When I was a teenager in the early 2000´s I was obsessed with Amateur radio and earned my FCC license and call sign (KI4KZV) when I was 15. I was totally blown away by the concept that I could use an electronic device (radio in this case) that I owned to communicate with other Amateur radio operators around the world.. all in the comfort of my home!
I would stay up long hours listening to Morse code and having conversations with people from far away lands. I knew at an early age that I wanted to become a craftsman of some type of technology, preferably one that had an impact like Amateur radio did to me when I was 15.
In the years that followed, I went on to work for the US Army overseas as a Datacenter Technician / Engineer and then eventually I got heavily into Cisco and I worked in various technology roles that were focused around Cisco networking. I was working at a military base in Afghanistan in 2012 when I was invited to attend a VMware training course.
I remember being fascinated at the vSphere 5.0 UI, and the ability to manage the a full datacenter stack of technologies and how VMware simplified extremely complicated datacenter operations. The vMotion feature in particular really blew me away, even though this has been available since ESXi 2.0 from 2003!
This course made an impression on me, but I could tell that getting into this area was quite the learning curve. Over the next few years I started from scratch and worked in various roles related to virtualization architecture and systems administration. In these years I also started working with public cloud platforms as well, such as AWS and Azure.
In 2019 I started working for a leading Telecommunications service provider in Norway as an Architect. I had the wonderful chance to be a decision maker and help design systems that supported mission critical Telco workloads for real world end users.
The Telco vertical is the most captivating and interesting field that I have worked so far. Its where Compute, Storage, Networking, High Performance Engineering, Kubernetes, DEVOPS and Operations all merge into one engineering domain.
My technical focus area at this company was VMware Cloud Foundation. A platform that we implemented to support legacy workloads, but evolved over time to be the primary cloud used to enable fast time to market services for our internal users.
I was also exposed to VMware´s Telco Cloud Platform products and I was immediately interested in their approach to deploying modern CNFs (Cloud-native Network Functions) from any vendor on a cloud that the customer owns and operates.
I was invited to speak at VMware explore in Barcelona in 2022. I had an amazing time and got to see VMware engage with their important customers across several verticals. I didn't expect to see so many people there during the tail end of the pandemic, but the place was packed!
In December 2022, I saw that VMware had posted a Telco Consulting Architect position on their careers page. I applied and went through a rigorous technical interview process, but in the end I got the job! A few months later I was actively engaged in several high profile projects across EMEA for some of our most important customers.
I was also pursuing the coveted VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX-DCV) certification, which I successfully passed in June.
At PSO, I can really feel all of my years of career experience coming together for this one moment in time. The modern Telco vertical is new and complicated, especially with the emergence of 5G and Kubernetes-based deployments. A lot of this technology is what I would personally call "near-beta" or at the very least experimental.
One area that some network equipment providers (NEPs) might struggle with is Cloud Infrastructure and virtualization. Most of the Telco world is still running on bare metal or appliance-based deployments that are difficult to upgrade, maintain and scale.
At VMware, we are THE cloud infrastructure company. This is our bread and butter- what we do best! Our solutions provide stable and feature rich operating platforms for over 500,000 customers globally.
The VMware Telco Cloud Platform (TCP) is a solution that brings the rock solid stability and operational simplicity of vSphere and enables customers to have full control over their network functions, whether they be VM or Container based workloads. Technologies like NSX and vSAN take the pain out of the storage and networking layers of the stack and really give customers full control and data sovereignty.
But with all that being said, building your own cloud can be confusing and complicated. VMware has dramatically simplified the process of building a cloud. But its always a good idea to have experts do it for you!
Why should you consider building your cloud with VMware PSO?
1.) Expert-Validated Design & Deployment Services
Our experts conduct an in-depth discovery phase, where we collect your business requirements and then find the correct technical solution that addresses those requirements. We then move on to the implementation phase where we engage our back-end teams to insure that each step is supported and validated, thus avoiding problems in the future that might arise.
2.) Future Proof YOUR Design
What happens in 1 year, 2 years, 5 years? Our validated solutions a built to withstand the ebb and flows that the industry endures. Our platforms are not only only easy to manage, but also easy to upgrade. This is one of the key advantages of having a Software Defined Datacenter (SDDC). We give you a reliable roadmap that can align with your business objectives.
3.) Industry Knowledge & Visibility
We directly support large and small customers around the world and have amassed a wealth of experience working in different environments. We have the ability to use our extensive experience to deliver the absolute best solution available on a global scale. This comes particularly useful when on-boarding workloads, where the chances are if you can name it, we have it running on VMware.
4.) Platform Optimization & Performance Tuning
We want to insure that your platform is delivering the absolute best value for money that can be done without sacrificing performance or use-ability. PSO can find the right balance using real world examples and best practices.
Joining VMware is a dream come true for me. I get a chance to work in an extremely interesting job that feels more like a hobby. I also get to work across several technology domains at the same time, and build systems that are actually making a positive impact on human lives! I am looking forward to seeing what the future holds.
I want to thank VMware and my direct Management for giving me the opportunity.
You can find more information about VMware PSO here: https://www.vmware.com/professional-services.html
Disclaimer: This is my personal blog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of the vendors, brands or my employer.
I enjoyed reading about your journey to this position. -HL