Llewellyn Booth
llewellynbooth1@gmail.com · +61 484 050 722 · linkedin.com/in/llewellyn-booth · github.com/llewellynbooth · llewellynbooth.com
Summary
Infrastructure engineer, 20+ years across enterprise IT and managed services, focused for the last several years on Microsoft Azure and hybrid platforms — Azure Local / Azure Stack HCI, Azure Arc, and Windows Server. I design, deploy and operate what enterprises run on: hybrid clusters, Azure landing zones, SD-WAN, and the automation and monitoring around them. Azure Solutions Architect Expert and DevOps Engineer Expert. I own problems end to end — architecture and infrastructure-as-code through to the incident bridge — and write the decision record afterwards.
Core skills
- Azure & hybrid cloud
- Azure (IaaS/PaaS), Azure Local (Azure Stack HCI), Azure Arc, Windows Admin Center, Entra ID / hybrid identity, Azure Monitor & Application Insights, cost management / FinOps
- Virtualisation & compute
- VMware vSphere, Hyper-V, Failover Clustering, Storage Spaces Direct, RDMA / RoCE converged networking, HPE / Dell server platforms
- Automation & IaC
- PowerShell, Terraform, Bicep, GitHub Actions, CI/CD, Git-based workflows
- Networking
- Cisco Meraki SD-WAN, VLANs / routing / switching, MPLS, site-to-site VPN, firewalls, DNS, DHCP
- Windows & directory
- Windows Server 2016–2025, Active Directory, Group Policy, PKI / AD CS, RDS, SQL Server
- Operations
- LCM / SBE & firmware lifecycle, patching & change management, backup & DR (Veeam, Azure Backup, MABS/DPM), monitoring, alerting & RMM (Datto)
Experience
- Own the lifecycle of 2- to 10-node Azure Local (Azure Stack HCI) clusters for multiple enterprise clients — health, LCM/SBE and firmware, storage and network intents, Azure Arc.
- Led a cluster network-adapter migration and RDMA rebuild — replaced Broadcom NICs with Intel E810, reconfigured converged networking for RDMA (RoCE), and validated throughput and failover.
- Built cost-optimisation workbooks that surface orphaned resources and verify reservation coverage — reduced a client's Azure spend by ~20% on average.
- Introduced architecture decision records and tested runbooks for recurring cluster maintenance, cutting rework across windows.
- Azure subject-matter expert in presales — scoping, effort estimates and technical assurance.
- Joined Orro's Cloud Infrastructure team after the acquisition of NW Computing, moving into enterprise-scale Azure and hybrid work.
- Ran BAU for enterprise Azure estates — provisioning and lifecycle of VMs, storage, networking, load balancers and databases against business requirements.
- Delivered on-premises-to-Azure migrations — assessment, landing-zone build, cutover and validation.
- Supported Azure Local (Azure Stack HCI) clusters — health, updates and Azure Arc registration.
- Managed Cisco Meraki SD-WAN changes and escalations; provided presales input as an Azure product SME.
- Primary escalation point for Infrastructure and Network Operations, and for high-priority Service Desk incidents, across 20–30 client environments of varying size.
- Owned monitoring, maintenance and patching of network and server infrastructure; kept fleet-wide security compliance current.
- Mentored infrastructure engineers; maintained client and internal documentation and training.
- Delivered Azure, Microsoft 365 and Meraki project work to deadline alongside BAU.
- Migrated email and productivity to Microsoft 365 across the group.
- Drove the organisation's first Azure adoption — initial cloud workloads, identity and backup.
- Standardised POS / forecourt integration and IT operations across sites following acquisitions.
- Ran IT, network and telecoms across all sites — Windows Server, Active Directory, SQL Server, VMware, Veeam.
- Delivered server virtualisation and a major SAP Business One ERP upgrade with in-house and external integrations.
- Managed LAN / WAN / Wi-Fi, VLANs, routing, MPLS and ISP / firewall relationships.
- IT Manager, Virtual Logistics (2010–2014) — IT systems, server and network infrastructure, backups and DR testing across multiple branches.
- Customer Support Engineer, Bytes Technology Group / Altron (2006–2010) — Level 3 support for retail and fuel-retail clients; multi-vendor delivery under Dell and HP.
- Field Services Engineer, CEB Maintenance Africa / BCX (2004–2006) — POS hardware and software installation and repair.
Selected projects
Serverless site on Azure: static frontend on Storage + CDN, .NET 8 isolated-worker Functions API, Cosmos DB. GitHub Actions CI/CD with OIDC (no stored credentials), CodeQL and Lighthouse gates, a synthetic uptime probe, Architecture Decision Records and an operations runbook. Runs at ~A$0.60/month.
Two-node Windows Server 2025 / Hyper-V lab: Active Directory, PKI / AD CS, pfSense with VLAN segmentation, WireGuard, Azure Arc onboarding and Terraform — tracked as a weekly engineering workbook in Git.
Certifications
Microsoft — Expert: Azure Solutions Architect Expert; DevOps Engineer Expert
Microsoft — Associate: Azure Administrator; Windows Server Hybrid Administrator; Azure Security Engineer; Azure Network Engineer; Microsoft 365 Teams Administrator
Microsoft — Fundamentals: Azure; Azure Data; Azure AI
Cisco: CCNA; Meraki Solutions Specialist
Education
B.Com, Information & Technology Management — Management College of Southern Africa (MANCOSA)
Diploma, PC Engineering — Damelin, South Africa