Name:Andreas Lesslhumer
Current Employer: 3Banken EDV
Twitter Handle: @lessi001
Blog URLs: www.vmworld.net
How did you get into IT?
I had the great fortune that there was a big demand for IT professionals just as I finished business school. To fill this gap, the industry was willing to pay some people the necessary courses (Microsoft MSCE courses for NT4.0 at this time for example) to join into IT. I was one of the lucky ones and so I got my first job as an IT Admin after I completed the training courses and a semiannual internship.
It was a medium-size company with a four man IT Team. So you can imagine that I had to do everything: installing, maintaining and repairing PCs and servers, have an eye on the network, keep the exchange server alive and be responsible for the old ERP system running on MS-DOS…
After six years I got a new job opportunity at my current employer where I joined the server team.
How did you get into working with VMware and becoming a 2012 vExpert?
The company I have switched to was using VMware only for a Dev/Test environment. But only a short time after starting the job a virtualization project was initiated and I got the opportunity to plan and implement a production environment for our two datacenters with the support of an excellent VMware Consultant.
During implementation I have learned a lot about the products from VMware and visiting the VMworlds in the last years further deepened my knowledge and skills.
During this time I set up a blog as a personal knowledge base to write down solutions for all the little problems I had to deal with in my everyday work. One day I realized that there was a high rate of visitors – mainly on the how-to guides. As it was fun and also brought great benefits for my everyday work I continued to publish articles and 2012 VMware awarded me the vExpert award.
What would you tell someone who wanted to get a job like yours to do?
Build your own home lab, follow the community activities (VMUG, Blogs, Twitter…), try new things and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Last but not least: Enjoy your work but do not always take everything too seriously.
