vExpert Spotlight: Todd D’Amore
Todd D’Amore
Today’s vExpert Spotlight interview is with Todd D’Amore. Todd hails from sunny California where he works to automate all the things around cloud infrastructures. Join us as we learn a little more about Todd on today’s #vExpertSpotlight!
The Interview
Star Wars or Star Trek?
Star Trek
Peanut Butter?
Crunchy
Favorite Adult Beverage?
Beer!
What was your 1st IT gig?
My first IT gig was working for a small “Mom & Pop” type shop that would go out and service small companies that couldn’t afford to have a full time IT guy. Unfortunately, that also usually meant that they couldn’t afford to keep their systems up to date either. This was back in the mid 90’s so we are talking about Windows NT 3.51, Novell Netware, and SCO Unix. If you see me, ask me about my learning experience with boot.ini and a UPS connected to a serial port. That was a long day!
What is your current job title and role?
Currently I am a Sr. Manager, Information Systems at Amgen – the worlds largest independent biotechnology company. In my role I oversee cloud computing, automation, and virtualization.
How many years have you been a vExpert?
This is my second year as a vExpert.
What other IT Communities are you involved with or frequent?
There are other communities besides VMware?!?
What advice would you give to others involved in the VMware community who are looking at becoming a vExpert?
Stay active in the community – social media is a great way to do this. Also, VMUG is another way to get involved. As a VMUG leader myself, i can say that one of the biggest challenges I have is finding actual users to come up and speak and share their experiences. Don’t be afraid to share something you’re working on because you think it’s been done 100 times already or that your environment is too small. Trust me, someone out there will get something out of it. If you are passionate about your work, it should be relatively easy to become a vExpert.
Do you currently have a Home Lab environment?
Yes, my current lab is actually a nested lab running in VMware Workstation on my Macbook Pro. I followed a nice blog series by Jonathan Frappier @jfrappier to get it going. Prior to that, I had a small lab that I had pieced together with various Ebay acquisitions but an escalating utility bill and competition for space with the kids playroom led me to the nested lab I have today.
How do you use VMware products or services in your daily work life?
Our current virtualization footprint is around 750 hosts and just over 10k VM’s. We are a large VMware shop and use a wide range of products ranging from hypervisor all the way to automation and operations management. We are a relatively small team (around 3500 VM’s per engineer) and we are able to get away with that because of the maturity of the VMware platform.
What certifications do you currently hold (if any)?
None
What’s your go to song or music genre when work stress becomes too much?
I’m all over the place here. If I’m having an exceptionally bad day, I might listen to some Reggae. If my girls come visit me there is a possibility that you might hear some Taylor Swift coming from my office. Just depends on my mood at the time.
Tell us something about yourself that the community may not already know.
Although I’ve been living in California for the past 30 years, I’m a midwestern farm boy at heart. I was born in Milwaukee, WI and have played ice hockey since I was around 4-5 years old. I also have 3 children all under the age of 7 and they keep me on my toes.
Do you have a blog that you would like to share?
No, I do not at this time.
Let us know how to contact you via social media.
Twitter: @virtual_todd
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tdamore
Todd thank you very much for being a part of the vExpert Spotlight series! I appreciate you taking time out of your busy day to chat with me.
Please hit up Todd on Twitter & also on LinkedIn.
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