VMWARE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Staff Solutions Architect - Cloud Services
Alasdair has been an IT professional for over 32 years. Starting out as a Network Engineer in the heady days of thin/thick wire Ethernet, token-ring and Novell Netware, he soon established himself as an authority on LAN/WAN technologies. Over the next 15 years he worked for many blue-chip companies, developing their network and network services infrastructures. In the late 90's he entered the world of virtualization via a beta of VMware Workstation and soon became an expert in VMware's technologies. He has spent the last 15 years designing, implementing and teaching virtual infrastructure, virtual networking and storage. He joined VMware in 2012 to help enable parnters on VMware technologies. He currently works as part of VMware's Livefire team of SDDC / Multi-Cloud design, deploy and automation experts, where his current focuses are VMware Cloud Foundation, VMware Cloud Services and Kubernetes.
Job Titles:
- Staff Solutions Architect - NSX
Amit Juneja has 13 years of experience in the networking industry. He has held diverse positions throughout his career including support, implementation, design, consulting, project management, Day-2 operations, and people management. Amit has served a majority of Service Providers and several enterprise customers across the globe on various technologies such as: Service Provider MPLS Core/Edge, Enterprise Cisco Unified Communication (Collaboration) and SP / Enterprise Wireless. Amit holds the preeminent CCIE certification in Routing & Switching and Service Provider along with VCP Certification in Network Virtualization.
Job Titles:
- Staff Solutions Architect - Cloud Services
Job Titles:
- Staff Solutions Architect - AMER
Burke has been a technology professional since 1996 and has held certifications from the CNCF, Cisco, Citrix, ITIL, Linux Professional Institute, Microsoft, Novell, and VMware. He joined VMware in 2007 as part of the acquisition of Dunes Technologies from Lausanne, Switzerland where he had begun his work with Orchestrator. Burke is founder and contributor of the blog VCOTeam as well as a leading contributor to the VMTN Communities for Orchestrator.
He has been recognized by the community as a vExpert since 2010. During his tenure at VMware, Burke co-created the Orchestrator Master's Training program, has trained hundreds of employees on Orchestrator, built many integrations for customers and partners, and has volunteered as Lab Captain and Lab Principal in the VMworld Hands On Labs. He has also been a member, and technical lead, of the SDDC Livefire program, building content, labs, and vPods for the program.
Job Titles:
- Solutions Engineer - EMEA
Deyan comes to us as an internal move within VMware. He joined VMware in 2014 with our Cloud Operations team providing one of the biggest private clouds - OneCloud. Deyan has an extensive professional background in the VMware portfolio of products specializing in our data center solutions. While residing in Sofia, Bulgaria now, Deyan studied in Germany and considers it a second home. When not working, he enjoys mountain biking and listening to music.
Deyan will be our Senior Solutions Lab Engineer for EMEA, working alongside the rest of the team to ensure our labs are operating at their best for our growing list of course offerings. His knowledge of vCloud director and experience running production infrastructure at scale will be beneficial as our offerings and lab complexity grow.
Job Titles:
- Program Coordinator - Enablement Ops
Job Titles:
- Staff Solutions Architect - Cloud Services
Hans Bernhardt started IT in 1993 at Virginia Tech Library Systems (from "DOS/Novell days" forward) and joined VMware in 2000 when the company was less than 100 people. He has since served as Support Engineer, Instructor, System Engineer, Cloud Architect. Over the years his projects have grown from building classroom labs for 14 students, to maintaining a demo lab for a few hundred system engineers, to assisting with the creation of VMware's first global sales enablement cloud, called "vSEL," (Precursor to OneCloud and Hands On Labs) to serving as member of the core team of VMworld Conference Hands on Labs for 20,000+ attendees.
Hans likes to joke that he is a "general specialist and a special generalist," noting his propensity for presenting things in a simplified manner so that everyone can learn. He credits this to always being surrounded by a team of incredible brains who are all willing to share. His more recent focus has been on NSX. Though he is presently taking a "Take 3" to assist with R&D New Hire and finally (after 15 years) turn his "v101" white board (combining company history, culture, and technology) into a series of video presentations.
Hans is also very passionate about volunteering and has spent much of his personal time with the VMware Foundation and related activities that benefit the community, such as providing entertainment at summer camps for disabled children in both Virginia and California. Hans is an avid cyclist and trail runner, with focus on tons of hill climbing to help burn his excess energy (and not drive his team insane).
One final note in today's challenging and serious times: Hans is known for his humor, especially with rubber chickens, which for years he has used to entertain children at summer camp, thank volunteers of all kinds, keep engineers sane during challenging "it is not working" times at large events, and more. He is quite aware of the need to balance out the serious and the silly so as to help keep friends, family, and co-workers sane … and help lift their spirits as we all get through this together. He considers this an unwritten part of his job.
Job Titles:
- Staff Solutions Architect - NSX
Job Titles:
- Staff Solutions Architect - NSX
Job Titles:
- Solutions Architect - Cloud Services
Job Titles:
- Staff Solutions Architect - Cloud Services
Konstantin has a proven record in technology having worked in the Enterprise IT field for more than 30 years. Working as a VCI for VMware partners, he delivered trainings as part of their enablement program. Konstantin joined the Livefire team in 2017 as a Solution Architect. His specialties are focused mainly around building and managing cloud native applications and DevSecOps. Adept at designing and implementing effective technical business solutions, he has advanced levels of technical knowledge combined with sound business vision and project management skills. Gained a multi years' experience, being a Consultant for Microsoft, Product Lead for Hewlett-Packard and Senior Administrator for Telenor, he is experienced on delivering excellent problem-solving management, with broad understanding of different hardware and software platforms, hyperscalers, databases and related applications. Konstantin holds a Ph. Doctor of Science recognition in Specialty - Informatics and Computer Science at Bulgarian Academy of Science, along with recognitions from VMware, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, EMC, EXIN, and ISEB.
Job Titles:
- Solutions Architect - Cloud Services
- Solutions Architect With the
Marc Grabowski is a Solutions Architect with the VMware Livefire Solutions Team and is based in Denver, Colorado. Marc currently holds a VCIX7-CMA certification, and since being recruited by VMware in 2012 has been highly involved in VMware exam development, serving as a Subject Matter Expert and Content Contributor for several VCAP and VCP certification exams. While his career began over a quarter century ago as a technical instructor right out of the University of Colorado, Marc has enjoyed an evolving career as a technology professional specializing in virtualization, UNIX systems administration and architecture, script development for automation, technical support and education. Now entering his 8th year at VMware, Marc is back in the classroom with the Livefire Solutions Team sharing his insight and decades of experience with colleagues and partners alike.Marc enjoys spending his personal time as a composer and touring musician, exploring the world with his sporty wife, competing in Texas Hold-em tournaments, and enduring the emotional ups and downs of a lifelong Denver Broncos fan and season ticket holder.
Naina comes to us from Accenture, where she worked with and supported some of the largest customers globally with workflows and automation. She has deep experience with both vRO and vRA, which will be immensely helpful for our lab infrastructure. Naina will be working as the Senior Lab Solutions Engineer for our APJ Livefire classes and looking for ways to automate lab deployment and management globally, making the process as streamlined as possible for our team and attendees. Calling Bangalore, India home, she resides with her husband and three-year-old daughter. When not working (or busy chasing a young toddler around), Naina enjoys gardening and dance. Her real passion may be in drawing Mandalas, and you can see a sampling of her amazing work via Instagram @creativesoulfulartist.
Nathan DuPriest is a highly skilled IT professional with over 20 years of experience designing, engineering, administering, and supporting physical and virtual infrastructures. He has held roles as customer end-user and as consultant, participating in all phases of engagement-sales, design, engineering, implementation, training, and support. Nate is a proven leader with the ability to motivate and inspire others and has extensive experience providing project management and consulting services.
Job Titles:
- Staff Solutions Architect - End User Computing
Hailing from the Northern part of India, Rahul has been settled in Bangalore for over a decade now. He is married to Amrita, who is working with Robert Bosch as a Project Manager. Rahul hobbies that keep him happy are Trekking, riding
Job Titles:
- Senior Staff Solutions Architect - Anywhere Workspace
Job Titles:
- Technical Writer for the Livefire Solutions Team
- Technical Writer I - Livefire Solutions
Ron is the Technical Writer for the Livefire Solutions Team. He is currently working on the Olivization project converting live training presentations into virtual learning platforms, covering such content areas as on-boarding new personnel to product training for stakeholders. He is a seasoned professional with over 15 years of experience in the field of Instructional Design, Curriculum Development, Training, and Capacity Building. He has authored several models of training content and designs for both private and government organizations geared towards increasing productivity, proficiency, and promoting organizational growth.
In his spare time, Ron is a staunch yoga practitioner and certified instructor in the practices of Vinyasa, Bikram, and Ashtanga yoga. He loves working with youth and encouraging them to consider potential futures they may not have previously considered, as a community activist, mentor, and founder of a local baseball league for youth ages 9-12 in the Albany, NY area.
Job Titles:
- Solutions Architect - Virtual Cloud Networking
Job Titles:
- Staff Program Manager - Livefire Solutions
Job Titles:
- Staff Solutions Architect - Anywhere Workspace