Name: José Luis Gómez
Blog URL: http://blog.e2h.net
Twitter handle: @pipoe2h
Current employer: NEC Ibérica SLU
How did you get into IT?
I started programming BASIC on my Amstrad when I was 10 years old. Three years later, my parents bought me my first PC with Windows 3.11. This was the jump that fully introduced me in the IT world. I got my first job when i was fourteen years old in an Internet cafe, here I learned about networking, operating systems and policies… also about online gaming such as Counter Strike and Quake 🙂
At that time I studied consumer electronics devices and when it ended I started paracticing everything i had learnt on my company. There I learnt about Microsoft services as AD, DNS, … and Linux/Unix such as Red Hat, Mandrake and SCO. This was the era in which I started with virtualization, specifically with VMware Server.
I was changing jobs where I learned about BSD, virtualization (VMware and Citrix), storage, networking and wintel; I also started as a virtualization instructor. At this last stage, VMware gave me the vEXPERT 2011 award; It also was the year that I attended VMworld in Copenhagen.
Now, I work at NEC as a Systems Engineer in the EMEA Cloud Center of Competence where I deploy DaaS environments, IaaS and SaaS.
How did you get into working with VMware and becoming a 2012 vExpert?
I started in an end customer where they had one ESX 2.5.3 cluster with two nodes. I got this job because I had a deep knowledge on Linux. I upgraded the infrastructure to VI3 and began to make new deployments in other customers with vSphere 4.
In 2010 I became certified as a VCP4 (when Spain won the FIFA World Cup :-D) and I started to contribute in the VMTN Communities and wrote virtualization posts on my blog. The contributions helped me to achieved the vEXPERT 2011 award and also the vEXPERT 2012.
What would you tell someone who wanted to get a job like yours to do?
In this area there exists quite a load of competent people, the continuing development of knowledge is the key to a halfway decent job. This world is very hard and difficult to get into and so if you don't love IT, then this is not your world.
