About Me
I started my career in Electronics and IT for South African Telkom back in 1982 and worked in Telkom's POTELIN lab just outside of Pretoria. I rapidly tracked myself into a computing career as a fascination for P-CAD running on Olivetti 286 workstations led to Novell Networking to share P-CAD objects and I was hooked.
I spent many years developing hardware and software products for Novell servers that allowed communication with various mainframes from IBM and ICL. Work with SNA, SPX and methods to route these protocols led to developing and designing a router on paper and then I went to work for the company that made them for Telkom.
Soon Wellfleet, Cisco and 3Com produced new generation routers that were better than the software routers we had developed with our own Novell SPX router and I became a Wellfleet and Cisco specialist. I got my CCIE training in 1995 as well as my first Microsoft MCSE training and certification that year. I also became a SME for Synoptics hubs and switches as well as Cabletron systems. Years later I went to work for Madge Networks in their ethernet switching group as well as having some focus on ATM switching before coming to the USA for Y2K work for silly money.
I also worked for NCR in South Africa and got my first exposure to IT Banking environments and their stock room trading floor computing platforms. I actually built on this banking exposure at Madge Networks and had many years experience with European banking companies such as Credit Suisse and HSBC. I was one of NCR's youngest Directors and have C level job experience to add to my executive portfolio.
In 1999 I worked for HP in their Cupertino lab and was a Softswitch Architect for their computing in Communications group and worked with Telcordia on a Class 5 Switching platform that was based on HP Computing platforms. Here I had access to a lot of technology and architecture as well as helping to develop new IP protocols such as SIP and SOAP. I also worked on new Intel Itanium developments and on other Intel products jointly developed with HP for the Telecommunications market globally.
I also started my own Computer Consulting company in 1999 and sold it after success in the dot com era. I still provide them with strategic and executive services to ensure their path to success is maintained. I was CTO and CIO at Neutron Networks for four years before gravity and trees interfered with my career for a short while.
I spent a few years at Chiron Corp in Emeryville and working for Silicon Valley Bank on Global upgrade and deployment projects that covered upgrading Windows NT 4 domains to Windows 2003 AD ones along with new Exchange 2003 upgrades from Exchange 5.5 platforms. I also spent time on their Netapp architecture as well as their EMC Centera systems and deployed a Global MPLS WAN solution for them. At the Application level I was kept busy with Clinical applications, SAP, Siebel CRM and Opentext Livelink.
I also got to roll out new technology to new data centers globally at both of these companies and also switch one of them from EMC to Hitachi storage platforms. Storage has always been a core element in all of my work in Telecommunications, Banking and Healthcare market sectors and I joined Forsythe Solutions group to focus on storage in December 2006.
I obtained all of my storage certifications while at Forsythe and also had access to several hundred data centers along the way. I learnt a great deal about the consulting community that added to my earlier experience with Anderson Consulting and Coopers and Lybrand while a Novell CNE in the EMEA markets.
I participate in beta test programs with Microsoft and am active in many areas, most notably in Sharepoint, SQL and Server technologies. I have been using Windows 7 on all of my computers for over a year and run all of my MAC platforms with it via VMWARE Fusion.
x86 Server virtualization is my favorite subject area right now and I have worked with Microsoft, VMWARE and Citrix virtualization platforms for almost 10 years with almost every storage and server platform.
My all round knowledge, skills and expertise in just about every facet of the data center has given me a vital experience base to draw on that has proven invaluable.
Consolidation and cost control in IT environments are two areas I have great capabilities and a solid reputation with. I am also astoundingly quick at sizing up and analyzing a target IT environment with drastic investment yield for my customers. I have noted in my career that too many IT environments are heavily over engineered or architected and designed without input from the business and do not meet basic business requirements. Savings in this area alone is remarkable and I have achieved outstanding results for my clients with business alignment and the right technology selection.
For fun I am an avid golfer. My peculiar swing is a thing of wonder to watch as well as the results. I am a happy hacker in terms of golfing ability, but it sure is a fun way to take your mind off pressing IT issues and challenges.
I also fly aircraft of all types, from Gliders to powered aircraft and anything in between. I used to parachute but bearing witness to a few bouncers has stopped that activity for me. I play a lot of chess as well and am striving for Grand Master status. Something that eludes me quite effectively, but the fun is in the journey!! (or so they say).