Systems Engineer

Architecture, Resilience
& High-Performance Systems

I design critical platforms, manage real-time incidents, and guide technical teams in building systems that don't just work—they endure.

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Jorel del Portal - Systems Engineer specialized in systems architecture and resilience

About me

I'm a systems engineer with a clear focus: building and maintaining platforms that hold up when it matters most. I work designing high-availability architectures, managing critical incidents, and optimizing systems in high-volume environments. My specialty is IBM Sterling, B2B integrations, and secure file transfer.

🎯 My Focus

  • Design of resilient and fault-tolerant systems
  • Forensic diagnosis of critical production incidents
  • Performance optimization and latency reduction in distributed systems
  • Engineering and operation of 24/7 mission-critical platforms
  • Failure recovery and stabilization of high-impact services
  • High availability and business continuity models
  • Advanced observability and proactive monitoring
  • Secure system integration and automation of critical flows
  • Technical governance and best practices in complex architectures
  • Technology risk analysis and platform hardening

💼 Experience

  • 14+ years of experience in systems engineering and mission-critical platforms
  • Deep expertise in the IBM Sterling Suite: Secure File Gateway, B2B Integrator, Secure Proxy, SEAS
  • Design, deployment, and operation of enterprise-level secure file transfer solutions
  • Technical leadership in highly regulated banking and financial environments
  • Architecture of scalable, high-volume, high-availability transactional ecosystems
  • Lead engineer in resolution of critical production incidents affecting millions of transactions
  • Modernization and migration of legacy platforms into modern architectures
  • Continuous performance tuning in distributed and high-demand systems
  • Collaboration with architecture, SRE, operations, and cybersecurity teams
  • Mentorship and technical development of engineering teams
  • Technical documentation, process standardization, and automation
  • Technology risk assessment using resilience and continuity patterns

🛠️ Tech Stack

Integration Platforms

IBM Sterling Suite
  • IBM Sterling B2B Integrator
  • IBM Sterling File Gateway
  • Sterling Control Center
  • Secure Proxy
  • SEAS (External Authentication Server)
Operating Systems & Backend
  • IBM AIX
  • Linux (RedHat, Ubuntu)
  • Windows Server
  • IBM DB2
  • Advanced scripting: Bash, PowerShell

Tech Stack

Resilience, Observability & Performance
  • Fault-tolerant architectures
  • Metrics, dashboards, alerts, and advanced observability
  • Performance tuning and latency reduction
  • High availability and continuity patterns
Cloud & Modern Services
  • IBM Cloud
  • Azure (Blob Storage, App Service)
  • AWS (S3, IAM, Lambdas)
  • Containers and orchestration
Development & Automation
  • Java
  • C#
  • API integration
  • CI/CD pipelines

Technical Blog

Conceptual illustration of AI functional models including LLMs, computer vision and generative models
Artificial Intelligence —

AI Doesn't Exist: Functional Models Do

Discover why AI is really a set of functional models: LLMs, computer vision and generative models.

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Microservices architecture diagram showing interconnected services and communication patterns
Architecture —

Microservices: Beyond the Hype

A critical look at when you really need a microservices architecture and when you don't.

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Resilience patterns diagram
Resilience —

Resilience Patterns in Production

Proven strategies for building systems that fail gracefully and recover quickly.

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System latency graph
Performance —

Understanding Latency in Distributed Systems

Why latency matters more than you think and how to measure it correctly in your systems.

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Observability and metrics dashboard
Observability —

Observability: More Than Just Monitoring

How to implement an effective observability strategy that lets you understand what's happening in your systems.

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Circuit Breaker pattern diagram
Patterns —

Circuit Breaker: Protect Your Services

Practical implementation of the Circuit Breaker pattern to prevent cascading failures in distributed architectures.

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Cloud architecture comparison
Cloud —

Insights on Cloud Architecture

The cloud isn't understood by memorizing services. It's understood by identifying architectural models and patterns.

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Content / Videos

YouTube Content

I explore systems engineering, software architecture, and technology topics in short, direct format.

Watch Featured Short View my full channel

Featured Series

  • Latency
    Understanding the impact of time in distributed systems
    Watch video
  • Systems in Green
    Keeping systems healthy in production
    Watch video
  • Bottleneck
    Identifying and resolving bottlenecks in systems
    Watch video
  • Unexplained Crash
    Analyzing unexpected failures in production systems
    Watch video

Talks & Events

2025

IBM TechXchange Summit – Peru

Talk on high availability architecture and observability applied to B2B integrations and mission-critical platforms in the financial sector.

Lima, Peru

2025

IBM TechXchange 2025 – Orlando

Session on designing resilient platforms with IBM Sterling: how to anticipate failures, design for error, and maintain operation in critical environments.

Orlando, United States

2025

Workshop: Resilient Architecture and HA in Integration Platforms

Technical training for engineering teams on resilience patterns, DR scenarios, and best practices in production environments with IBM Sterling.

Lima, Peru

2025

Masterclass: Effective IT Incident Diagnosis

Session focused on methodologies, checklists, and mental models for finding the root cause of incidents in high-traffic distributed systems.

Virtual · Latin America

Jorel del Portal presenting technical talk on systems architecture and resilience to an audience of engineers and developers

Contact

Connect with me

You can find me on various platforms where I share technical content and professional experiences.

Email: [email protected]