concluding a chapter

Today marks my final day as Senior Technologist at CarterEnergy, and closes the chapter on my career with the company I've been with since July 11, 2001. Some highlights in my 10½ years with Carter:

• went from being the sole technical guy at the company to the co-leader of a 5-person IT team
• provided IT leadership in selecting, implementing and maintaining various business systems
• performed numerous system and desktop upgrades
• Windows NTà2000+ADà2003à2008
• Windows 95à98àXPàWindows 7
• troubleshot thousands of helpdesk requests
• built system interfaces to integrate disparate systems, both external/internal and internal/internal
• created automated systems to offload tasks from people to systems
• wrote software that was later incorporated into a commercial software suite
• implemented a virtual infrastructure for server consolidation
• architected and implemented a DR site

CarterEnergy has been a great place to work. The leadership of the company "gets" how technology can be used effectively to bring efficiencies in business operations: it's not just a "cost center" or other drain on resources. So why leave?

It's one of those final bullet points: virtual infrastructure.

Ever since VMware vMotion was demonstrated to me, I've been enthralled with virtualization and VMware's take on the technology. I've been a member of the local VMware User Group (VMUG) since 2005, and have served on the leadership team of the group since early 2007. I've been to VMworld  four times, and had the honor of helping staff the Self-paced Labs in 2009. I've received recognition for the work in the user group by being named vExpert every year since the award's inception. I even run a two-node VMware cluster in the basement of my home.

CarterEnergy uses virtualization to great effect. But it has always been a tool, never an end in and of itself. Whenever I had the opportunity to work in our environment, it was usually for the purpose of solving a distantly related problem: get it done, get out and go on with the next item on the punch list for solving the business problem.

So when an opportunity to join a Systems team for a VMware Partner with a vibrant virtualization practice came my way, I took it. On February 1, I start a new chapter in my career by joining Vital Support Systems as a System Engineer III. In the new role, I'll be able to make virtualization technologies my bread-and-butter activities as I serve a new customer base.