VMware Community: a.p.
Twitter handle: @ap_unleashed
Current employer: Netzwerk GmbH (Germany)
How did you get into IT?
During my apprenticeship as an electronics technician I got myself a Sharp PC-1500 with 2KB memory (for the younger audience, yes it's 2 Kilobytes, not 2 Gigabytes) on which I learned programming. About3 years later – after working as a technician in the US and Germany - I got a job at as a programmer in small company. While working as a programmer I had the opportunity to have projects in a lot of programming languages like BASIC, COBOL, TCL, STEP5, Pascal, C, Assembly language, Perl, … This is something I still benefit from, when it comes toe.g. scripting. In the late 90s I started managing Client-Server infrastructures – mainly OS/2 LAN-Server and Windows environments – as well as Citrix MetaFrame farms (Application virtualization, as it is called nowadays). It then took another few years, before I was hired by my current company, where I work as a Sr. Consultant and – besides other things – started with VMware ESX 3.0.
How did you get into working with VMware and becoming a 2011 vExpert?
As mentioned before,vSphere is one part of my duties in the company I work for. One of the resources I used to get into virtualization and find help was – and still is – the VMware Communities, which IMO is one of the most active and professional forum. First I only used the forums to find answers to issues I had to solve, later I started "paying" back by helping other users solve their issues. Then – last year in November – I was asked whether I wanted to volunteer as a Communities User Moderater, to which I agreed. In April this year I was nominated for the VMware vExpert 2011 and finally at July, 1st I received the Welcome mail from John Troyer.
What would you tell someone who wanted to get a job like yours to do?
Love your job and love to work with other people. It may be a long way with ups and downs. However, with dilligence and patience you will reach your goal.
