ACS RPL Sample

ACS RECOGNITION OF PRIOR LEARNING (RPL) FORM – 2019

This document is required to be completed for all Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) applications and uploaded as a PDF to the application form.

IMPORTANT NOTICE:
Misleading and false information is viewed as a major breach of ethical behaviour and will seriously jeopardise your migration prospects.

It is your responsibility to indicate when you have drawn on the work of others. Other people’s original ideas and methods should be clearly distinguished, and other people’s words, illustrations and diagrams should be clearly indicated regardless of whether they are copied exactly, paraphrased, or adapted.

Failure to acknowledge your source by clear citation and referencing constitutes plagiarism. All plagiarism will be assessed as not suitable and reported to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.

The ACS reserves the right to use software applications to screen your submitted work for matches either to published sources or to other submitted applications. In some cases, you may be asked to submit project reports and other written work submitted with the application for screening by plagiarism detection services.

If at any stage in the assessment process plagiarism is detected, the information may be provided to other Australian Government agencies. The assessment will be terminated and the outcome recorded as unsuitable. A refund of the application fee cannot be provided for cases assessed as containing false information or plagiarism.

Please complete the following 2 sections:
1. The Key Areas of Knowledge – Section 1
2. The Project Report Forms – Section 2

RPL applications are for those applicants who do not hold a recognised tertiary ICT qualification and who have a minimum of 6 years of closely related experience.

This document provides the opportunity for applicants to demonstrate the knowledge learnt throughout their professional experience.

Applicant Name Praveen Choudary Kolli
Applicant Email Address
Applicant Date of Birth 17.04.1985

SECTION 1 – KEY AREAS OF KNOWLEDGE

Section 1 is based and will be assessed on the following document. Please ensure you read and understand – The ACS Core Body of Knowledge for ICT Professionals (CBOK).

You must clearly explain how your experience and qualifications meet the selected Areas of Knowledge and specifically how and where you acquired the knowledge.

You are required to select one topic from the Essential Core ICT Knowledge (Topic 1 or Topic 2) and one topic from the General ICT Knowledge (Topic 3, Topic 4 or Topic 5).

Please ensure you address at least 2 subtopics from each of the topics chosen.

The ICT Key Areas of Knowledge:

Essential Core ICT Knowledge

Topic 1. ICT Professional Knowledge
Sub Topics are –
a. Ethics
b. Professional Expectations
c. Teamwork Concepts and Issues
d. Communication
e. Societal Issues

Topic 2. ICT Problem Solving
Sub Topics are –
a. Modelling Methods
b. Processes to understand problems
c. Methods and tools for handling abstraction
General ICT Knowledge
Topic 3. Technology Resources
Sub Topics are –
a. Hardware and Software Fundamentals
b. Data and Information Management
c. Data Communications and Networking

Topic 4. Technology Building
Sub Topics are –
a. Human Factors
b. Programming
c. Information Systems Development and Acquisition

Topic 5. ICT Management
Sub Topics are –
a. IT Governance and Organisational Issues
b. IT Project Management
c. ICT Service Management
d. Security Management

Important:
• Identify the Area of Knowledge topic that you have chosen to explain by entering the name of the Area of Knowledge topic in the box.
• Explain, in the expandable typing area, how you have acquired the knowledge and illustrate the depth of that knowledge.
• You should NOT address all sub topics included in the Area of Knowledge in your explanation. Address at least TWO of the sub topics. Enter the sub topic name(s) in the box.
• Be clear and concise in your explanation.
• Limit each explanation to no more than one to one and a half pages.

In the following expandable typing areas, explain how you have acquired your in-depth knowledge in these topic areas through your professional experience.

Essential Core ICT Area of Knowledge:
Essential Core Knowledge
• Ethics,
• Professional Expectation
• Teamwork Concept and Issues
• Communication
• Societal Issue.
How have you acquired this knowledge in your working environment? Illustrate your depth of knowledge.

a. Teamwork Concepts & Issues

The concept of group dynamics helped me to understand individual strength and weakness of group or team to whom I was associated while working on various projects. It referred me towards the attitude and behavior/character of group. Forming the functions of group was very essential for me in various projects to obtain proper structure and process within.

I also worked on the conflict management as it was the essential requirement for executing the project smoothly and without any hassle. I used the strong conflict management as the sources of organizational conflict which indicated an understanding of the source of a conflict and it improved the probability of effective conflict management. I figured out the main factors while working on the project which served as sources of conflict management are identified as
• Communicational,
• Structural roles where need to define roles dependency to be manage
• Personal conflicts need to be stemming from individual differences

I deployed the organized team for resolving the client issues as it was very important and also its social units divided into hierarchies and departments of individuals. At each organizational level, I figured out the conflict which was omnipresent. Conflict may be functional or dysfunctional consequences, it was essential for me to explore various methods and techniques of conflict management. I did comparisons, competition and conflicts between units and subunits present in organization. I utilized wide range of conflict management intervention to deal with conflict at various organizational levels. I developed diverse but appropriate strategies to resolve and manage conflicts as they arouse before escalating them to unmanageable level.

I always preferred to work in a team as the collective efforts for running the project successfully are usually required and it overall increases the chances of success. I while making teams made sure to fulfil the following criteria.
• Good team work with proactive good attitude and balance communication.
• Trust colleagues to deliver what they assign to
• communicate frequently without fail
• Good conflict resolution understanding
• Active listening with positive attitudes to support strongly

I enabled the dynamic effectiveness in teams where having competent team members and advice clear and elevating goal setting having unity in commitment also required setting standards of excellence with time to time external support provided.

I achieved tremendous psychological & professional need to fulfil the project needs as detachable external factors need to be compromise for effective outcome. I built a collaborative culture of openness, sharing and mentoring while working on various projects which also assisted me in achieving high standards of team success.

I implemented the group dynamics concepts which helped me to understand individual strength and weakness of respective group or team to accomplish a task. It referred with attitude and behavior/character of group. I formed the functions of group which was very essential to have proper structure and process within.

b. Communication

My certification on project management is very help full to understand on organizational task based communication. When we follow AGILE METHODOLOGY is very dynamic method of communicating of day to day progress of job/work.

Using every day scrum calls with team gave me updates on individual work status or any bottle necks in progress or any dependency.

Writing a user documents or user manuals or end user documents are one of essential action of organization which I followed apparently. It gave me customer information need to use of product or service. The aim was primarily teaching materials which included some technical explanation and user guide in detail. I used everyday terms in place of technical jargon.

I implemented and followed the decent organizational communication with employees who those were the most important stakeholders of the organization. I built relationship as these were the most important role of communications in an organization. It provided a strong basis in case of organization conflict or any crisis in deliver of org goes, good communication helped me in facing the changes in organization for growing results in positive. This raised my moral and I made significant contribution to strategic goals of the organization. If there was no communication in company, the company could result in bad outcomes.

I adopted horizontal communication between team and sub sequent departments where these were at same level, it enabled coordination and integration of day to day project activities of individuals. I included the communication factors like:
• Forms, like master data forms, change forms
• Performing duties
• Solving problems
• Exchanging ideas

I adopted diagonal communication which was in between cross org level departments where there was no direct relationship of org hierarchy. I implemented this communication type particularly for intercompany transaction or third party interfaces.

General ICT Area of Knowledge:
How have you acquired this knowledge in your working environment? Illustrate your depth of knowledge.

a. Project Management

I utilized the five categories of project management when working on different projects throughout my experiences which were:
1. Project Initiating
2. Project Planning
3. Project Executing
4. Project Monitoring and Controlling
5. Successful Closing

While working on the projects, there were many constraints which I faced and they have an impact on customer satisfaction. I was responsible for balancing all the constraints on the project to drive the highest levels of customer satisfaction. Different constraints may come into play at different times in the project, and I evaluated each of these constraints in terms of ultimate customer satisfaction and the needs of the project.

I also kept an eye on the project planning and team procurement which included developing human resource Plan which was the key process of every project initial process. I determined how a project is executed, monitored phases to phase and control point to pint, and close project utilizing project management techniques. I used the varied project management plan depending upon the application area and complexity of the project. I developed the plan through the series of the integrated processes along with the initialization till the project closure.

I made sure to consider the following aspects as shown in the table below while working as project manager:
• Identifying requirements
• Concerns
• expectations of the stakeholders as the project is planned and carried out
• Resources & Risk • Addressing the various needs
• Balancing the competing project constraints
• Scope & Quality
• Schedule & Budget

I made sure that all the constraints must had minimum effects on customer satisfaction. I was responsible for balancing all the constraints on the project to drive the highest levels of customer satisfaction. Different constraints came into play at different times in the project, and each of these constraints needed to be evaluated in terms of ultimate customer satisfaction and the needs of the project.

I worked on the project planning and team procurement and development of human resource plan which played the key role in every project initial process. With the project management plan, I determined how a project was executed, monitored phases to phases and controlled point to point, and closed the project. I also prepared the content of the project management plan which was dependent on the application area and complexity of the project. I developed the project management plan through a series of integrated processes until project closure.

I analyzed the enterprise environmental factors which played key role in influencing project plan. Those included industrial or local governance factors. I always reviewed the organization structure and culture, current standard local practices and personal administration like employee performance reviews, and training records.

I while managing the projects made sure to review the organizational process assets which have direct influence on planning in terms of work instructions, proposal evaluation criteria, and standardized guidelines. I adopted the project management plan template and its elements of the project management plan that may be updated as per guidelines and criteria for tailoring the organization’s set of standard processes. It helped me to satisfy the specific individual needs of the every project.

b. IT Governance

I followed the international standard of corporate governance IT which is ISO/IEC 38500:2015 which sets out principles, definitions and a high-level framework. It can be used with all types of organizations to better align their IT with organizational decisions for better growth.

In IT governance programs, I used ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) which is the most popular, COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology) and ISO 27002. Each has its own IT governance strengths, like COBIT focuses more on process management and ITIL on service management. I also benefited from it in terms of obtaining an integrated approach, using parts of several different frameworks and standards to deliver the results that the client need.
I followed the primary goals for IT governance in every of my project which were to:
• Assure that the use of information and technology generate business value,
• Oversee management’s performance and
• Mitigate the risks associated with using information and technology.

While adopting IT GRC, I ensured that:
• Activities and functions of IT organisation(s) support objectives investments were maximised.
• IT delivers envisioned benefits against the strategy, costs were optimised, and relevant best practice incorporated.
• The optimal investments were made in IT and critical IT resources were responsibly, effectively and efficiently managed and used.

One of the most important paths to success was with IT governance recommendation which included forming a risk management committee with top-level sponsorships and business representation and handle change management. I ensured it’s an effective program, it was needed to be supported by a broad set of line of business leaders. Also I recommended sharing results with the board or audit committee to “develop real attention when items began to get ignored.

I adopted the IT Governance in the organizations from which I was associated as there was no doubt that this trend continued. I obtained the concepts of IT Governance which need to be rethought and to be adapted to this new kind of every IT environment. Not only was it necessary for IT Utility to understand how the various disciplines of org and how the concepts of strategic alignment apply to an automated infrastructure. It was also necessary for the IT Governance frameworks to look ahead and understand the fundamental impact that IT Utility which entailed in the IT landscape.

I adopted the structural and moral behavior in the organization which was very important for good results as expected. I implemented decent IT governance which has huge advantages. It spanned the culture, good policy and practices like
Risk Management: I adopted the good processes that it ensured the risks which have been adequately managed. And I also Include risk assessment of IT investments where it improved Transparency and Accountability.
Performance Measurement: I rechecked the strategic compliance, also required achievement of strategic IT objectives. I frequently reviewed IT performance and the contribution of IT services to the business growth like Return on Investment/Stakeholder Value
Value Delivery: I designed the IT governance strategy to achieve maximum business value from its IT. Oversee the delivery of value by IT to the business, also assessed ROI and obtained the performance improvement.
To conclude, in every organization where I worked so far, I did not ignore the IT Service Management and IT Utility trying to bring about the new vision of a highly adaptive, on demand IT infrastructure. It brought the success for me in every project based on the alignment towards the business objectives along with the service oriented approach for the delivery and management of the IT resources.
SECTION 2 – RPL PROJECT REPORTS
A project report is a clear written description of a project or engagement that provides you with the opportunity to show how you perform as an ICT Professional.

Each report is to relate to a significant project or work episode undertaken by you during your professional ICT career.

The purpose of these reports is to enable you to demonstrate your command and implementation of the Areas of Knowledge described in Section 1 of this application.

Please Note: You are required to provide two project reports.

Of the two reports, one must apply to a project undertaken within the last three years, and the other for a project within the last five years.

Projects over two years long may be used for both reports under either of the following conditions:
• The project has clearly-defined work efforts which took place in parallel, each with their own solution development and design activities and their own deliverables.
• The project had clearly-defined phases that were executed in succession, each with its own solution development and design activities and deliverables. Note that a second project phase that constructs and implements the solution developed by the first phase does not meet this requirement.

Depending on the nature of your role in each project, the Project Report should cover an appropriate selection of factors.

Appropriate factors will be determined based on the type of ICT project selected. Possible factors include:

• System Analysis and Design and Software Engineering methodologies used;
• Contribution to the processes involved in the design and implementation of enterprise-wide computing systems;
• Programming languages, design paradigms and implementation procedures adopted;
• Database and/or file design and management techniques employed;
• Network topologies, including size, distribution and security facilities installed;
• Project Management and quality assurance techniques followed;
• Internet application design, including database interactivity and security measures implemented;
• ICT managerial activities, demonstrating the nature and extent of responsibilities

Project Summary:
Project Name Start Date End Date
Project 1 Discover Bank (USA)
02/2017 03/2019
Project 2 Total Gas and Power, UK (United Kingdom)
01/2016 02/2017

Project 1: BP Global role over GFT (Global Finance Template)

1. Project Summary
1.1. Identification

Client’s Company Name Discover Financial Services
Business Address DFS Services LLC
2500 Lake Cook Rd,
Riverwoods,IL 60015
Contact Numbers 1-224-405-2374
Web Address https://www.discover.com/

Email Address info@discover.com

Nature of project Online banking payments with middleware products

Location of project USA

Name of your employer Capgemini India private limited, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

1.2 Duration
From: To:
Total project duration 02/2017 03/2019
Your involvement 02/2017 03/2019

1.3. Resources

Number
Your Team Size 7 in total where 2 functional consultants from USA, 5 technical consultants from India.
Total project team size 40 in total where 20 functional consultants from USA, 15 technical consultants and 5 security consultants from India.

1.4. Personal Involvement

Start Completion Phase Description
02/2017 03/2019 Discover Financial Services

02/2017 04/2017 Business case study and preparing the inventory
05/2017 06/2017 Develop business blue print by Requirements gathering & High Level design for migration.
07/2017 08/2017 Migration Designs with Configuration & developing migration scripts.
09/2017 05/2018 Implementing the migration of all middleware products which are out of support by vendor.
06/2018 09/2018 Cutover activates in production system for project Go Live
10/2018 12/2018 UAT and business sing off.
01/2019 02/2019 Submitting all the documents to customer.

1.5 Describe your role(s) and responsibilities in the project

The scope of the project is to migrate all middleware products which are out of vendor support – IBM WebSphere Application Server, Oracle Weblogic server and Apache Tomcat. Which included below modules in scope:
IBM WAS – IBM WebSphere Application Server WLS – Oracle WebLogic Server
AT – Apache Tomcat AS – Apache Web Server
IBM WebSphere MQ – Message Queue IBM WebSphere Portal Server
IBM HTTP Server Apache webserver

My role and responsibilities are as below:
• Business workshops for requirement gathering, working on solutioning for the FTE (Full Time Employee) calculation.
• Prepare Migration plan and process.
• Closely work on RTM (Requirement Trace Matrix) document to understand change in process to support configuration, testing, UAT etc
• Prepare test scripts, approve test scripts to testing team, and complete system test, internal test UAT etc
• Coordinate with team with individual task to be attain on time to time meetings, tasks assignment, and follow up etc also Report project/task/activities progress to middle and top management case to case etc
• Coordinate with different teams like OS team, Network team, Application team and DB Team.
• Preparing the migration shell scripts for each technology.
• Lead the functional delivery of design from select (Fit/Gap) through to operate, including the development of project plans and managing senior stakeholder relationships
• Leads and support Solution Analysts and Analysts to deliver the solution design, configuration and customization of a system to meet the business process design and business requirements
• Supports the Business Process Team and the Business Stakeholders to validate business requirements in order to drive common process and functional solutions globally.
• Support the development of an application prototype and conduct a conference room pilot to validate the configuration design and explore fit/gap resolution options.
• Complete the associated solution design document including the Configuration Rationale.
• Enter the configuration into the “gold” or master configuration client and prepare it for migration and transport to the next environment(s) as defined in the system landscape.
• Participate in Server performance tuning with coordination of server team.
• Complete all appropriate documentation required by the testers, deployment team and application support team
• Coordinate project go live cutover activities in different environment with all teams including OS team, Network team and DB team etc.
• To schedule regular calls to discuss periodic updates related to troubleshooting and possible resolution with all stakeholders
• Responsible for contributing to overall project objectives and specific team deliverables
• Manages specific project plan activities and contributes to project plan development in collaboration with project manager.
• Coordinates documentation, testing, and training efforts related to project plan
• Daily Scrum and ensuring that the team properly applies Agile development principles.
• Lead daily status tracking meetings with different teams.

2. Business Opportunity or Problem
2.1 Describe the business opportunity or problem(S) this project addressed.
Discover Financial Services is the leading banking service provide in the USA. It provides various services to the customers. Services include credit card, debit account, debit card and so on. Discover financial services uses multiple software products to run the online business smoothly without interrupting the online business flow. In order to fulfill this requirement, DFS is using many multiple products. Middleware products plays a key role in this part. Every software product will have many product issue and security vulnerable’s. During the security penetration test, the security team has identified many vulnerables. Due to this security vulnerables there might be a possibility to hack the client servers/data. In order to fix the vulnerable’s and add the new features to the software’s, the software providers like IBM, Oracle and Apache companies always recommend to upgrade their product to latest version in 500 servers approximately.
? Key areas focused during software migration:
? To Improved management of the company by ensuring ongoing control over the utilization of available resources and ability to manage a group of companies using a single procedure.
? Improved control of FTE costing’s and migration.
? An important focal point is to have integrated technical solution, where finance will closely interacted with software Purchases, procurement, resources FTE’s and implementation.
? Planning is also one main focus point in terms of budget planning, cost forecasting, etc
? Key benefits of implementation of resolution:
? Middleware products upgrade was going to resolve the security vulnerable’s since it would enable us have latest version of fixpack, ifix and stable as well as compatible version of operating system.
? This upgrade solution was also going to help us save cost involved for purchasing an extended IBM support for current IBM WebSphere Application Server 8.5.5 version.
? Current IBM WebSphere Application Server 8.5.5 support was due to end of life in coming 1 year hence this resolution was going to have us latest supported version IBM WAS 9.0.0.8 for next few years.
? We were also required to upgrade the Oracle Weblogic Server and Apache tomcat software’s which was stable and compatible with upgraded OS version.
? Challenges in resolution implementation.
? Numbers of servers were large to implement the solution since client could not afford service interruption for long downtime or no downtime at all.
? Less hours or limited maintenance window i.e. 6 hours. This was after last flight take off 11:00PM till next day USA business hours start time approximately 6 AM CET.
? We were first supposed to test the IBM WebSphere Application Server, Oracle WebLogic server and Apache Tomcat upgrade on all the test and development servers. There were around 300 test/development servers for the baggage application.
? We need to complete each product upgrade in each environment in a week. After migration, we need to monitor the application behavior and performance in one hand and migration plan for next plan in another hand.
? This is a very challenging role for me to handle all the activities and make sure that we are completing all planned activities and deliverable on time.

3. Solution
3.1 Describe your contribution to the solution, project or engagement.
MY FOCUS AND CONTRIBUTION FOR THIS PROJECT SOLUTION ENGAGE TO MIGRATE THE MIDDLEWARE PRODUCTS FROM LOWER VERSION TO LATEST VERSION.

The Migration is the very critical with basic planning like:
Discover and Planning structure:

Inventory Phase:
? Analyse current application architecture.
? Assess impact on upstream/downstream components.
? Document current middleware products configuration like the server name, ipaddress, product installation path, username and password to access the middleware products.
? Identify current vendor packages.
? Document current WebServer and plugins configuration.
? Document the Firewall rules in current environment.
? Understand and augment automation capabilities.
Implementation Phase:
? A detailed implementation was prepared and reviewed by the client Subject Master Expert team. After getting approval from them, we started implementing in test environment.
? I did the migration by executing the shell scripts. I have written shell script with the technical steps and activities used for the product migration. During this phase, I have encountered many issues and resolved in timely manner.
? Testing and monitoring the configuration of new version middleware products after the completion of migration.
? Finding the service improvements for the middleware products and preparing the implementation efforts and risks plan.
? Routing the user requests to the applications installed in newly migrated middleware products. This is called a cutover of application.
Go Live and Support:
This phase is the journey from a pre-production environment to a live project operation. The most critical elements in this phase are related to production support setup, monitoring system transactions, and optimizing system performance.

• Production support for any issue to end users
• Follow up training if required further
• Training the trainer is also part of training
• Perform project review

3.2 List the major deliverables of the project that you were responsible for or contributed to.
During the project, my major deliverables involved:
• Identify the existing version of middleware products.
• Identify the servers which are hosting the middleware products and document it as inventory in a excel sheets.
• Prepare the architecture diagrams and PowerPoint presentations.
• Knowledge Transfer sessions with the clients side technical team about the understanding of existing infra-structure.
• Develop the shell scripts for the migration of middleware products.
• Create a Change request in the reporting tool as per the client standards and get approval from CAB (Change Approval Board) team. Presenting change implementation plan, Change start and end time and backup plan to get request approved.
• Implement the migration in lower environments and handover to application and server team for application validation.
• Technical troubleshooting of the problems and maintaining the records.
• System performance monitoring to ensure avoiding any outages.
• Developed the procedure to implement the solution after successfully testing and troubleshooting on development and testing system environment.
• Collecting the test case data and presenting it to business and technical experts as and when required.
• Identifying the problems and preparing the plan to mitigate the same in production environment.
• Prepared the documentation of the problem investigation, tests, resolution, implementation procedure and back out plan.
• Followed the ITIL standard operating procedures to handle Incident management, change management and major incident call