Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Timeline
Generic

Vighnesh Chikkala

Dallas

Summary

Senior Azure Cloud DevOps Engineer with 5+ years of expertise in optimizing cloud solutions on Azure and AWS. Proven skills in deploying large-scale infrastructure, implementing CI/CD pipelines, and utilizing Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, and Ansible for automation. Strong scripting capabilities in Python and Shell. Extensive experience in DevSecOps, cloud migrations, and collaboration with cross-functional teams. Proficient in monitoring tools (Grafana, Prometheus, ELK, Splunk) for real-time analytics. Recognized for enhancing system performance and optimizing resource utilization.

Overview

6
6
years of professional experience

Work History

Cloud DevOps Engineer

Cognizant
Texas
04.2024 - Current
  • Led the migration of APIs from Azure API Management (APIM) to the client's internal federated APIM portal, leveraging Terraform to provision and deploy the data plane on the AKS cluster, ensuring seamless backend connectivity via Azure Gateway Service.
  • Developed Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) solutions using Terraform, automating API provisioning, backend integrations, and traffic routing, enhancing deployment efficiency and maintainability.
  • Optimized cloud resource utilization, reducing operational costs by 20% (~$100,000 annually) by eliminating redundant Azure APIM dependencies and leveraging the client’s internal API gateway for improved cost efficiency.
  • Implemented identity and access management using Azure Active Directory including integrating with on-prem AD for SSO, configuring conditional access policies for MFA, and using role-based access control to manage permissions to resources.
  • Collaborated with architects to design scalable and secure application architectures, documenting infrastructure components, cloud services, and integration patterns to align with best practices in Azure Well-Architected Framework.
  • Developed detailed Azure network topology diagrams using Draw.io, Miro, and Azure Architecture Center, visualizing VNET peering, private endpoints, firewalls, and traffic flow, enabling clear communication with product owners and executive stakeholders for informed decision-making.
  • Built and maintained CI/CD workflows using GitHub Actions, streamlining the continuous deployment process and optimizing application delivery timelines.
  • Designed and implemented high-availability cloud infrastructure solutions to host client applications, leveraging reusable Terraform modules to ensure consistency, scalability, and efficient provisioning across projects while maintaining robust system performance.
  • Worked on container snapshots, removing images, and managing Docker volumes. Orchestration of Docker images and Containers using Kubernetes by creating master and node.
  • Deployed and managed applications using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), ensuring stability, scalability, and efficient resource utilization.
  • Implemented Azure Defender scan in GitHub Actions pipelines to enhance code security by integrating automated vulnerability scanning. Configured policies to detect and block critical security issues before deployment, ensuring compliance with security best practices across all environments.
  • Developed custom CFTs and integrations with third-party tools, such as Ansible and Jenkins, to automate infrastructure provisioning and management, resulting in more efficient deployment processes and reduced downtime.
  • Enabled threat protection for Azure resources including DDoS protection, WAF, antivirus/antimalware extensions, vulnerability scanning, firewalls, and disk encryption.
  • Provisioned and optimized multiple Azure resources such as Azure Functions, Logic Apps, API Management, Front Door, and Application Gateway to enhance application connectivity, security, and performance.
  • Migrated all CI/CD pipelines from Jenkins to GitHub Actions, streamlining workflows and reducing deployment time by leveraging GitHub-hosted runners and built-in caching.
  • Enhanced security and maintainability by replacing Jenkins plugins with GitHub Actions' native integrations, improving pipeline reliability and scalability.
  • Simplified secrets management by transitioning from Jenkins credential storage to GitHub Secrets and Azure Key Vault, ensuring secure and centralized access.
  • Developed custom Dynatrace dashboards and automated alerts, enabling proactive detection of anomalies and performance issues across infrastructure and applications, reducing MTTR (Mean Time to Resolution).
  • Used Ansible and Ansible Tower as Configuration Management tool, to automate repetitive tasks, quickly deploy critical applications, and proactively manage change.
  • Designed and implemented custom Grafana dashboards integrated with Azure Monitor, Prometheus, and Cost Management APIs to track real-time cloud expenditures, optimize resource utilization, and provide actionable cost insights, leading to improved financial visibility and cost savings.
  • Collaborated closely with development leads and product owners to establish a streamlined ecosystem tailored to end-user satisfaction.
  • Proficient in writing and maintaining Python-based automated testing frameworks, such as Pytest and Unittest, to ensure code quality and reduce manual testing effort.
  • Created and maintained production deployment documentation and plans, facilitating seamless deployments with minimal disruptions.

Cloud Infrastructure Engineer

Verizon
North Carolina
12.2020 - 04.2024
  • Integrated Azure Repos, Azure Pipelines, and Azure Artifacts to streamline version control, continuous integration, and artifact management.
  • Led the successful implementation and customization of Azure DevOps for end-to-end CI/CD pipelines, resulting in a 30% reduction in deployment times.
  • Utilized YAML-based pipeline configuration within Azure Pipelines, practicing Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles for version-controlled and reproducible build and release workflows and Configured pipelines to trigger on code commits and pull requests.
  • Customized Kube-proxy configurations for load balancing and service discovery, optimizing network traffic distribution within the Kubernetes cluster.
  • Designed the infrastructure plan, including the number of nodes, node sizes, and networking configurations for the AKS cluster.
  • Integrated Istio with AKS workloads, establishing a robust service mesh infrastructure for complex, distributed applications.
  • Deployed and configured Azure AD Domain Services, providing domain-joined capabilities to Azure VMs and enabled traditional Active Directory functionalities in cloud-only or hybrid scenarios.
  • Integrated Azure AD for centralized identity and access management, enabling seamless single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication.
  • Integrated PIM with RBAC to manage just-in-time role activations, enforcing the principle of least privilege by allowing users to activate roles only when needed.
  • Worked on implementation of DevSecOps practices by integrating security into CI/CD pipelines, automating security scans, vulnerability assessments, and compliance checks.
  • Developed custom Grafana dashboards tailored for Azure DevOps pipelines, providing real-time insights into deployment stages, success rates, and potential bottlenecks.
  • Implemented Azure Security Center to enhance overall security posture by establishing security policies, threat detection, and incident response plans for proactive security measures.
  • Integrated Azure Artifacts with JFrog Artifactory for universal artifact management.
  • Implemented Azure Cosmos DB for globally distributed, multi-model databases, ensuring low-latency data access and Optimized Azure SQL Database configurations for relational workloads.
  • Integrated Azure Cognitive Services for advanced functionalities such as image recognition, natural language processing, and sentiment analysis.
  • Configured Azure Load Balancer for distributing incoming application traffic across multiple VM’s, ensuring high availability and fault tolerance.
  • Leveraged Azure Managed Identities for Azure DevOps pipelines to establish a secure and seamless authentication mechanism with Azure Key Vault. Eliminated the need for explicit credentials or service connections, enhancing automation and security.
  • Enhanced security by tailoring NSG rules to restrict access to essential ports, including customization for HTTP, HTTPS, SSH, and RDP to align seamlessly with application requirements, thereby improving network defense through precise traffic control.
  • Implemented incremental data loading strategies within Azure Data Factory to efficiently process only the changed or new data.
  • Orchestrated the creation of a multi-tier application in the cloud, utilizing Terraform to define and manage infrastructure resources, ensuring consistency across development, staging, and production environments.
  • Collaborated with DevOps to define and provision Azure Function Apps, incorporating serverless computing capabilities into applications.
  • Enforce security best practices within AKS and Istio, including mutual TLS (mTLS) for service communication and role-based access control (RBAC) for resource governance.
  • Handled the effective customization and deployment of Azure DevOps for end-to-end CI/CD pipelines, resulting in a 30% reduction in deployment times.
  • Created CI/CD pipelines for .Net, node.js, java applications in Azure DevOps pipelines by integrating source codes GitHub, VSTS and Artifacts.
  • Designed and implemented scalable Kubernetes clusters, considering factors like node auto-scaling, fault tolerance, and efficient resource utilization.
  • Extended the Kubernetes API server using custom resource definitions (CRDs) and controllers to manage complex application-specific resources.
  • Built a custom Operator for a Machine learning workload, automating the deployment, scaling, and maintenance of ML models in Kubernetes clusters.
  • Leveraged Docker for application packaging and Kubernetes for seamless orchestration and deployment by integrating in Azure DevOps pipelines.
  • Developed and implemented a comprehensive containerization strategy using Docker, enabling the seamless packaging and deployment of applications.
  • Configured Docker health checks and integrated monitoring tools to ensure the continuous availability and performance of containerized applications.
  • Created centralized monitoring dashboards using Azure Monitor, consolidating metrics, logs, and traces from Azure services into a unified view.
  • Developed Python scripts to analyze and optimize cloud resource usage, identifying and automating the decommissioning of underutilized or idle resources.
  • Developed Python scripts for automated configuration management, integrating with tools like Terragrunt to enforce consistent server configurations.
  • Configured branch policies in Azure Repos, enforcing code review requirements, build validations, and other quality checks before merging.

DevOps Engineer

Fidelity Investments
New Jersey
06.2019 - 11.2020
  • Designed, configured, and managed public/private cloud infrastructures utilizing Amazon Web Services (AWS), including EC2, Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Public and Private Subnets, Security Groups, Route Tables, Elastic Load Balancer, Cloud Watch and IAM.
  • Experience in managing and maintaining IAM policies for organizations in AWS to define groups, create Users, Assign Roles, and define rules for Role-Based Access to AWS Resources.
  • Troubleshooting and monitoring of various proprietary Axiom and 3rd party applications using Splunk and Cloud Watch in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment.
  • Leveraged Jenkins Pipeline DSL (Domain Specific Language) to define complex, parameterized, and reusable CI/CD workflows, providing a high level of flexibility and maintainability.
  • Designed AWS Cloud Formation templates to create custom sized VPC, Subnets, and NAT to ensure successful deployment of Web applications, database templates and expertise in architecting Secure VPC solutions in AWS with the help of Network ACLs, Security Groups, Public and Private Network configurations.
  • Using Terraform as a tool, Managed different infrastructure resources Cloud, VMware, Bare Metal servers and Docker containers. Also, configured RDS instance and map more complex dependencies and identify network issues using Cloud Formation (CFT) and terraform.
  • Implemented and maintained the configuration of EKS clusters, managing critical settings such as networking, IAM roles, and Kubernetes version compatibility.
  • Leveraged Chef's ability to dynamically configure attributes based on node-specific data, allowing for the adaptation of configurations to different instance types or roles within AWS.
  • Experience in building sophisticated and highly automated infrastructure using automation frameworks such as Cloud Formation, Terraform and Ops Works.
  • Designed and implemented serverless functions using Python with AWS Lambda, optimizing resource utilization, and reducing operational overhead.
  • Converted existing Terraform modules that had version conflicts to utilize Cloud formation during Terraform deployments to enable more control or missing capabilities.
  • Configured Jenkins as a common build engine to build and deploy applications to DEV, QA, UAT and PROD environment.
  • Executed seamless upgrades of Kubernetes clusters, ensuring compatibility with the latest Kubernetes releases, and taking advantage of new features and bug fixes.
  • Wrote Jenkins Shared Libraries for CI and CD life cycles and created generic pipelines across the cloud applications to automate application deployment as well infrastructure deployments and introduced various security compliance rules to validate the organization standards over the release workflows.
  • Integrated Shell scripts with AWS CLI profiles, allowing seamless authentication and authorization for AWS operations within the scripts.
  • Administrated Jenkins for continuous Integration and deployment into Tomcat/Web Sphere Application servers. Integrated builds with Code Quality like Cobertura, PMD and Find bugs.
  • Possessing strong knowledge in Ant and Maven build tools and implementing it with Jenkins, Anthill Pro.
  • Configured Chef to integrate with AWS CloudWatch for real-time monitoring and logging, allowing for comprehensive visibility into the performance and health of AWS resources.
  • Validated Kubernetes installations by building a local development workflow using Mini-kube and implementing Kubernetes interface by creating RESTful APIs to read, delete, save, and update bucket information on Kubernetes Console.

Education

Master of Science -

Pittsburg State University
Pittsburg, KS
05-2022

Skills

  • Cloud Technologies: AWS, Azure
  • Operating System: Linux, Windows, CentOS
  • Configuration Management Tools: Ansible, Terragrunt
  • Build Tools: ANT, Maven
  • CI/CD Tools: Azure DevOps, Jenkins, Git Labs
  • Version Control Tools: GIT, GITHUB, SVN, Git Lab
  • Containerization: Docker, Docker Swarm, Kubernetes
  • Monitoring Tools: Splunk, Cloud Watch, ELK, Grafana, Prometheus
  • Scripting: Python, Shell, Yaml
  • Database: MySQL, Mongo DB, Comos DB
  • Infrastructure as a Code: Terraform, ARM Template, Cloud Formation

Timeline

Cloud DevOps Engineer

Cognizant
04.2024 - Current

Cloud Infrastructure Engineer

Verizon
12.2020 - 04.2024

DevOps Engineer

Fidelity Investments
06.2019 - 11.2020

Master of Science -

Pittsburg State University

Similar Profiles

CREATE PROFILE
Vighnesh Chikkala