vExpert Spotlight: Anthony Spiteri
Anthony Spiteri
Today’s vExpert Spotlight interview is with Anthony Spiteri. Anthony is a Lead Architect for Australia’s Leading vCloud Air provider and is also one of the 1st Veeam Vanguards. He is the author of the “Virtualization is Life!” blog as many of us enjoy reading. Join us as we jump right in with the Q&A!
The Interview
Star Wars or Star Trek?
Star Wars
Peanut Butter?
Creamy
Favorite Adult Beverage?
At the moment it’s Lagavulin 16 on the rocks
What was your 1st IT gig?
I actually started out of high school while I was at Uni trying to do Computer Science building PCs for family and friends. That extended out to friends of friends and other uni mates.
That gig started to go south in 2nd year when word got out that a HDD I supplied failed for one of the best coders in the year lost all his assignment work…reputation on Spiteri parts was never the same.
My first real job in IT was working for a local ASP back in 2002. YOURasp was ahead of its time providing hosted services such as Exchange and RDP services, but as luck would have it I was lucky enough to join a “cloud” company before cloud was cloud. From there I got into mainly Microsoft Hosted Services and worked on projects that delivered high profile websites.
My boss was a great influence on my career and taught me to be meticulous and precise in my work (he was of German decent) and I learnt a lot about how to run and maintain hosting and cloud platforms. Eventually we started to virtualize based on Hyper-V which lead me on my current career path.
What is your current job title and role?
I am Lead Architect for Zettagrid. As Lead Architect I help push the bounds of Virtualisation and Cloud by leading in product development that’s backed by a great team of motivated individuals looking to do great things with great technology.
My day to day involves working in and around predominantly VMware technologies and working on continual product and service improvements of the Zettagrid product portfolio. I also manage and am ultimately responsible for the compute and storage platforms that run Zettagrid’s IaaS and make sure all systems are purring along.
How many years have you been a vExpert?
4 years
What other IT Communities are you involved with or frequent?
VMware vChampion, PernixPro, and Veeam Vanguard communities.
What advice would you give to others involved in the VMware community who are looking at becoming a vExpert?
For me it’s all about contributing in a positive way towards this great community. If you haven’t started a blog but feel you have something to say then start one. Don’t worry about weather or not you feel your content is worthy of being out in the public, chances are someone, somewhere will find it interesting.
Finding time to tinker in your own home lab or wherever you have access to hardware and software is of massive benefit. Content tends to generate naturally and without effort the more you tinker and play with cool technologies. #CreateShareContibute
Do you currently have a Home Lab environment?
I don’t have a home lab, but I am lucky to have access to the Zettagrid Labs which has the following specs: 5 Hosts, 1TB RAM, 150GHz of CPU, 20TB Storage
I’m running vSphere 6.0 Update 1 with vCenter 6.0 U1 and ESXi 6.0 U1 across all hosts…We run PernixData FVP Freedom to help accelerate the NestedESXi Labs we use for test and dev. Each NestedESXi Lab is a clone of one of our production zones so we can dev and R&D against real world conditions. We even nest NSX and run different versions depending on the lab. My cutting edge lab is where all the beta fun is had, I even have Hyper-V and KVM hosts to test other Cloud Management Platforms from time to time.
How do you use VMware products or services in your daily work life?
VMware products are the building blocks for Zettagrid’s IaaS platform so on a daily basis I am in and around vCenter and ESXi and most things that sit ontop and extract the goodness of vSphere.
In delivering a IaaS I work around vCloud Director, NSX-v, vCO and a number of monitoring tools.
What certifications do you currently hold (if any)?
VCAP-DCA, VCP-Cloud, VCP-DCV, MCTS Hosting, and MCSE 2008
What’s your go to song or music genre when work stress becomes too much?
I have on heavy rotation albums from Alice in Chains (Jerry Cantrell), Seether, Papa Roach, Tool, Smashing Pumkins and more recently Chevelle. Basically anything with a heavy grungy guitar riff gets me through the day.
Tell us something about yourself that the community may not already know.
I am a passionate cricketer and have been playing at my club side Subiaco Marist since the 1998/99 season without rest. Cricket is a sport where you can have lots of time to ponder life and for me it’s always been my escape. It’s no surprise that I am extremely competitive and sometimes I let that spill over from the cricket field into my work and also family life..
I have two kids (6 yr old boy and 4yr old girl) and I’m the kind of father that probably won’t let his kids beat me at anything without them actually beating me. How else are they going to learn right? In reality as much as it pains me, I do let them beat me…sometimes!
Do you have a blog that you would like to share?
Yes! http://anthonyspiteri.net
Let us know how to contact you via social media.
Twitter: @anthonyspiteri
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyspiteri
G+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/115988594816523353906/posts
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHHIimDbr6m8a7annhQM7Kw
Anthony it was a pleasure & thank you very much for being a part of the vExpert Spotlight series! I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me.
Please hit up Anthony on Twitter as well as his personal blog.
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