Tag: MVP

18th Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award

I found out yesterday that I was awarded my 18th annual Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award by Microsoft, continuing with the Azure Networking expertise.

It’s been an interesting year since last July, when I received my 17th award. My amount of billable work (the KPI for any consultant) with my then-employer was zero for a long time. I started thinking that the end would eventually come, so I started no plan-B: my own company.

I started my company, Cloud Mechanix, 7 years ago as a side-gig to my previous job. I used personal time to write custom-Azure training and to deliver it at in-person classes. That first year was incredible – I still remember squeezing 22 people into a meeting room in a London hotel that I’d hoped to get 10 people into! Things went well and the feedback was awesome. I’d started to write new content … and then the world changed. I changed my day-job. The COVID19 pandemic happened. And my wife and I welcomed twin girls into the world. There was no time for a side-gig!

I did a little bit with Cloud Mechanix during the lockdown but I didn’t have the time to put a sustained effort in. Then last year, the world started changing again. The twins were 4, in their second year of pre-school, and quite happy to entertain themselves. The pandemic was a distant memory but our way of working had change quite a bit. And my day-job went from too much work to no work. I’ve been around long enough to develop a sense of redundancy smell. My spidey-sense tingles long before anyone else discusses the topic. I talked with my wife and we decided that I had more time to invest in my company, Cloud Mechanix, and my MVP activities.

I started to write new content, focusing first on what I’m best known for these days (Azure Networking) and on another in-demand course (Azure for small-medium businesses). I did the Azure Firewall Deep Dive course online for anyone to sign up and privately. I’ve done the Azure Operations for Small/Medium Businesses class in-person 3 times so far this year for a Microsoft distributor (the attendees were employees of Microsoft partners).

Meanwhile I’ve applied for and spoken at a number of Microsoft community/conference events. I’ve been invited to talk on a number of podcasts – which are always enjoyable … poor Ned and Kyler probably didn’t know what they were in for when I talked non-stop about Azure networking for 39 minutes without stopping to breath. And I wrote a series of blog posts on Azure network design/security to explain why trying to implement on-premises designs make no sense and the resulting complexity breaks the desired goal of better security – simplicity actually offers more security!

The expected happened in June. I was made redundant. I wasn’t sad – I knew that it was coming and I had a plan. The agreed terms meant that I was free from June 28th with no restrictions. I had decided that I would not go job hunting. I have a job; I’m the Manading Director, trainer, and consultant with Cloud Mechanix. Yes, I am going out with my own company and it has expanded into consulting on Azure, including (but not limited to):

  • Cloud strategy
  • Reviews
  • Security
  • Migration
  • System design & build
  • Cloud Adoption by Mentorship
  • Small/Medium business
  • Assisting Microsoft partners

Things have started well. I have a decent sales pipe. I have completed two small gigs. And I have developed new training content: Designing Secure Azure Networks.

Back to the award! I’m at the Costa Blanca in Spain with my family for 4 weeks. Cloud Mechanix HQ has temporarily relocated from Ireland for 2 weeks and then I’m on vacation for 2 weeks. I’m spending my time doing some pre-sales stuff (things are going well) and writing some stuff that I will be sharing soon 🙂 I was working yesterday afternoon and thinking about going to the pool with the kids, and got to thinking “what day/date is it?” – how one knows that they are relaxed! I asked my wife and she said that it was July 10th! Wait – isn’t that what the MVPs call “F5 day”, the day that we find out if we are renewed or not? I checked Teams and confirmed that it was indeed F5 day. Usually we get the emails at 4PM Irish time, making it 5PM Spanish time. I’d decided I was going to the pool. My phone was in a bag on a bench and I kept an eye on the time. Then from 5PM, I checked my email every few minutes until … there it was:

Year number 18 had begun! To be honest, this was the first time in years that I wasn’t that worried. I had written quite a bit of blog content. I’d done a number of online and in-person things. I also had (I hope) great interactions with the Azure product group. I felt like that the contributions were there … and they are still coming.

I’ve been doing quite a bit this week. It’s the start of something bigger but I hope that the first part will be ready in the coming days – it depends on that pre-sales pipeline and testing results … ooooh it’s technical!

I have two confirmed future events with TechMentor in the USA where I’m doing a panel, breakout sessions, and a post-con all-day class at:

  • Microsoft HQ 2025 in Redmond, Washington, on August 11-15.
  • Orlando, Florida, on November 16-21.

I have applied for a number of other events in Europe too. If you’re interested then:

  • See my profile on Sessionize for speaking at events
  • Check out my blog posts here for podcast subject matter.
  • Check out Cloud Mechanix to see how I can help you with your Azure journey
  • Follow me on my socials to see what I’m chatting about.

Year 13 As A Microsoft Valuable Professional Begins

I found out today that I have been renewed as a Microsoft Azure MVP! This is my 13th consecutive year as an MVP, with previous expertises covering Hyper-V and System Center Configuration Manager. It’s an honour to continue to be part of this program.

The profile of how I am contributing has changed a lot. In my early days, I wrote about everything I saw in my RSS feeds – and I mean everything. I was single with no responsibilities after work, and often living in a hotel with nothing better to do. I got involved in writing books (remember those?). I wrote my own whitepapers – a full week or two of work. Today, Microsoft does a much better (not perfect) job at documenting things. There are lots of people in the community sharing content today so things I might have written about are being done elsewhere and why create redundant content? ]Today, I have a wife and young family and they are my priority in my off-hours. So I have changed how I contribute to the community.

I prefer events where I can fly in out the same day, or at least limit my away time to a quick overnight visit. But that’s all ended for us lately, so the online medium has taken over, which makes me much more available. I haven’t written a tech book in years – my last book (on WS2012 Hyper-V) was when the content was relatively static; today, a book on any tech is out of date before you save your markdown file. I pick and choose my blog topics – I spend a LOT of time doing Azure networking/security and I’ve always skewed my blogging to what I work on. I’ve found even senior consultants/architects don’t know this stuff well so my recent posts have gone into the level-400 stuff on routing and security design/implementation that is usually misunderstood. A lot of my community contribution isn’t obvious.

The MVP program provides MVPs with direct contact with the program managers of the products in their expertise area, and other areas. I’ve taken advantage of that since my 2nd year in the program. There are things in the Hyper-V/clustering/storage world that I can point & say “I provided feedback to make that happen”. And that continues in Azure; like a lot of MVPs, I give feedback and end up in 1:1 email/Teams conversations with the relevant PMs. There are recent things that have launched (some still coming) that I have helped shape. That’s one of the cool parts of being a member of the program, being able to take my observations from work or feedback from customers/community members, and bring it to the product group to improve things for all of us. I think that’s where I’ve been most busy this last year.

There are cool things coming … some are there already but you might not know it! … and that’ll give us lots of things to talk about 🙂

Global ONLINE Azure Bootcamp

On one day every year, community members all across the planet get together at local events and host/attend sessions on Azure; this is the Global Azure Bootcamp. It’s been running on a Spring Saturday for years, and this year it is on April 27th.

Unfortunately, Microsoft Ireland wasn’t able to provide a venue so it looked like there would not be a local event in this part of Ireland. While I was at the recent MVP Summit, I threw out the idea of running an online version of the Global Azure Bootcamp … a Global Online Azure Bootcamp. The MVP Lead for UK& Ireland, Claire, loved the idea, ran off to the organisers of the global event, came back and said “do it!”.

So I did … I reached out to the speaker community and … was blown away by the response. So much so, that this will be a truly Global ONLINE Azure Bootcamp with content for all timezones:

  • We’re starting at 09:00 Perth/Bejing time
  • Finishing at 17:00 Seattle/Los Angeles time

The idea is that sessions will be pre-recorded and made available online on a scheduled basis on April 27th. That means anyone with Internet access anywhere on the planet can join this instance of the Global Azure Bootcamp – some of the presenters will actually be live-presenting elsewhere that day!

The content spans many tracks: dev, infrastructure, devops, data, AI, governance, security, and more. There really is something for everyone that is interested in Azure.

You can learn more here on the official event site.

This event has no sponsorship and it’s all be organized at the very last second. So here’s my ask:

Hopefully we’ll see (so to speak because we don’t have tracking) you there on the day!

Aidan.

Not A Hyper-V MVP Anymore

It’s with some sadness that I have to report that I am no longer a Hyper-V MVP.

11 years ago, I got and email to say that I had been awarded MVP status … in System Center Configuration Manager. Yes, I used to do a lot of stuff on ConfigMgr. But by the time I’d been awarded, that had all stopped and I had refocused on server stuff, particularly virtualization and especially Hyper-V. A year later, my expertise was changed to that of Hyper-V, which later merged into a larger grouping of Cloud & Datacenter Management.

Being a Hyper-V MVP changed my career. I had early access to information and I was able to pose questions about things to my fellow MVPs and the program managers of Hyper-V, Failover Clustering, networking, and Windows Server storage. I learned an incredible amount, and the many posts on this site and my books all had input from my time as an MVP. Job openings appeared because of the knowledge I obtained, and I got to write for Petri.com. And being an MVP opened up speaking opportunities at many events around the world, including TechEd Europe and the very first Ignite.

There’s so many people to thank from over the years. I won’t name names because I’ll offend someone  because I’ll surely forget someone. My (ex-)fellow Hyper-V MVPs are an awesome bunch. We all found are niche areas and I can remember many times we’d meet at a user group event and pool our knowledge to make each other better. In particular, I remember speaking at an event in Barcelona during the build-up to WS2012 and spending hours in a meeting room, going over things that we’d learned in that dizzyingly huge release.

I want to thank the Program Managers in Windows Server, Hyper-V, Failover Clustering & Storage, and Networking for the many hours of deep dive sessions, the answers they’ve given, the time they’ve taken to explain, the tips given, and the opportunity to contribute. Yes, I got a lot out of being a Hyper-V MVP, and I love looking at the feature list and thinking to myself, “me and <person X> were the ones that asked for that”. The PMs are a patient bunch … they have to be to deal with the likes of me … but they’re the ones that make the MVP program work. I’d love to tell stories, but you know … NDAs Smile

I knew that this day when I’d stop being a Hyper-V MVP was coming. Actually, that suspicion started back in the WS2012 era when I saw where MS was going with Hyper-V. The product was evolving for a market that is very small in Ireland. I knew I had to change, and that was triggered when Microsoft Ireland came to our office at work, and asked us to help develop the Azure business with Microsoft Partners. 4.5 years ago, I made the change, and I started to work with the largest Hyper-V clusters around.

Last year I was made a dual-expertise MVP with Azure being added. I work nearly 100% on Azure, and I have always written about what I work with. Anytime I find a solution, or learn something cool (that I can talk about) I write about it. I was re-awarded yesterday as an Azure MVP, but my Cloud & Datacenter Management expertise was dropped. I expected it because I simply had not earned the privilege over the last year to be re-awarded. I have a full and happy family life and I don’t have enough time to give a dual-expertise status what I think it deserves from me. I was not surprised, but I was a bit sad because being a Hyper-V MVP was a career changer for me and I made lots of great friends.

For those of you who are new to the program or who want to get involved in being an MVP, I have some advice: Make the most of it. The opportunity is awesome but you only get from it what you put in. Take part, learn, contribute, and share. It’s a virtuous cycle, and the more you do, the more you get out from it.

Being a part of the community hasn’t ended for me. I’ll still be writing and speaking about Azure. In fact, my employers are running a big community event on October 17th in Dublin (details to come soon) on Azure, Windows Server 2019, and more. And who knows … maybe I’ll still write some about Hyper-V every now and then Smile

Left to right: Tudor Damian, me, Carsten Rachfahl, Ben Armstrong (Hyper-V), Didier Van Hoye – Hyper-V MVPs with Ben at Cloud & Datacenter Conference Germany 2017.

Speaking at Global Azure Bootcamp 2018, Birmingham UK

I will be speaking at the Birmingham Global Azure Bootcamp on April 21st. This is a global event, community-lead in most locations. Typically, you’ll find a mix of content from expert speakers; infrastructure, data & platform, for beginners and experts.

I have two sessions:

  • Building highly available VM solutions
  • Monitoring Azure IaaS

The event is in the The Priory Rooms Meeting & Conference Centre, and runs from 09:00 until 17:00.  When I last checked, only 6 of the tickets were left, so act fast if you plan to attend!

Year 10 as an MVP – Adding The Azure Expertise

Today was a stressful day – it was the annual date of my MVP renewal. The program has changed quite a bit in the last year, and this is the only renewal date from now on, so you might have seen more MVPs than usual sharing their nerves online.

I was extremely nervous, especially because my profile on the MVP directory went offline. I was sure that I was a goner. But later in the day my profile re-appeared, with a change.

NewMVPStatus

To mark year 10 as a Microsoft Valuable Professional, I have been awarded with a double expertise:

  • Cloud & Datacenter Management (Hyper-V)
  • Microsoft Azure

And a little later in the afternoon, the notification email arrived:

MVP2017Email

My eldest daughter, who is 10 years old, had noticed my stress and wanted to congratulate me. I was banished from the kitchen and later I was presented with this cake – I’m a proud Dad:

MVP10Cake

 

These are fun times ahead for IT pros. My double status, with on-premises virtualization and public cloud, mirrors what’s going on in many of our careers, either already or pretty soon.  My career has changed so much over the years:

  • UNIX programmer
  • Have-a-go-hero Windows consultant
  • Re-inventing myself to be a better Microsoft engineer
  • Senior sysadmin in an international company
  • MVP in SCCM
  • Virtualization engineer
  • MVP in Hyper-V
  • Author
  • Technical sales
  • Writer
  • Lead on Azure IaaS
  • MVP in Azure

And now I can see somewhat of a return to development. I don’t see myself coding, but I’m heading to Ignite with the intention of spending as much time as posisble learning PaaS stuff, while trying to figure out what’s happening in Windows Server 1709, Azure IaaS developments, and soooo much more!

MVP Award – Year 9

I received word this afternoon that I was awarded MVP status by Microsoft for my 9th year.

What is an MVP? According to Microsoft:

For more than two decades, the Microsoft MVP Award has provided us an opportunity to say thank you to independent community leaders and to bring the voice of community into our technology roadmap through direct relationships with Microsoft product teams and events such as the MVP Global Summit.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, or MVPs, are community leaders who’ve demonstrated an exemplary commitment to helping others get the most out of their experience with Microsoft technologies. They share their exceptional passion, real-world knowledge, and technical expertise with the community and with Microsoft.

Back in 2008, I became an MVP with the SCCM expertise. My career got a jump start because now I had an inside channel to the people developing the products I was working with … sort of. I was actually working with Hyper-V then, and I was switched to the Hyper-V expertise (which was bundled into Cloud & Datacenter Management last year) in 2009.

I’ve been blogging, writing, podcasting, presenting, and teaching about Microsoft products, interacting with customers of all sizes from around the world. I’ve even had the privilege to shape some of Microsoft’s products with my feedback, based on community/customer interactions and my own hands-on experience. Trust me – knowing that cloud service X exists because I got angry (Aidan smash!), or feature Y in an on-premises product is there because me and some others were lucky enough to be in the right meeting … that’s pretty thrilling.

We’re in the middle of an era of change. Only 30 minutes ago I was recommending a complete change in something to my boss based on what Microsoft is doing, and on what I’m guessing that they’ll announce in the next year or so (no; I’m not telling). On-premises is shaking up, and the move to infrastructure in the cloud is accelerating. As an MVP, I’m privileged to be in the thick of it, getting briefed on things, having my opinion sought out, maybe impacting features by feedback, and getting an early education that I’m able to then share with you.

I’m honoured to be awarded for my 9th award as an MVP, and look forward to what lies in the year ahead.

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Hyper-V Amigos Chatting At Microsoft Ignite 2015

Didier Van Hoye, myself and Carsten Rachfahl (all Hyper-V MVPs) were at Microsoft Ignite last week and we met up at the end to record a chat between the 3 of us, where we discussed some of our highlights from the conference. You can catch this video on the Hyper-V Amigos site.

image

Oh yeah, it was painful watching myself in this video 🙂 That was the last time Carsten will let me hold a microphone!

The TechEd North America 2014 Hyper-V Amigo Selfie Game

The following dodgy looking people will be attending TechEd North America 2014 in Houston next week. They will be attending sessions, wandering the halls, and there’s even a speaker in the bunch. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take a “selfie” photograph with ALL FIVE of the below Hyper-V amigos, all of whom are Microsoft MVPs. Take each of the 5 photos and put them together in one image (easy to do in MS Paint) and then tweet me (@joe_elway) with the image.

Tip: the funnier, the better. The use of alcohol won’t hurt.

The best entry will win a copy of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Installation And Configuration Guide.

image

Rules:

  • You cannot be a Microsoft MVP.
  • Photos must be taken between Monday 12th 2014 and Thursday 15h 2014.
  • You must have taken “selfie” photos with all 5 of the above Hyper-V amigos.
  • Both you and the Hyper-V amigo must be in each photo.
  • A member of the Hyper-V product group/team cannot win – that would be too easy! But funny entries are still welcome 🙂

May the looniest entrant win!

Please retweet this, post on facebook, post on any social media, and reblog – you have my permission to reuse the content of this post in the context of this game.

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