python utilizing REST APIs for enhanced automation capabilities.
  • Designed and executed deployment pipelines utilizing Jenkins, GitHub Actions, and Ansible.
  • Integrated automated audit and validation controls into the development process using Chef InSpec.

Achievements:

  • Successfully migrated a legacy application to a microservices architecture, resulting in a significant reduction in cloud expenditure costs from 312 USD to 65 USD per application. This achievement was attained through the containerization of the application and the distribution of workloads across low-spec cloud instances.
  • Implemented automatic shutdown and startup procedures for cloud instances, resulting in a substantial reduction in cloud expenses on compute engines from 24800 cloud credits to 6500 credits per month, representing a reduction of over 75%.

Excelencia Consulting Ltd [2016-2019]

Role: Lead Consultant

Client: Syntax/CoreServices Domain: ERP/Hosting

Responsibilities:

  • Focused primarily on automating Oracle Cloud Infrastructure tasks using Ansible, with a specific focus on developing scripts to remediate servers and ensure compliance with CIS standards.
  • Orchestrated the creation of virtual machines using Ansible for both Oracle Private Cloud (OPC) and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).
  • Implemented strategies to optimize cloud costs by scheduling automated start/stop procedures for applications, databases, and servers.
  • Automated tenant creation in Cisco ACI utilizing APIC APIs, ASA firewall rules, and Palo Alto Networks device clusters.

Achievements:

  • Designed and developed a web-based security tool using Bash and PHP to automate the security hardening process for over 10,000 Linux servers. This initiative resulted in the complete elimination of expenses associated with server hardening, reducing costs from 110,000 USD to 0 USD per server.

Dell India [2015-2016]

Role: Senior Systems Administrator

Client: CitiBank Domain: Banking

Responsibilities:

  • Provided essential support services to a network of 15,000 servers.
  • Responsible for conducting regular maintenance activities and service tasks, including patching, upgrades, provisioning, and bug fixes, to ensure seamless business continuity.

Achievement:

  • Implemented automated patch management for Unix servers, significantly reducing the time required for patching from 4 hours to just 20 minutes, representing a 2.5X improvement in efficiency. Additionally, achieved an enhanced patch success rate, increasing from 92% to 99%.

Mphasis [2012-2015]

Role: Senior Principal Infrastructure Engineer

Client: Pegasus Domain: Travel and Hospitality

Responsibilities:

  • Provided engineering-level support for internal servers, ensuring high availability of clustered applications and databases, including Informix and Oracle.
  • Conducted standalone and VMware server builds across various hardware architectures.
  • Managed VERITAS Storage Foundation upgrade projects (VCS/VXVM) to maintain optimal storage performance.
  • Managed operating system upgrades and patch management to keep systems up to date and secure.
  • Led the migration of Solaris Zones to streamline resource allocation and management.
  • Automated manual server builds and implemented monitoring solutions to improve efficiency and reliability.
  • Implemented virtualization technologies such as Solaris Zones, Solaris 11 VNET, DLMP, and LDOMs for resource optimization and flexibility.

Achievement:

  • Developed an OS Upgrade/Migrator Ecosystem to transition from end-of-life (EOL) hardware to vendor-recommended hardware and software subsystems. This initiative enabled the organization to retire legacy hardware and migrate to modern infrastructure, leading to improved performance, reliability, and cost savings.

Tata Consultancy Services [2010-2012]

Role: IT Consultant

Client: The Northern Trust Domain: Banking

Responsibilities:

  • Orchestrated server provisioning for new applications, including setups involving WebLogic, Apache, Tomcat, and Oracle HTTP Server, operating across various platform databases.
  • Managed server builds tailored to application requirements, including the deployment of clustered servers using Veritas and Oracle HTTP Server for application-level web services.
  • Installed and configured WebLogic to facilitate communication between middleware applications and underlying web servers.
  • Implemented and tested disaster recovery (DR) servers to ensure data integrity and system resilience.
  • Conducted server migration and upgrade tasks to maintain system performance and security.

Achievements:

  • Implemented automation in the server build process, drastically reducing the turnaround time for new server provisioning from 3 days to just 4 hours, inclusive of all post-validation and sign-offs.
  • Eliminated manual tasks by replacing team-dependent activities with REST API calls, streamlining processes and enhancing efficiency.

IBM [2008-2010]

Role: Operation Lead Specialist

Client: Walt Disney Domain: Media

Responsibilities:

  • Ensured uninterrupted operation of mission-critical applications and services by delivering comprehensive infrastructure support to remote servers situated in multiple data centers across the USA, including locations in California, Florida, New York, and Ohio, on a 24x7 basis.

Achievements:

  • Designed and implemented a Remediation Toolkit to address issues on over 15,000 multi-platform Unix servers worldwide. Through batch processing, reduced the remediation time per server from 240 minutes to just 15 minutes, significantly enhancing efficiency and minimizing downtime.

Technical Skills

Cloud Services
  • AWS (EC2,S3,Lambda,VPC,NAT,CloudWatch,SCP,IAM,CFN).
  • Azure
  • Google Cloud (GCP)
  • OpenStack
Open Source
  • Ansible
  • Hashicorp Boundary,Vault,Packer,Vagrant and Terraform
  • Chef Inspec
  • Dockers
  • Kubernetes
  • Helm
Programming Languages
  • Python
  • Shell/bash
  • Go

Education

2003-2005 (Post Graduation)
Mtech, Computer Systems and Networking; Dr. MGR University (Chennai)

Thesis title: Congnitive Systems for UI/UX

1999-2003 (UG)
B.Tech, Computer Science Engineering; University of Madras

Minor: Cryptography and Encryption

Additional Interests and Activities

  • Active Opensource Contributor and Enthusiast

  • Android ROM and Kernel Development

  • Violin, Travel