Urs Walcher

Freelancer / System Engineer / Consultant

I'm not 54, I'm 21 with 33 years of experience!

Education

  • IBM

    IBM Certifications

    IBM Certifications

    IBM Certified Specialist - Enterprise Storage Technical Support V5

    IBM Certified Technical Sales Specialist - Power Systems with POWER8 Scale-out V1

    IBM Certified Technical Sales Specialist - Power Systems with POWER8 Scale-out V2

    IBM Certified Midrange Storage Technical Support V5

    IBM Power Systems with POWER8 Enterprise Technical Sales Skills V2

    IBM Power Systems with POWER8 Sales Skills V2

    IBM Spectrum Scale Expert (Level II)

  • Brocade

    Brocade Certifications

    Brocade Certifications

    Brocade Certified Fabric Professional 16 Gbps

    Brocade Certified Fabric Administrator 16 Gbps

    Brocade Certified Fabric Designer 16 Gbps

  • VMware

    VMware Certifications

    VMware Certifications

    VMware Certified Professional VCP510

    VMware Certified Professional Desktop (Horizon) VCPD510

  • Microsoft Certifications

    Microsoft Certifications

    Microsoft Certifications

    MCSA: Windows Server 2012

    MCPS: Microsoft Certified Professional

    MCSE: Microsoft Server 2003

  • Various Certifications

    Various Certifications

    Various Certifications

    ITIL V3 Foundation Certification

    Data Scientist NDK HF

IBM / EMC Storage

Linux

VMware

Brocade / Cisco SAN-Network

Microsoft Windows Server

Experience

  • 2019 - 2020

    OIZ Organisation und Informatik Stadt Zurich (80%)

    Senior System Engineer / Storage- and Backup Consultant

    Senior System Engineer for SAN & Storage

    Engineering and Administration EMC-Storage (VMAX & VPLEX)

    Engineering and Administration CISCO UCS

    Engineering and Administration VMware 6.5 and 6.7

    Engineering and Administration SAN (CISCO)

    2 & 3 Level Support for VMware, RHEL & Suse Linux Windows

  • 2019

    Migros Genossenschaftsbund Zurich (80%)

    Senior System Engineer

    Senior System Engineer for POS-Solutions

    Engineering and Administration avanta pos solution

    Engineering and Administration Linux Middleware for avanta (SAP Netweaver)

    Engineering, Migrationen and Administration RHEL and SLES

    Engineering and Administration VMware 6.5

    2 & 3 Level Support for VMware, RHEL & Suse Linux Windows

  • 2018

    ETH Zurich (40%)

    Senior System Engineer / Storage- and Backup Consultant

    Senior System / Storage & SAN Consultant for ETH

    Engineering and Administration SAN / IBM Spectrum Scale (GPFS) / IBM TSM

    Engineering and Administration IBM Storage / SVC / Storwize

    Engineering, Migrationen and Administration RHEL and SLES

    Engineering and Administration VMware 6.5 and VMware Operations Manager

    Engineering and Administration SAN (Brocade)

    2 & 3 Level Support for VMware, RHEL & Suse Linux Windows

  • 2018

    Federal Departement of Economics Affairs, Education and Research(ISCeco) (60%)

    System Architect / Senior System Engineer / Storage- and Backup Consultant

    Senior System / Storage & SAN Consultant for ISCeco

    Engineering and Administration SAN / VMware / Veritas Netbackup

    Engineering and Administration EMC Storage VMAX2 / 3, VPLEX, VNXe, Unity & XtremI/O

    Engineering, Migrationen and Administration NetApp Ontap 9

    Engineering and Administration VMware 6.5 and VMware Operations Manager

    Engineering and Administration SAN (Brocade)

    Engineering and Administration HP Enterprise Servers

    2 & 3 Level Support for VMware, RHEL & Suse Linux Windows, Solaris and Aix

  • 2017

    Swisscom (Switzerland AG)

    System Architect / Senior Cloud System Engineer / Storage Consultant

    Senior Cloud / Storage & SAN Consultant for Swisscom (Switzerland) AG

    Engineering and Administration SAN and Storage / VMware / EMC Networker & Avamar

    Engineering and Administration EMC Storage VMAX2 / 3, VPLEX, VNXe, Unity & XtremI/O

    Engineering and Administration VMware 6.0

    Engineering and Administration SAN (Brocade, SAN with 25000 Ports, 700 SAN-Switches and Gateways) incl. SAN-Routing

    2 & 3 Level Support for VMware, RHEL & Suse Linux Windows, Solaris and Aix

  • 2015-2016

    Swisscom (Switzerland AG)

    System Architect / Senior System Engineer / Storage Consultant

    Senior Storage & SAN Consultant for Swisscom (Switzerland) AG

    Engineering and Administration EMC Storage VMAX2 / 3, VPLEX, VNXe, Unity & XtremI/O

    Engineering and Administration EMC Backup Solutions Networker and Avamar

    Engineering and Administration SAN (Brocade SAN with 25000 Ports, 700 SAN-Switches and Gateways), SAN-Routing

    2 & 3 Level Support for VMware, RHEL & Suse Linux Windows, Solaris and Aix

  • 2012-2015

    Spirit/21, Zuerich (IBM Switzerland and Novartis, Basel)

    System Architect / Senior Storage Engineer / Consultant

    Senior Storage & SAN Consultant in IBM Global Outsourcing Contract for Novartis

    Engineering and Administration IBM Storage Architecture DS3000, DS5000, DS8000, XIV, FlashStorage, nSeries, NetApp

    Engineering and Administration IBM Tape Systems

    Engineering and Administration IBM xSeries Server, pSeries

    Engineering and Administration SAN (Brocade SAN with 9000 Ports, SAN-Routing, etc.)

    Engineering and Administration IBM Storage Virtualization (SVC 6.2 & 7.2) & Storwize

    2 & 3 Level Support for VMware, Windows, Solaris and Aix

  • 2008-2012

    Charles Voegele Trading AG

    Head of Windows based Infrastructure / System Architect / Senior System Engineer / Project Leader

    Responsible for the IT-Infrastructure / Telecommunication / Networks

    IBM Storage Architekturen DS3000, DS5000 & nSeries & Netapp Metrocluster

    IBM Tape Systems

    IBM xSeries Server, Blade Center

    SAN & LAN (Brocade, Cisco)

    IBM Storage Virtualization (SVC 4.0 until 6.2.0.1)

    Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 until 2008

    Citrix Presentation Server 4.5 & XENAPP 6

    XEN, VMWare 4.1

    MS Microsoft Exchange 2007 & 2010

    MS Microsoft SCOM 2007

    MS Microsoft SharePoint 2010

I'm Ready to Work with you

Contact Me

about me


The Personal Origin Story


Hi. I’m Urs, I'm a single father, surfer, runner, snowboarder and a regular guy who used to have a regular job. I love the little things in life and never take myself too seriously. Laughing with friends and enjoying my family are two of my favorite things. Today, I consider myself the luckiest person on earth. But that wasn’t always the case.

After different Jobs in different Companies, I began my dream job working as an it-manager for a trading firm in Switzerland. Life was good. I had an very interesting Job and travelled around the world. Life was great. And then it wasn’t; because off an internal reorganization I deciced to leave the company in June 2012.

I was scared of the unknown I faced. And I was scared of the disappointment I’d bring to those I cared about. I didn’t know what the path forward looked like. And with the economy in crisis, I wasn’t sure how, when, or where I was going to find another job, especially one that I liked. It was all a bit maddening. Then a crazy idea popped into my head: I could work for myself.

Although the entrepreneurial path was risky, it was invigorating and felt right. Thankfully, while still working for the firm, I was already in contact with a Contracter and they had a job in my preferred theme. The rest, as they say, is history. Looking back, getting laid off was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Without my 8-to-5 job holding me back, I’ve since been able to learn a lot more in different companies and different themes. The end result is a lifestyle built around quality time with my family and satisfaction, my dream come true.

My Guiding Principles

I have a few guiding principles to keep myself grounded and focused on the right things. After all, in the world of freelance business, it’s just as easy to lose your path as find it. These principles keep me on course.

1. The best and worst things in life are usually the things that happen unplanned. When bad things happen, learn from them and vow to not repeat the behaviors that allowed them to happen. When good things come along, take advantage of them and learn how to stimulate more good things like them to happen. That’s called creating your own luck, which is a far better option than trying to control the uncontrollable.

2. Whether success or failure, I want the satisfaction of knowing my results are my own. The greatest thrill in business is to experience success that you manufactured yourself. The joy comes from knowing that I did that, me. Taking pride in one’s craft and working hard for one’s own rewards is the opportunity of a lifetime. Failures and missteps will happen along the way. That’s natural. When they occur, get up, learn from them, and move forward.
3. The right path is the one you make yourself that leads to your version of happiness.

Finally we all have different ideas about what happiness is....

Services

System Administration

Supporting Teams or Customers in daily operations Tasks.

Monitoring

SAN and Storage Monitoring in case of performance or troubleshoting Issues.

Engineering

Engineering Tasks for MS Windows Server, VMware, SAN / Storage, Linux, Backup etc.

Engineering, Configuration and Installation

Engineering, Configuring and Installation of Hard- and Software

127

Cups of coffee

25

Projects Done

25

Happy Clients

Credentials

Teamlead SAN / Storage-Team Swisscom Switzerland AG

Sandro di Chello

Manager Operations Spirit/21 AG

Andreas Sutter

Team Lead Storage IBM Switzerland AG

Oliver Goos

Get In Touch

  • Gaempi 87, CH-6043 Adligenswil, Switzerland
  • urs@walcher.ch
  • +41 (0)79 619 32 75

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