Different systems.
Same mindset.

Alan - I wanted to formally thank you for your exceptional work on the recent [major financial client] AWS migration and Imperva WAF setup.

I recognize that the timelines for this project were incredibly tight and the routing complexities were significant. Your expertise in configuring traffic routing and securing the environment with Imperva was critical to our success. Additionally, your support in assisting [our Development team] with troubleshooting other technical-related questions was greatly appreciated.

Thanks to your efforts, we were able to go live smoothly without any major disruptions. I sincerely appreciate your dedication, technical leadership, and commitment throughout this project. It was a pleasure working with you.

We will continue monitoring the production ramp-up, but I wanted to share this note of appreciation now in recognition of everything you have done to support our team.

Alan [and colleague Dan K.] have been a huge help with the research and testing of High Availability options for our ProFTPD services. They both helped tremendously with the A10 DSR (direct server return) implementation, provided valuable troubleshooting during testing, shared FTP/SFTP input, offered helpful A10 [load balancing] details, and supported planning for potential rollout. Awesome collaboration!

Without your exceptional dedication and technical leadership, it would have been impossible to succeed for and with a new client on a particularly difficult and contentious S3 setup involving a self-describing, schema-embedded parquet process. With an urgent timeline, we needed IT intervention to configure S3 with role-based authentication for client file pickup of ~383MM records, despite known large-file transfer limitations on our side. Working across time zones through email and multiple Teams calls, we resolved bucket policy and IAM access, navigated numerous permissions issues, successfully delivered test files, and ultimately posted hundreds of production parquet files. Thank you for learning new things and helping us all succeed for the client.

I would like to recognize Alan Cook for his exceptional technical expertise and the trust he consistently inspires among his stakeholders. Alan’s deep knowledge and clear communication have been key in addressing a wide range of unique challenges.

Thank you from the [product] team for helping get our private API gateway settled so that the security team could do their scans and we can move forward with [the client].

Thanks to [colleague Skyler T.] and Alan for lots of effort to identify and resolve issues with our [product] Hadoop cluster. With no changes to configuration or processes, users noticed jobs taking 3-4 times as long as usual, which was endangering numerous product delivery SLAs. The initial answer we received from several individuals was “nothing has changed on the system; you must have changed something in your builds.” Alan and Skyler put in multiple 50–60-hour weeks, which included at least one day that ran until after midnight. They were able to identify a Java package that was installed incorrectly on the system, and they helped isolate and identify network issues that were significantly degrading cluster performance. As a result, cluster performance returned to normal (or even improved) and all product builds were able to be completed in a timely manner.

Late Thursday we found out about a network change planned for the weekend. Within minutes, Alan analyzed the network set-up of 30 different servers, found several with issues, opened Incident tickets to correct the problems, and started an escalation Slack channel to get quick attention to address the concerns. Alan not only reacts quickly and with a high skillset, but he produces meaningful, lasting results. We'd be lost without him!

Big shoutout to Alan [and colleagues Lewis B., Phillip A., and Timothy T.] for their work on two time-critical server and SAS migrations. Thank you for all the support, coordination, and work put in to make the migrations a success despite all the bumps along the road. This outcome has helped preserve revenue and the teams' capabilities. Great job and big thank you!

I want to express my appreciation for your efforts on the SAS upgrade required to migrate the Data Science server to a compliant solution. This was a complex and challenging upgrade that you handled with professionalism, dedication, and skill. Thank you!

Thank you from the [product] team for getting our physical servers re-imaged and moved over to the new [production] ControlPoint. Also, thank you for proactively working to make sure client connectivity to the new [production and failover] ProFTPD services is working.

Alan jumped on a potential production issue for us in minutes despite being a very busy person. He quickly researched the issue and got me a solution in minutes. Alan is always there when we need him and does an awesome job. Thanks Alan!

Thank you to Alan from the [product] team. Alan is working on a whole different level to help ensure we are able to migrate to [a compliant OS and software stack]. We absolutely would not be able to do this without his support.

Alan is so great to work with! He's always very accommodating and extremely helpful! He sets a high standard when it comes to inter-team collaboration!

Alan is always so quick to help out when I've reached out to him. He's really good at understanding the problem (This time it was for a configuration in an A10 load balancer) and finding the most direct route to a solution. Thanks Alan!

Alan has consistently demonstrated his exceptional commitment to assisting all the DaaS teams. Most notably, he recently went above and beyond to help resolve a firewall rule issue for the [product] team that had been attempted three nights prior without a satisfactory resolution. His willingness to invest time and effort into this matter not only saved valuable resources but also showcased his unwavering support for the team's success. We are truly fortunate and thankful for his leadership within IT.

Thank you Alan Cook for always being there to help the [product] team sort out issues with our environments and representing us with IT.

Thanks for helping me get firewall rules reviewed. And you did it while on FTO! That's going the extra mile!

Thank you from the [product] team for resolving issues with A10 configurations for [client] BCDR testing.

Alan is always jumping in to help out when issues pop up for our [batch processing Hadoop service] (and any other product for that matter). He is one of the most reliable people at [the company] for solving problems and propelling priority items forward. Specifically, I want to call out that he has helped us tremendously in our "get to green" [compliance] effort for [our batch processing Hadoop service] and without him, we would likely still just be getting started rather than almost finished. Thank you very much for all you do for the team and DaaS as a whole!

From the [product] team: [colleague Danie W. for fixing LDAP UIDs, Kim G. for configuring storage], and Alan Cook for being our technical liaison for [client] BCDR setup and testing.

Thank you so much for being my IT Architecture sinsei! I appreciate your patience and efforts to train me over the past half-year, and I look forward to continuing it. [The company] is fortunate to have you!

Thank you for your contributions on the [product] web farm. Alan came back from pdo and had us a replacement for prod db in no time in addition to troubleshooting some host issues. He always helps without question and is an absolute wizard. We really appreciate the Architecture guidance and support you provided during the project.

Thank you for your contributions on the [product] web farm migration project. We really appreciate the Architecture guidance and support you provided during the project.

Hi all, it is my pleasure to announce the promotion of Alan Cook to Senior IT Integration Architect (Expert on job level).

Alan has been the lynchpin in our engagement with [the line of business], providing his expert-level leadership in numerous initiatives. In the past year, his exemplary guidance in ensuring the successful migration of [our batch processing Hadoop service into our private cloud] and the sunset of [location] data center has especially garnered much positive feedback and accolades. All that comes on top of his tireless engagement and support, resulting in the ongoing smooth operation of some of [the company's] most critical solutions.

I’m not kidding when I say that I have not seen the type of fanatical advocacy from Alan’s business partners before. You know you are doing something right when the people you support are vested to ensure your continued success in your career. Please join me in congratulating Alan on his promotion, Well deserved!

Joe T. Senior Director, Technology

----- Congratulations Alan, well deserved! You continue to make impact for your business partners and [the company].

Thank you!

Hi Joe, I think you’ve heard us rave about Alan before, but it’s been a little while, and we haven’t had the pleasure to re-engage with him until recently. And just within the last week or so, he’s helped the client team identify what they need to hit [our API], has helped identify a firewall issue between our [API and Hadoop] services, and just now is helping us navigate a client-facing security certificate we just discovered expired.

And in all three instances, Alan responds almost immediately, troubleshoots ultra efficiently to identify issues quickly, and continually offers assistance in opening tickets correctly, and is just a great pleasure to work with, making every difficult networking or infrastructure issue almost a breeze. He’s done this ever since I’ve known him, like 5-8 years probably, maybe longer. But yeah, can never say enough about Mr. Cook, and can’t really put into words the type of difference he makes here at [the company].

Give that man a promotion!

Thanks again, Alan!!! Josh C. Senior Manager Engineering

----- Agree Josh… thanks much Alan! He also recently helped us work through a white list issue from one of our zones to [a 3rd-party service] and address a vRA “list networks” API authorization issue.

Thanks, Lee M. Senior Manager Engineering

----- Couldn’t agree more with this, thank Alan for always jumping in and making things happen the right way.

As an IT Architect, Alan has a deep rooted knowledge base in everything he works, as is to be expected. However, above and beyond, has driven multiple projects to success and put a few back on track that were destined for failure. Alan is absolutely instrumental and KEY to the success of each work function that he is assigned. Be it working all hours of the evening to find a solution, or simply guiding the project manager and other associates to the best practice solution, Alan is always there to help. Thank you Alan!!

Thank you for your leadership, Alan, as we built out and migrated to our new internal email relay system! Your persistence and ability to help us pull together the right people to keep the project moving forward were critical to our success.

Hi Joe, I have to give huge kudos’s and call out Alan Cook.

My team, from engineering, has been involved in an incident/warroom trying to track down an issue with slow performance in [multiple environments/lifecycles] for over a week. We were not making much progress getting this resolved, and even though Alan was not necessarily the point person, he pinged me on Slack on Wednesday asking if the problem had been resolved. When I responded no, Alan’s response was “are you on the warroom? How can I help?”

Alan got down into the details. He started at the VM’s and worked his way up the stack evaluating the VM’s, where they reside, were they on the same [Cisco UCS] chassis, what might be crossing the network, etc. By moving up the stack and trying test jobs, Alan, along with [colleague Ramon C.], was able to determine it was the firewall. This issue got resolved last night with a firewall failover. This will allow for replacement of bad hardware on the troublesome firewall.

Without Alan’s engagement, him taking ownership, getting down into the details, and digging, I think this issue would still be unresolved.

The above is just one example of Alan always going above and beyond. Alan takes ownership and his knowledge and ability are off the chart!

I have worked with Alan for many years and if I need to get something done or need results with an issue, Alan is the key resource I always go to. His attitude is always “how can I help”, “let me do that”, “you need me to take that…”.

Alan can make things happen in a short amount of time that without his engagement would be caught in churn.

Alan Cook is a tremendous asset for our company and always a pleasure to work with.

Thanks,

Alan, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you not only for your great work with the NGN migration but also for your invaluable help a couple of days ago with [our product] Production issue.

I came to you when it was already off hours and I was trying for two hours to reach either the SREs or [product] support team after I started to receive messages from the clients and client representatives that [the product] couldn’t be accessed. I came to you for any advice on who I could try to reach out to for help. Not only did you answer right away, you gave me advice on who to contact. You also started to research what was happening with [the product]. While [the incident response] team was trying to locate SREs, you found the issue, applied a workaround, and you also documented your recommendations for the SREs as to how to resolve the issue. You made [the product] accessible again!

I often hear people praising someone for just doing their job. I almost never do this, taking for granted when someone is doing their job, even though I shouldn’t. However, when someone does something so above and beyond like you did with [the product] issue (this, for a long time now, is no longer the product you are working with and this is no longer in any way connected to your current role), I just cannot stop expressing my gratitude. I know that I told you “thank you” multiple times already, but I still had to write this.

So, on behalf of [the product team] and its clients, we sincerely appreciate your outstanding work.

If you ever need any help from me, please do not hesitate to let me know and I will do my best to provide the same level of effort as you did for [the product] today.

Thank you for your significant contribution to our Products’ success!

Svitlana M. Product Manager

----- Svitlana - Thank you very much for sending this. It is great to get feedback like this - especially when it is so good!!!

Alan – great job!!!!!

Teresa, As you know Alan constantly knocks it out of the park and again this is a good example.

We have been fighting metering issues for months and have continued to work to harden the platform. This particular change was brought about on Friday afternoon. Once again Alan raised his hand, changed personal plans he had for the weekend, and managed this change all day Sunday.

I can’t tell you how much WE appreciate Alan Cook!! He takes pride and ownership in everything he does and always with a great attitude.

I can assure you, my comfort level goes up 10-fold when Alan is involved with our products!

Mark F. Senior Manager Engineering

----- Thanks for the Praise and Recognition for Alan. I am very glad that he is on my team. He is a rock-star for sure.

Thanks,

Hi Alan, I wanted to say a HUGE thanks on what you did for [our client]! Our implementation team had never had to drive an environment setup before and was a little lost with [our teammate] being out, who usually helps do these things. You stepped up on a moment's notice to help set the direction of what we needed and did your own tasks flawlessly as usual. We couldn’t have done it without you and the leadership you provided, THANKS SO MUCH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sherry S. Expert Technical Project Manager

----- Alan – Outstanding! As always very helpful.

Sherry – thank you for taking the time to recognize his contribution & leadership.

Thanks,