Core IT Modernization – C&A Mexico (Alestra)

As a Technical Account Manager (TAM) at Alestra, I was responsible for the modernization and operation of C&A Mexico’s Core IT, aligning the technology infrastructure with the demands of a global retail company undergoing digital transformation.

I oversaw an ecosystem of 15 service towers (SOC, NOC, cybersecurity, databases, hybrid cloud, and backups), ensuring 99.99% availability of critical systems (Oracle ERP, eCommerce, and retail operations).

My mission was to integrate a hybrid ITIL v4 + Scrum model that enabled resilient, scalable, and secure operations, while leading war rooms for P1 incidents, complex technology migrations, and capacity planning strategies for key retail seasons such as Buen Fin and Christmas.

🎯 Key Responsibilities

Full management of critical infrastructure, ensuring business continuity with 99.99% uptime.

Implementation of Scrum + ITIL v4 in operational management and continuous improvement.

Leadership in war rooms for critical incidents and execution of formal RCA.

Coordination of SOC, NOC, and cross-functional teams under a proactive response model.

Reduced NOC alert noise by 78% through tuning and automation.

Annual planning for maintenance, redundancy, and technology refresh.

Executive communication with C-Level stakeholders for strategic decision-making.

🏗️ Technical Architecture

Cybersecurity: Palo Alto Firewalls, SIEM (Splunk/QRadar), UEBA, MITRE ATT&CK playbooks in Cortex XSOAR.

SOC: 24/7 operations with automated response and advanced threat analysis.

NOC: Backbone monitoring (Cisco ACI/SD-WAN), NetFlow, SNMP traps, and packet drop troubleshooting.

Databases: SQL Server 2016/2019 and Oracle 19c/Exadata with advanced performance tuning.

Infrastructure X86/RISC: HPE/Dell clusters with VMware ESXi, IBM Power AIX, Oracle SPARC.

Hybrid Cloud: Azure (AKS, Arc, Policy) + OCI (Autonomous DB, RMAN, VCN).

Nutanix AHV: Live snapshots and automatic load balancing.

Backup & Recovery: Veeam v11 with Instant Recovery and AES-256 encryption.

Monitoring: Dynatrace, Prometheus, ELK, Wireshark traffic analysis.

⚙️ Management Model

ITIL v4 + Scrum hybrid → 2-week sprints aligned to technical backlog.

Major Incident Management with RCA and post-mortems as standard practice.

Proactive capacity planning for retail demand peaks.

Critical SLA management in executive dashboards with Power BI + ServiceNow.

Change management calendarized, minimizing production environment risks.

📊 OKRs & Metrics

KR1: Reduced recurrent incidents in SAP MM → achieved via stored procedure tuning.

KR2: Optimized P1 incident response times by 50% → achieved (4h → 55 min).

Quantifiable Results:

99.99% availability in critical environments for 3 consecutive years.

78% reduction in irrelevant alerts (18,000 → 3,950/month).

MTTR for critical incidents reduced by 77% (4h → 55 min).

🛠️ Key Technologies

Hybrid Cloud: Nutanix AHV, VMware, Azure Arc, OCI.

Cybersecurity: Palo Alto Prisma Cloud, Qualys VMDR, MITRE ATT&CK.

Monitoring & AIOps: Dynatrace Davis AI, Logz.io, Prometheus, Grafana.

Automation: Terraform, Ansible, ServiceNow.

Backup & Recovery: Veeam v11, Thales HSM, AES-256.

Databases: Oracle 19c/Exadata, SQL Server 2019.

🏆 Achievements

✔ Migrated VMware to Nutanix in 3 months → $72K USD annual savings, downtime <5 min.
✔ Reduced ERP Oracle RTO from 12h to 45 min using Veeam + Azure.
✔ Sustained 99.99% uptime in ERP and eCommerce systems.
✔ Achieved $1.8M MXN savings in licenses and resource optimization.
✔ Recognition: Alestra Operational Excellence Award 2023 for scalable Hot Sale design.