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<\/a>, and my MVP activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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<\/a><\/a> course online for anyone to sign up and privately. I’ve done the Azure Operations for Small\/Medium Businesses<\/a> class in-person 3 times so far this year for a Microsoft distributor (the attendees were employees of Microsoft partners). <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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<\/a> 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! <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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<\/em> with Cloud Mechanix. Yes, I am going out with my own company and it has expanded into consulting on Azure<\/a>, including (but not limited to):<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 \ud83d\ude42 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:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have applied for a number of other events in Europe too. If you’re interested then:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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 … Continue reading “18th Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Award”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[170,545,566,79,80],"class_list":["post-24543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-azure","tag-azure","tag-azure-networking","tag-most-valuable-professional","tag-mvp","tag-networking"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n
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