Kashif Akhlaque
- SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGER
- Round Rock, TX
- Member Since Mar 02, 2023
Candidates About
Kashif Akhlaque
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SUMMARY:
· 18 years of experience of progressive technical and leadership roles in managing, designing and implementing various Operational and Business Support Systems in Telecommunication industry
· Supervise a team of operations engineers, software developers, tech writers and project manager and collaborate with large cross-functional teams to build and operate in-house and vendor based solutions for a flexible, scalable and high performance OSS/BSS in a multi-platform environment; author PRDs, SFSs and Engineering Collateral for development and operations teams
Professional Skills
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Telecomm. Equipment: |
Cisco Unified Computing Systems, Cisco Telepresence/Tandberg Systems, Cisco 7500/12000/10K/2600, Juniper M10/M20/M40/M160, Unisphere ERX1400, Cisco Catalyst 6500, Foundary Big Iron II 4000, Nortel Passport, Alcatel 7470/7670 switches, Alcatel 5620 NMS, Nortel Shasta 5000 Broadband Services Nodes (BSN), Tellabs Multiservice Routers |
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OSS / BSS Software Packages: |
NetCool Omnibus and Proviso suite by IBM, EM7 by Science Logic, InfoVista, Neural Star by AiMetrix, Umbrella by TSoft, InterMediate by Intec, XacctUsage by Xacct Technologies |
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Languages / Protocols: |
C/C++, Perl, Visual Basic, Sed & Awk, Expect, Shell scripting (bash, ksh), SQL, COBOL, Pascal, SNMP, Syslogs |
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Databases: |
Oracle, MS SQL Server, MySQL, SYBASE, Informix, DB2, Objectivity, MS Access |
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OS: |
VMware ESX, MS Windows NT/9x/200x/XP, UNIX(AIX, Solaris, Linux), Mainframe MVS, MacOS |
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EDUCATION |
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, The University of Texas at Austin August, 1996 Master of Science in Telecommunications (4.0/4.0), Southern Methodist University May, 2009 |
WORK EXPERIENCE
Cisco Systems, Austin, Texas May, 2006 – Present
Business Operations Manager, Cloud and Managed Services (Sep, 2015 – Present)
· Lead a team of engineers to on-board customers’ networking gears on a hybrid Managed Services platform, comprised of off-the-shelf and in-house developed systems, in a time sensitive environment
· develop expertise with various components of platform for Fault Management, Performance Management and Ticketing Systems
· Lead cross-functional teams including off-shore support team to frequently troubleshoot complex technical issues in production related to the platform including network connectivity with customers’ devices
· report platform issues to off-shore development team, prioritize releases for bug fix and lead teams to verify and validate release in pre-production
Senior Product Manager, Cloud and Managed Services (Aug, 2012 – Aug, 2015)
· Prioritized solution development and road map to align with the vision and strategy of the Business Unit (BU)
· Led life cycle of a system from definition and go-to-market plans to short and long-term roadmap plans of entire platform which spans cross-BU and cross-platforms.
· Defined detailed Use Cases, Workflows and drafted Product Requirement Documents for:
o Network Element Life Cycle Inventory system
o InfoVista Performance Management System
o Zenoss Fault Management System
o Cisco Prime Performance Management System
· Collaborated with cross-functional teams of Platform Architects, off-shore Development Team, Program Managers, Technical Marketing Engineers, Technical Leads and Service Delivery Engineers.
· Presented 60-day get-well plan for Customer On-Boarding on network management platform
· Managed product releases, gave demo and training on products to several teams addressing unique use case scenarios
Senior Technical lead, Services Technology Group, HCL America contractor (Jun, 2008 – Jul, 2012)
· Supervised a team of 8-10 developers (on-site & off-shore) and a project manager for design and development of Remote Managed Services (RMS) platform. Development work led to various service offerings for heterogeneous technologies including WAN/LAN, Telepresence/Tandberg Systems, Unified Computing Systems, Unified Communications, and EMC storage platform. Responsible for working with Product Management and Marketing to help define managed service offerings, Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and other fault and performance metrics for these technologies. The platform manages over 60K devices including 5000 Telepresence/Tandberg end points and 1500 UCS systems.
· Led integration of Tidal Intersperse with RMS platform for monitoring Collaboration platform application (Cisco QUAD) using Agile method. Negotiated high priority requirements with Product Management and Marketing and achieved 40% reduction in development time. The first release was successfully deployed in production environment for Bank of America and is expected to generate $2.8 million in revenue for first year
· Drafted a high level design document for Test & Diagnostic solution of Telekom Malaysia’s Unified Broadband Access by integrating Netcool/Omnibus with InfoVista, Siebel Trouble Ticket and other EMSs and awarded the contract in competition with 3 other contractors
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Architect, Remote Operations Services (May, 2006 – May, 2008) · Architected RMS platform using NetCool/Omnibus, Netcool/Proviso, InfoVista, EM7, Correlation Engine and Remedy. This led to implementation of first Build Operate & Transfer (BOT) model based OSS solution for Telstra, Australia (Project Enterprise). · Designed an intensive Proviso training program with trouble-shooting tips to quickly detect root causes for Production level case scenarios; trained and coached 2 onsite and 3 off-site staff members in Chennai, India within 1 month with no Proviso background preparing the team to independently support numerous Proviso issues which resulted in 50% drop in both internal tickets and IBM PMRs · Created Product Requirements Document with input from Service Activation team to Auto-Provision and start monitoring a large number of devices in Proviso; worked with IBM/Tivoli Professional Services to architect and implement this initiative and achieved a goal of provisioning and monitoring 10,000 network elements within 1.5 months. · Earned recognition from Senior Leadership Team for meeting an extremely tight deadline by developing and deploying Proviso adaptor for management of Cisco Application Control Engine for a premier customer · Researched, Proof-of-Concept development and analysis of comparative studies of Network Management Systems (NMS) vendors to assist executives in selection of OSS solutions |
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Level 3 Communications / Broadwing (Focal) Communications Austin, Texas Dec, 1996 - Apr, 2006
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Senior Software Engineer /Lead Engineer, IT (Jan, 2001 – Apr, 2006) · Coached a team of 6 developers, a technical writer and a project manager to architect and develop Fault, Performance, and Configuration components of Telecommunication Management Network (TMN) compliant Network Management System (NMS) based on ITU M3100 series recommendations. The NMS managed long haul transport & voice switching networks, remote sites for environmentals, and AIN Network Elements to support over 1400 Network Elements and a NOC of 100 technicians. Design was based on object oriented database, C++ and Visual C++. NMS supported CMIP, CORBA, TL1, SNMP, MML based network elements adaptors for Nortel/DSC Voice Switch, heterogeneous transport network of Nortel, Ciena, and Alcatel FOTS. · Led a team to implement vendor-based solutions using InfoVista and Neural Star for monitoring Broadwing’s long haul and Focal Communication’s local transport & voice switching networks · Worked with the Engineering team and equipment vendors to develop prototypes in the lab environment for the Fault Management (FM) and Performance Management (PM) adapters using Neural Star’s framework
Led development of Accounting and Performance Management tools for Focal and Broadwing Communication’s Layer 2 and Layer 3 network services to support 3500 corporate customers. The performance reports helped to resolve premier customers’ escalated issues reducing MTTR by 50%. Responsible for the following networks: · Converged Services Network: Implemented collection of performance metrics using InfoVista from MPLS based VPN network composed of Tellabs Multi-Service Routers and Cisco Service Assurance Agent routers · IP Network: Developed near real-time and historical reports using InfoVista on SNMP based KPI and SLA statistics gathered on T1 through OC48, Fast and Gigabit Ethernet ports by polling over 100 geographically diversified IP routers and over 50 Ethernet and ATM switches. · Virtual Private Network: Designed and implemented industry standard 95th percentile billing scheme in Perl and generated web based reports on performance metrics from 8 Nortel Shasta nodes for IP/VPN QoS based services for over 600 subscribers · ATM/Frame Relay Network: Maintained and supported TSoft’s Umbrella application to collect performance statistics from ATM/Frame Relay switches for generating utilization and availability reports on PVCs · Proactive Monitoring: Developed and maintained InfoVista for proactively monitoring utilization of IP backbone links to send threshold crossing SNMP traps to the fault management system |
Project Lead, Network Software Engineering (Jan, 1999 – Dec, 2000)
Managed following projects by implementing a mediation platform (XACCTUsage) working with contractors and vendors in coordination with Engineering, Marketing and Billing Operations:
· COBRA/Managed Modem: Session Detailed Records were collected from Cisco and Nortel Radius servers via AAA protocol and stored in Oracle DB for billing and data warehouse
· EClass IP/VPN: Developed and supported usage-based billing per QoS on Broadwing’s VPN
· Dedicated Internet Access and Collocation/Hosting Center: Developed usage-based billing by polling about 25 Cisco switches in 22 metropolitan facilities on Fast and Gigabit Ethernet and TDM ports and about 100 IP routers providing 256Kbps through OC48 port speeds
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Intelligent Network Developer, Advanced Product Development (Dec, 1996 – Dec, 1998) · Implemented a real-time GUI based client using Visual C++ to monitor performance of various Network Elements through Windows Socket-based network application for Telecommunication Switching System · Supported, maintained and configured management systems for Advanced Signaling Products such as Intelligent Service Peripheral, Service Management Systems, Signal Transfer Point · UNIX systems administration |
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Zale Corporation, Irving, Texas June, 1996 - Dec, 1996 Business Application Developer, MIS Credit Systems · Implemented a menu driven Client/Server application in C to retrieve customer information from Sybase DB · Developed an application in MF COBOL to purge historical records stored in DB2 database · Ported programs and wrote utilities for system migration from MVS to RISC/6000 |