Infrastructure & systems administration

Brandon J. Acquaviva

Twenty-one years keeping other people's networks and servers running. Happiest near a server rack.... or Disneyland churro.

LinkedIn Résumé

bacquaviva@gmail.com

Brandon Acquaviva smiling, in front of a dark brick wall

A little about me

Origin

Over-the-top enterprise gear has always pulled me in. The family story says I took apart and reassembled the vacuum cleaner at age 3. Allegedly.

First job

My first real job was a summer helpdesk internship. My first assignment was upgrading the Vice President's workstation. The VP was my dad.

The Fiero

At 15 I got a "free" 1984 Pontiac Fiero that "only needed cam bearings." At 16 I had rebuilt the whole engine myself.

Troubleshooting

I would rather know why something broke than just make it work again. I like the slow part: narrowing it down, ruling things out, and fixing the cause so the same call does not come twice. That said, sometimes it really is as simple as a reboot. I just like to know why it needed one.

Illustrated tech support flow chart. Brandon sits at a desk beside a black and white cat named Miss Lippy, pointing at the answer every branch leads to: turn it off and back on again.
My official troubleshooting flow chart, with Miss Lippy supervising.

Servers & the home lab

Servers and enterprise gear are my favorite hobby as well as my job. The hardware built to run for years, with redundant everything and fans that sound like a small aircraft, is the hardware I like most. My home lab is where I try things out and keep learning.

Résumé

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IT infrastructure owner and technical operator with 21 years of experience running a service-based IT operation. Skilled in network and server infrastructure, PowerShell automation, proactive security response, and root-cause troubleshooting over surface-level fixes.

May 2005 – Present

Owner & IT Operator

TekEdge Consulting, Madera, CA

  • Independently own and operate an IT services business since May 2005, managing the full scope of service delivery, technical strategy, and operations.
  • Design and maintain network and server infrastructure across multi-site environments, including complete infrastructure overhauls, office relocations, and ongoing hardware lifecycle management.
  • Designed and deployed a large-scale wired/Wi-Fi network across a 10-acre campus, supporting residents, guests, administration, surveillance, VoIP, and connected building systems (time clocks, access control, solar monitoring).
  • Develop and refine PowerShell automation for remote monitoring and management platforms, identifying and fixing scripting issues, adapting existing tools to new problems, and maintaining a working script library for backup, monitoring, and patch management tasks.
  • Dig into root causes rather than settling for a fix that seems to work, even when the answer isn't obvious.
  • Respond to emerging security vulnerabilities with custom tooling, rolled out proactively across managed environments.
  • Administer Microsoft 365 and Exchange server environments.
  • Support DHS compliance requirements for a regulated client, including annual security posture reviews and maintaining authorized-user certification for controlled security information.
  • Hold regular meetings with ownership and management to align technology decisions and priorities with business needs.
  • Serve as the primary point of contact with vendors and ISPs, coordinating hardware/software procurement, new-service installations, connectivity troubleshooting, and third-party support escalations for business-critical line-of-business applications.
  • Develop technical proposals and cost assessments for infrastructure upgrades as client environments reach end-of-life.
March 2003 – April 2005

Systems Analyst (Part-Time)

Dowling, Aaron & Keeler, Fresno, CA

  • Handled internal IT help desk tickets for a law firm environment, primarily desktop support with light server and network administration.
March 2003 – April 2005

IT Subcontractor

BCT Consulting, Fresno, CA

  • Delivered break-fix IT support to small businesses and law firms as a subcontractor. This work was later formalized into TekEdge Consulting.

Technical skills

Virtualization
Hyper-V, Proxmox, VMware
Networking & Security
Ubiquiti/UniFi, pfSense, SonicWall, Untangle (Arista Edge Threat Management)
Linux
Light system administration: VM hosting (UniFi controller), LAMP stack, and underlying troubleshooting for Linux-based appliances (QNAP, Untangle)
Remote Monitoring & Management
RMM platform administration & scripting
Backup & Storage
3-2-1 backup strategy, offsite & air-gapped backups, cloud/NAS storage (AWS, Wasabi, QNAP, Synology, TrueNAS)
Microsoft Platforms
Windows Server (2003–current), Windows Desktop (XP–current), Exchange Server (2003–2016), Microsoft Office (2003–current)
AI-Assisted Workflows
Troubleshooting, script development, technical research, ROI/cost analysis

Education

December 2002

Certificate, Web Programming Specialist

Institute of Technology (IOT), Clovis, CA

Completed an eight-month vocational certificate with a 90% GPA. Served as peer mentor/tutor and managed network administration and troubleshooting for the program's server infrastructure (Windows Server, MS SQL, IIS) supporting the web development class.

Origin

Over-the-top enterprise computing gear has always captured me, much the way a high-end vehicle or a great set of tools does. I’ve been mechanically inclined as far back as the infamous family story of me taking apart and reassembling the vacuum cleaner at age 3. How much of that is true, I couldn’t tell you, but it can’t be far off. What I do remember is taking apart everything as a kid: VCRs, stereos, CRT TVs, the washer and dryer, dirt bikes, weed eaters, lawnmowers. If it had screws and I could find a driver that fit, nothing was off limits.

Illustration of a smiling toddler in a striped sweater kneeling on a bed, using a screwdriver to take apart a toy vacuum cleaner, with its parts and a toy drill scattered on the quilt.
Brandon, already voiding warranties at three years old

First job

My first real job was a summer internship in the IT/helpdesk department of a software development company, the same one where my dad worked. Almost everyone had state-of-the-art gear at their desk: two to five workstations, multiple ~75 lb 21" Sony CRT monitors, KVM switches, the works. What kind of "helpdesk" tasks could possibly be needed when every desk looked like mission control?


I’ll never forget my first assignment: some "mild" upgrades to the main workstation of the company’s Vice President. Who just so happened to be my dad, so it was a double whammy and a long ride home if I messed it up. The exact specs are long gone, but I remember a failing 15k RPM SCSI drive needed replacing and a second Intel Slot 1 CPU needed installing. Neither was intimidating on the hardware side. Getting Windows to recognize the second CPU was. The machine was running NT4 or Windows 2000, and either way the HAL had to be switched from the single-processor kernel to the multiprocessor one. I found the directions, followed them meticulously, and the system booted to that glorious blue screen reporting “2 System Processors.”


I already knew the building well, and how much computing equipment was packed into it. At one point they even ran an ISP (the screeching telephone kind) out of the basement, so the network was just as over the top: back when a single T1 line would have been mind-blowing, they used T1s for backup. The primary was a 45 Mbps T3.


Windows 2000 was just arriving that summer, and I typed that 25-character Pro product key so many times that I can still recite it today without a hiccup.

The Fiero

My first vehicle, at 15, was a “free” 1984 Pontiac Fiero. “All it needs is cam bearings,” I was told. Even if that was true, it was a huge job I had no business taking on. I learned as I went and improvised a lot. On a Fiero you lift the body off the engine cradle rather than pulling the engine out through the hood. I was working in the yard on a patch of dirt with no lift, so I dismantled the engine bay piece by piece, down to parts small enough to come out through the hood (or the rear hatch, on a Fiero). Along the way I got intimately familiar with the whole engine and compartment.


Peeling back that onion, I kept finding more that needed fixing, until it was the entire engine. So at 16, I rebuilt it myself, hunting down parts with the phone book and 26.4 kbps dial-up. “Cam bearings” turned into a full engine rebuild, radiator, wheel bearings, brakes and tires on all four corners, an in-tank fuel pump, and a spliced-in wiring harness from the center console back (thanks to the post-rebuild engine fire 👀). After a long game of Whac-A-Mole, I got rid of it a year later. It had emotionally broken me and I couldn’t trust it, even though it was in the best shape it had been in for probably ten years.


On the plus side, I've ALWAYS had a fire extinguisher in every vehicle I've owned since the Fiero.


PSA - everyone driving, should have an operational and easily accessible fire extinguisher in their vehicle at all times!

Illustration of a silver Pontiac Fiero leaking green coolant onto the pavement with its engine bay on fire, while a young man holds his head in panic.
Brandon, learning at seventeen that nothing in life is “free”