James is available for hire
Hire JamesJames Kyle West
Verified Expert in Engineering
Cloud Architect and Developer
Centennial, United States
Toptal member since August 21, 2026
Bio
James is a cloud architect and Linux and IBM AIX administrator with more than 15 years of experience in automation and security. His expertise spans AWS, OCI, and Red Hat for technology and cloud infrastructure clients. At Denovo Ventures, James designed and implemented a KVM-based cloud hypervisor that handled over 25% of Intel workloads.
Portfolio
Independent Contractor
Ollama, OpenShift
Denovo Ventures
Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager (OLVM), KVM, Quick EMUlator (QEMU), VMware...
Denovo Ventures
Bash, Linux, AIX
Experience
- Linux - 20 years
- Bash - 20 years
- AIX - 15 years
- Security - 10 years
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 6 years
- Oracle Cloud - 6 years
- ITIL 4 - 5 years
- Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager (OLVM) - 3 years
Preferred Environment
AWS IoT, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), VMware, OpenShift, KVM, Linux, AIX, Bash
The most amazing...
...cloud migration project I've led involved designing a KVM-based hypervisor from scratch, successfully moving over 25% of Intel workloads.
Work Experience
Cloud Architect
2025 - PRESENT
Independent Contractor
- Implemented the Ollama LLM for a local business and and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) AI LLM demo for performance comparisons.
- Created and owned AWS accounts for local businesses to host their website, including content creation.
- Provided a strategic demo of Red Hat OpenShift (Kubernetes variant) for a company trying to lower costs.
Technologies: Ollama, OpenShift
Senior Cloud Architect
2022 - 2025
Denovo Ventures
- Designed and deployed a local cloud, KVM-based hypervisor OLVM, including racking and cabling hardware at two data centers, installing and configuring the hypervisor, and overseeing multiple migrations to the new hypervisor from legacy QEMU.
- Oversaw a successful deployment that absorbed over 25% of Intel's workload, with additional workloads planned.
- Served on the change advisory board, participated in the incident manager on-call rotation, and provided 3rd-level on-call support for OLVM.
- Discovered and implemented multiple security improvements in Oracle Cloud and AWS, including implementing SSO and MFA, vulnerability scanning, and log aggregation to SIEM.
- Identified and decommissioned unused servers, strengthening security and delivering approximately $80,000 in monthly cost savings.
- Initiated a Red Hat OpenShift implementation to containerize WebLogic servers before the project was canceled by management.
Technologies: Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager (OLVM), KVM, Quick EMUlator (QEMU), VMware, Nutanix, Oracle Cloud, AWS IoT, Single Sign-on (SSO), Multi-factor Authentication (MFA), SIEM, OpenShift, ITIL 4
Cloud and Unix Infrastructure Team Lead
2020 - 2022
Denovo Ventures
- Wrote multiple Bash scripts for automation, including a patching script to offload patching to an operations team.
- Deployed SIEM software on all systems after a zero-day security vulnerability was published.
- Managed work and ticket distribution among team members and coordinated on-call rotation.
- Served as the primary point of escalation for all *nix issues.
- Coordinated daily with the leadership team to align on priorities.
Technologies: Bash, Linux, AIX
Unix Administrator II
2019 - 2020
Denovo Ventures
- Served as primary Unix OS support for multiple large-scale JDE and SAP implementations on various Linux and AIX versions across the globe.
- Provided NetApp and VIOS support across these environments.
- Wrote and improved many bash scripts, streamlining automation and the ability to hand tasks over to less experienced team members.
Technologies: Bash, Linux, AIX
Application Deployment Specialist and L2 Support
2015 - 2019
IBM
- Served as the primary owner of application IDs used internally by the application for USA-restricted accounts, including provisioning IDs, maintaining audit trails, and ownership of passwords and ongoing security.
- Acted as the primary Linux and scripting SME for the international application team, automating software deployment and upgrades as well as health-checking and automatic problem resolution.
- Managed a full test lab spanning diverse hardware and operating systems, maintaining security through external controls despite retaining deprecated OS versions for testing purposes.
Technologies: IT Security, AIX, KSH, Automation
Account System Administrator and Security Focal
2010 - 2015
IBM
- Supported the infrastructure for SEA, an internal product serving 250 customers and more than 100,000 endpoint servers. Owned the full test environment, spanning Red Hat, SUSE Linux, AIX, VMware, and multiple Windows versions.
- Built Intel machines from stock parts, installed operating systems and other software, set up repositories and other support.
- Served as the security focal point for approximately 60 AIX servers, owning vulnerability patching, health checks, and corporate security policy compliance, with turnaround times for some requirements measured in hours.
- Acted as the primary customer contact and focal point for customers with ITAR or HIPAA requirements.
- Enforced identity approval and provisioning procedures, implemented separation of duties, and established safeguards to restrict access to designated customers to U.S. persons.
Technologies: AIX, VMware, Windows, IT Security, KSH
AIX Architect and Security Focal
2004 - 2010
IBM
- Worked with out-of-profile customers to understand and document risks when 100% security compliance was not possible, enabling customers to know risks while protecting the company from liability exposures.
- Supported Red Hat 2.1 and 3-based web proxies, which included periodic C coding and compiling of the Linux kernel for NIC compatibility with proxy software.
- Participated in the primary on-call rotation supporting approximately 500 AIX servers.
Technologies: AIX, KSH, IT Security, Linux, Linux Kernel
AIX Trainer
2009 - 2009
IBM India
- Provided training on technical subjects such as AIX, VIOS, LPAR/DLPAR management, PowerHA/HACMP, NFS, NIM, KSH shell scripting, and security compliance.
- Spent time on-site at IBM India to provide training and observe soft skills.
- Continued serving as an AIX architect and security focal point, collaborating with U.S. counterparts throughout the project.
Technologies: AIX, NFS, KSH, IBM PowerHA SystemMirror, Automation
Experience
Migration from VMWare/QEMU to OLVM
I set up a fully realized virtualization platform, OLVM, to lower the VMWare footprint. I drove the project from racking and cabling hardware to migrating a large number of VMs, eventually resulting in approximately 25% of the entire Intel footprint running on OLVM. I was also involved in decommissioning and removing deprecated hardware, resulting in significant data center cost savings.
AWS EC2 Savings Project
Previous admins had created several EC2 servers across multiple AWS accounts that were no longer in use or being patched. I tracked down a new logical owner for each system to determine if there was still a need for them, patching them if yes, powering them off if not. Shutting down a large number of EC2 instances saved the company approximately $80,000 per month and drastically improved our security posture.
OpenShift Pilot Project
An inspection of our servers showed that about 80% were web servers running on overprovisioned VMs. I created a pilot project to move these to Kubernetes containers and had a proof of concept running. This project was about to be implemented on test environments, but was shut down at this time due to a shift in management.
Education
1997 - 2007
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
University of Colorado - Denver, CO, USA
Certifications
DECEMBER 2025 - DECEMBER 2028
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
Amazon Web Services
JULY 2024 - JULY 2026
Oracle Generative AI Professional, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) LLMs
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)
AUGUST 2023 - AUGUST 2025
OCI Cloud Architect Associate 2023
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)
NOVEMBER 2021 - PRESENT
ITILv4 Foundation, IT Service Management
IT Service Management
SEPTEMBER 2019 - SEPTEMBER 2022
RHCSA, Red Hat Certified System Administrator for RHEL7
Red Hat
MAY 2015 - APRIL 2027
CISSP, ISC2 Certified Information Systems Security Professional
ISC2
Skills
Tools
VMware, IBM PowerHA SystemMirror
Languages
Bash, KSH, Python
Paradigms
Automation
Platforms
Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager (OLVM), Linux, AWS IoT, AIX, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Ollama, KVM, Quick EMUlator (QEMU), OpenShift, Windows, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), Oracle Linux, CentOS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Amazon EC2, Red Hat OpenShift
Storage
Oracle Cloud, NetApp
Other
Security, Multi-factor Authentication (MFA), Scripting, ITIL 4, Nutanix, Single Sign-on (SSO), SIEM, NFS, Large Language Models (LLMs), JDE, Software, System Administration, IT Security, Linux Kernel, Networking, Cloud, Hardware, Data Center Migration, Decommissioning, Containers
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