TL;DR - the last amount 3 years has been awesome!
I thought I would get an updated version of the “about me” section and not to just update the previous page but to rather leave that out in the ether for comparison. Its coming up to 3 years since I started this blog, something I started as really a little bit of a hobby. I was working in delivery on some cool VMware projects and wanted to use this platform to start to document some of the work and experience. Since I started though I have been amazed and humbled by the amount of people that are interested in some of the stuff I have posted. Most recently my VCAP study guide I put together, for mainly my own learning, has received some awesome feedback and from a wide range of people around the world. It really makes the effort worthwhile when I hear this feedback and stories of people using the guide to pass the exam.
The only real target I had in mind 3 years ago was to get the VMware vExpert award and this blog was a big part of that process, I received the award soon after and have since been lucky enough to be added to all 5 VMware community groups - vExpert vSAN, vExpert NSX, vExpert Cloud and EUC Champion. I have also met a lot of the other UK people in the group and some from further a field. I have also been added to other community groups such as DellEMCElect and Nutanix Technology Champions (NTC).
This has given me the opportunity to be involved in these great communities and event such as VMware User Groups (VMUG), attending many and presenting in some. Presenting was something I did in my day to day job but mainly to a handful of people, these groups gave me the platform to present in front of a much larger crowd and amazingly people actually listened to me rambling on. Its been a skill the I now have far more confidence in doing when speaking to customers in my day job.
As well as the community stuff I have kept my hand in the technical exams, something techies never get away from if you want to keep up with this industry. I went a bit VCAP crazy at one point achieving both VCAP deploy and design for the DCV track, the VCAP for NSX and the VCAP deploy for DTM in the space of a few months. I felt I needed to put my experience down on paper. More recently, after starting the VCDX process and deciding thats not the right use of time for me, I have been doing more and more AWS exam. I achieved the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate and the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate, currently studying for the Developer associate and will move onto the professional exams.
I now work for a global VMware (and many other vendors) partner as a Solutions Architect focusing on the on-premises and hybrid cloud solutions.
In short, what started out as a hobby has really helped me grow in my profession by providing that platform to gain the confidence of speaking in public and writing. If you are not blogging yet or participating in user groups and events, do it!
Awesome.