vExpert Spotlight: Brian Trainor
Brian Trainor
Today’s vExpert Spotlight interview is with Brian Trainor. Brian is a Systems Engineer from out East who I had the pleasure of meeting last year at VMworld 2014 in San Francisco. I was doing my #vBrownBag Tech Talk and right after I had stepped off stage Brian quickly stopped me to chat.
2014 was my 1st time at VMworld & my 1st #vBrownBag talk so I was a bit nervous on how my presentation would be received. Well that was squashed by Brian as he quickly made me feel that I had added value to the community by stopping me to talk about his similar past work experiences. That was a great feeling Brian, and I won’t ever forget that you were one of the 1st to stop me and give me kudos for what i thought was one of the scariest things I’ve done in my career…public speaking!
Well due to this awesome engagement, Brain & I have stayed in touch via Twitter and such so I was able to sit him down for a few and dig into the questions we all wanted to know. Here is Brian’s story.
The Interview
Star Wars or Star Trek?
Star Wars
What was your 1st IT gig?
I was working for a computer training company as a training coordinator (my name helped me get this gig!) and I became fascinated by the Microsoft technical courses we were selling to our customers. I later jumped on a job opening in our Operations department to install and configure the PC’s in our classrooms and manage the classroom networks. It became a perfect entry level IT job as the classroom was very much a lab environment. I had plenty of room to make mistakes and learn from them without impacting production. And I had direct access to some fabulous teachers!
What is your current job title and role?
I am currently a Sr. Systems Engineer for an IT consulting group within UNICOM Systems. I fill both presales and professional services roles, focusing on virtualization, storage and sometimes UCS engagements. After many years working for a VMware customer, it was an exciting transition to move to the partner side where I now get exposure to different environments and serve as a trusted adviser to our customers. I love designing and building and I feel especially fortunate that I get to do this every day.
How many years have you been a vExpert?
2 years
What advice would you give to others involved in the VMware community who are looking at becoming a vExpert?
A vExpert is all about giving to the VMware community, so the simple advice I would offer is to seek out ways to share with the community. Starting a blog and sharing experiences or lessons learned in the field is probably the easiest and most non-threatening way to do this. Getting active in social media and your local VMUG is another way to get connected, join the conversation, and discover new opportunities to share. A bigger step would be volunteering to speak at a community event. This is not required to become a vExpert, and it can be very intimidating for some, but it is incredibly rewarding and might even lead to bigger opportunities. All of this can be summed up into this idea: instead of always consuming value, seek out ways to provide value. There is a real time investment, but the personal and community growth is so worth it.
Do you currently have a Home Lab environment?
Since I have access to a decent lab at the office, I haven’t relied as much on my home lab. However, I do have a PC with 32GB RAM and a couple SSDs which allows me to run a small virtual data center using VMware Workstation. That’s enough to run three ESXi hosts, a FreeNAS or OpenFiler storage appliance, a vCenter server, a domain controller, and several nested guest VM’s. Autolab from www.labguides.com rocks for something like this. It’s amazing what can be crammed onto a small box with virtualization.
How do you use VMware products or services in your daily work life?
I manage a VMware lab environment in my office, in which I build out and test solutions and demos for our customers. I run other VMware products like vRealize Operations Manager and Orchestrator to optimize resource management and test automation capabilities. I also occasionally test out third party applications and tools, always seeking ways to simplify the day-to-day management of vSphere and storage environments for our customers. I then design and implement some of these solutions in our customer environments.
What certifications do you currently hold (if any)?
VCAP5-DCA, VCP-DCV 3/4/5, VCA-DCV/WM/Cloud, VTSP, MCP, ITIL
Tell us something about yourself that the community may not already know.
Besides being a devoted Christian, husband, and Dad, I’m a huge outdoor lover. Though my work pursuits and family priorities have scaled this back a bit, I still dream of climbing some of the big mountains. One of my favorite experiences was summiting Mt. Washington with my wife on our honeymoon.
What’s your go to song or music genre when work stress becomes too much?
I have a Spotify playlists and Pandora stations for whatever I need to clear my head, whether it’s classical, edgy, rockin’, or inspirational. But if I had to pick a favorite, it would be classic Third Day.
Do you have a blog that you would like to share?
Let us know how to contact you via social media.
Twitter: @betrainor
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briantrainor
Brian, Brian, Brian, 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 Brian on Twitter & also on LinkedIn as well as his personal blog. Brian is also attending VMworld 2015 in San Fran so make it a point to track him down and say What’s up!?
Lookup and browse the current 2014 vExperts in the vExpert Online Directory
Learn more about VMware’s vExpert Program: https://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/vexpert
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