Ralf R. - Security Architecture & Automation

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Belp, Switzerland

Experience

Feb 2024 - Oct 2025

1 year 9 months

Nuremberg, Germany

Security Architect

Bundesagentur für Arbeit

Analyzed the existing HashiCorp Vault installation and its covered use cases
Migrated the HashiCorp Vault clusters and adapted them to the BA’s PKI operations
Connected the Vault clusters to the BA’s third-party PKI
Planned and implemented Vault automation
Planned, implemented, and integrated Vault into the BA’s IAM system
Planned and implemented Vault protection with an HSM
Managed certificates and private keys in Vault
Highly automated the BA’s use cases
Administered Vault clusters
Technologies used: HashiCorp Vault Enterprise, Terraform, Ansible, openssl, PKI

Dec 2023 - Feb 2024

3 months

Munich, Germany

Vault CA Consultant

Xempus AG

Analyzed and assessed running Vault clusters
Advised on and created an internal root CA
Built a new state-of-the-art Vault cluster for intermediate CAs
Wrote product documentation compliant with ISO 27001
Provided general support on an IaC project (cloud migration)
Trained internal staff
Technologies used: Vault, Terraform, Ansible, openssl, PKI

Jun 2023 - Sep 2023

4 months

Essen, Germany

HashiCorp Nomad Consultant

E.ON SE

Supported the time-critical migration and integration of 16 Nomad clusters
Improved cluster availability and switched to TLS encryption
Provided comprehensive knowledge transfer on Nomad, Consul, Vault, Terraform, and Packer
Technologies used: Nomad, Consul, Vault, Terraform, Packer, Traefik, Amazon Web Services

May 2023 - Nov 2023

7 months

Stuttgart, Germany

Cloud Architect

Porsche AG (via Rackspace)

Designed an AWS landing zone and infrastructure for a 3D modeling software
Implemented it as infrastructure-as-code with Terraform
Technologies used: Terraform, Amazon Web Services, Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)

Oct 2022 - Jan 2023

4 months

Cologne, Germany

HashiCorp Terraform & Vault Expert

DEVK Deutsche Eisenbahn Versicherung AG

Supported building a PKI infrastructure with Vault OSS and Enterprise Plus
Pre-sales and integration of Vault OSS and Enterprise Plus
Designed and developed a Terraform backend for Vault provisioning
Technologies used: Terraform, Vault

Apr 2022 - Sep 2022

6 months

Bern, Switzerland

HashiCorp Terraform Integration Partner

T-Systems (Schweiz AG) / Schweizerische Bundesbahnen SBB

Developed core dynamic Terraform modules for Open Telekom Cloud
Created Packer templates for custom images of RHEL 7/8/9, Windows Server 2022/2019/2016
Technologies used: Terraform, Terraform Enterprise, Packer, Vault

Aug 2021 - Jun 2022

11 months

Gummersbach, Germany

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Architect / Terraform Expert

Opitz Consulting Deutschland GmbH

Updated the production Terragrunt environment from Terraform OSS 0.12 to 1.0, about 450 state files with 1800 resources
Created an AS-IS analysis of the current Terraform environment including CI/CD processes
Refactored code
Designed and delivered a custom Terraform training program for the client’s staff
Technologies used: Terraform, Terragrunt, Packer, Ansible, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, CI/CD toolset

Apr 2021 - Aug 2021

5 months

Bern, Switzerland

Head of Managed Cloud Services

Diso AG

Led the entire IT department after the CIO left the company
Designed and built business cases and migration scenarios for managed cloud services on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
ISO 27001:2013 recertification
Managed about 90 department employees, reporting to the CEO
Part-time employment

Jun 2019 - Sep 2020

1 year 4 months

Bern, Switzerland

ICT Specialist

Eidg. Departement für Verteidigung, Bevölkerungsschutz & Sport

Designed and introduced full infrastructure automation at the Swiss Army Command Base (FUB)
Supported the shift from waterfall processes to agile project management
Provided general support for the “Renewal” projects & value streams
Technologies used: HashiCorp Packer, Terraform, Vault, Consul, DevOps, Scrum

Jan 2018 - Feb 2019

1 year 2 months

Frankfurt, Germany

Cloud Architect

BearingPoint Software Solutions GmbH

Designed & implemented continuous deployment with Terraform for Abacus 360 on Oracle Cloud
Designed and implemented the entire cloud architecture in OCI
Benchmarked and migrated IBM SoftLayer bare metal IaaS to OCI
Technologies used: CentOS 7, Terraform, Packer, Vault, Oracle Database, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

Jan 2008 - Sep 2013

5 years 9 months

Bern, Switzerland

Senior UNIX Administrator

Swisscom (Schweiz) AG

Technical lead for the Operational Support Systems team, responsible for monitoring and 2nd-level support of about 65,000 network devices and servers for Swisscom’s large business clients
Operated 24/7 network management services and operational support systems and their underlying infrastructure (OS, DNS, LDAP, SNMP, TACACS, etc.)
Designed, built, and tuned a geo-redundant SAN, responsible for storage and servers up to the Fibre Channel switch, volume layout, benchmarking
Introduced geographic high availability for 300 servers with Solaris Cluster 3.2 (automatic failover)
Moved and modernized the department data center, including network zoning, OS, application, and hardware updates, and a virtualization concept for physical servers
Designed and implemented a release management process per ITIL v3 and ISO 30000 for the department
Participated in outsourcing projects for Credit Suisse and AXA Winterthur
Technologies used: Oracle Solaris 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Solaris Cluster, DNS, LDAP, SNMP, TACACS, SAN/NAS, Git, cfengine, Solaris Zones, SPARC M3000 and M5000

Jan 2004 - Oct 2008

4 years 10 months

Karlsruhe, Germany

Senior Solaris Administrator

WEB.DE / 1&1 Internet AG

Sole technical responsibility for the business-critical Solaris systems of United Internet AG (parent of 1&1 Internet AG, GMX, WEB.DE, United Internet Media) and the advertising and profiling infrastructure, engineering and operating thousands of Apache web server farms
Consolidated the advertising systems of all subsidiaries under United Internet Media AG
Migrated WEB.DE’s data center into 1&1’s after the acquisition
Operated 45,000 physical servers for 1&1 and WEB.DE under Linux and Solaris 10
Introduced geographic redundancy for critical database backends with Sun Cluster 3.2
Modernized and migrated Sybase databases to a scalable x86 platform under Solaris 10
Implemented and operated WEB.DE homepages, portal servers, and SSL offloaders (Apache, CORBA, SUSE Enterprise Linux), about 1500 physical servers handling around 1 billion page impressions per month
Served as deputy IT portal team lead
Technologies used: SUSE Enterprise Linux 7–9, Debian Linux, Solaris 10, Sun SPARC and x64 hardware, Sybase, Apache 1.3 and 2.x, SSL, Oracle Database 8 and 9, Nagios, Solaris Cluster 3.2, J2EE Directory Server 5

Oct 2002 - Dec 2003

1 year 3 months

Karlsruhe, Germany

System Administrator, Freelancer

Diverse Auftraggeber

Project work for various clients in system administration and LAN setup
Technologies used: Debian Linux, SUSE Linux, Solaris 8, Windows 2000 Server, DNS, Apache 1.3, SSL

Sep 2001 - Sep 2002

1 year 1 month

Ettlingen, Germany

UNIX System Administrator

iXpoint GmbH

Worked in the system administration department of the IT service provider
Set up and maintained Solaris servers for business clients, including Condor / Thomas Cook, Birkel, Deutsche Flugsicherung
Built complex mail servers
Administered firewall systems
Technologies used: Solaris 8, Exim 4, Apache 1.3, Check Point Firewall 4.1 & NG

Jan 2000 - Aug 2001

1 year 8 months

Karlsruhe, Germany

System Administrator

Concept! Technology GmbH

Built and managed heterogeneous server farms
Technologies used: SUSE Linux 7.0, Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Solaris 8, sendmail

Summary

I am a cloud architect and infrastructure automation specialist with over 25 years of experience in system engineering and IT operations.

My focus is on integrating and migrating complex cloud environments (OCI, AWS) and developing scalable automation solutions with the HashiCorp toolset (Terraform, Vault, Consul, Nomad, Packer) and the Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform.

I help companies transition from traditional IT infrastructures to dynamic, agile cloud architectures and modernize internal workflows.

In addition to technical expertise, I bring many years of experience leading critical transformation projects in regulated and high-security environments.