2019: A Year in Reflection
2019
Published on 31 December 2019 by Christopher Lewis. Words: 592. Reading Time: 3 mins.
Reflecting on 2019…
Where to start this post? For those who follow me on Twitter or on my blog, I would like to say Thank You for being part of the continuing journey in 2019! This year has actually been a little quiet for me.
Personal
It has been a pretty quiet year for me this year, thankfully! The biggest things for me are Son 1.0 (4) started primary school and Son 2.0 (<2) is as cute as a button. It is a privilege to see them grow (albeit it has not been all plain sailing!). I know I couldn’t do it without my fiancee who tirelessly takes care of us all!
Work
Professionally this has been an #epic year. As I have mentioned previously, I joined VMware in February 2019 and I’m ~11 months in and thoroughly enjoying in my new Senior System Engineer role. I have met so many new people, learnt so much and, overall, I am so grateful for the opportunities being presented to me.
Some highlights for me have been:
- Presented at VMware EMPOWER.
- Proctored HOL at VMworld Europe in Barcelona (and won an award!).
- Presented at National UK VMUG on VMware Cloud on AWS.
Travel
I have travelled for work a reasonable amount this year (but not as much as I thought). Apparently I have been on 14 trips to 5 different countries, over 60 days and have travelled a total of 44,600 KM. I’m sure a lot of people have travelled more than I have but I have been to:
- Las Vegas, USA
- Dallas, USA
- Barcelona, Spain.
- Munich, Germany.
- Lisbon, Portugal.
- Edinburgh, Scotland
vCommunity
It has probably been my busiest year from a vCommunity point of view. I took my vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager (vRSLCM) Notes from the Field Session on the road, visiting and presenting the session at the UK North East VMUG (Newcastle), the UK South West VMUG (Bristol) and the UK London VMUG. I also presented at the UK National VMUG at the National Space Center (Leicester).
From a vExpert point of view, I managed to retain vExpert status (including NSX, Cloud and vSAN) giving me 4 star status and also add the Cloud Management sub-designation.
Certification / Training
Looking back at my 2018 post, I haven’t completed as many certifications as I have in previous years. Let us take a look at the list:
- VMware:
VCAP6.5-DCV Design- completed.- VCAP6.5-DCV Deploy (AKA 3V0-21.18: Advanced Deploy vSphere 6.5 Exam 2018) - Scheduled H1 2020.
- VCAP7-CMA Deploy (AKA 3V0-31.18: Advanced Deploy vRealize Automation 7.3 Exam 2018) - Scheduled H1 2020.
- vSAN Specialist - Scheduled H1 2020.
VMConAWS Specialist- completed.- Cloud Provider Specialist - Scheduled H2 2020.
vRealize Operatiosn Specialist- completed (added).
- Microsoft:
- Microsoft MSCA Windows Server 2016 - Scheduled Q1 2020.
- AWS:
- AWS Solution Architect Associate - Scheduled H1 2020.
- AWS Developer Associate - Scheduled H1 2020.
- AWS SysOps Administrator Associate - Scheduled H1 2020.
Now without giving too many excuses, I put the lack of achievement on certifications down to the fact I have been very busy trying to get to grips with my new role and balancing that with home life with 2 young children. I hope to change this in 2020!
Looking forward to 2020
I’m not actually sure what I’m looking forward to in 2020. I’m also not sure if that is good or bad. I just want to build on the good foundations this year, make time for more certifications, learn a lot more about Kubenetes (maybe even take the CKA exam!) and just enjoy life…
Published on 31 December 2019 by Christopher Lewis. Words: 592. Reading Time: 3 mins.
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