For me the last 3 months have been pretty unique, some of the highlights include (but are not limited to): –

• Receiving an invitation to advise the board of a locally based technology startup called Infrx
• Assisting a government agency with a large scale (for Australia) migration of their production systems to an IAAS cloud offering provided by one of the countries top 3 telcos
• Gaining exposure to OpenStack and getting a taste for open source communities (including Open Compute project and the local openstack user group).
• Taking some time out to catch up with people who make up our IT industry (both locally and globally).

On this last point, it continues to amaze me how many people want to help you succeed as an individual and are willing to offer their time to help you on your path!  I’ve mentioned the uniqueness of our community several times before, it’s a great example of people respecting each other and treating others the same way as you would like others to treat you.  It’s this behaviour that I’m drawn to, I continually find these interactions restore my faith in humanity (there, I’ve said it!).

As you may know, I’ve previously questioned my long term prospects working in IT (specifically in the customer space), which originally lead me to re-evaluate my goals and challenge myself to gain new skills/experiences (namely taking my ever evolving technical skills and blending them with new Sales and now Marketing experiences).

I think as you increase your exposure to this community, you really have to decide how much you want to participate and get involved…

So with this last statement in mind its time for the next step in my career, as of Monday I will be starting as a Virtualisation Architect covering the APJ region for Pure Storage.

Flash continues to have a profound effect on the IT Industry and has fundamentally changed the way organisations design, manage, and consume storage.  I think it’s one of (if not THE) most exciting technology spaces to be working in today!

It goes without saying that I’m excited about what’s to come, but I also realise I will yet again be leaving my comfort zone learning new skills and challenging myself (I guess there’s an element of this with any new position).  What really stands out for me in this new role/company is the opportunity to increase my participation in our community as a speaker, blogger and luminary for Pure Storage.

I’m really looking forward to meeting fellow Puritans as part of my onboarding in the US next week!

I also look forward to meeting old friends and new at VMworld US 2014, I’ll be active in the Solutions Exchange on the Pure Storage Booth (#1613) so if you see me, grab me and introduce yourself – there’s nothing I like more than meeting new people!

Check out this link for more details about Pure Storage at VMworld which includes all the session times! It’s one of my ambitions to be presenting a session next year 🙂

I’ll also be attending Pure’s EVOLVE conference on the Thursday after VMworld.  Check out this link Pure Storage EVOLVE, the event includes keynotes from investors Diane Green and Mendel Rosenblum (who founded VMware)!