About me

Hello, and welcome to vcloudnine.de!

I’m Patrick — born in 1981, raised in the Ruhr area, and now at home in the Eifel region, about 50 km from Cologne. I did an apprenticeship at a local IT company in the early 2000s and later earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics from FernUniversität Hagen.

I’ve spent more than two decades working in IT infrastructure. The technologies come and go, but the core of what I do stays the same: architecting, designing, and building enterprise IT infrastructure. I started this blog in 2014 as a curated notebook for the experiences, findings, and bugs I run into along the way.

Away from the keyboard, I’m a father of three. In my free time you’ll most likely find me with my family somewhere in the Eifel, in the garden, or out for a run. Feel free to follow me or get in touch on Mastodon or LinkedIn.

What I work with

These are the technologies I spend most of my time with:

  • Cloud: Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365
  • Virtualization: VMware vSphere, Nutanix AHV, containers (Docker, Kubernetes)
  • SAN/Storage: VMware vSAN, Nutanix AOS, HPE (MSA, 3PAR, Primera, StoreOnce)
  • Microsoft: Exchange, Active Directory, Windows Server
  • Backup: Veeam Backup & Replication
  • Linux/UNIX: Linux (RHEL, Ubuntu, SUSE), FreeBSD
  • Networking: switching (Aruba, Cisco, ALE), firewalls (WatchGuard, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Sophos)
  • Security: network segmentation and port security, Active Directory tiering and hardening, Windows Server hardening, Linux/UNIX hardening
  • Automation: PowerShell, Shell, Python, Terraform, Packer, Ansible

Certifications

Some of these were driven by partner requirements, others I did simply for the fun of it:

  • Aruba Certified Switching Professional (ACSP)
  • Citrix Certified Professional – App Delivery and Security
  • DataCore Certified Implementation Engineer
  • HP ASE FlexNetwork Integrator V1
  • HPE ASE – Hybrid IT Solutions Architect V1
  • HPE ASE – Data Center Network Integrator V1
  • HPE Master ASE – Storage Solutions Architect V3
  • Linux Professional Institute LPIC-1
  • Microsoft 365 Certified: Messaging Administrator Associate
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Virtual Desktop Specialty
  • Microsoft MCSE Cloud Platform and Infrastructure
  • Microsoft MCSE Productivity
  • Nutanix Certified Professional – Multi Cloud Infrastructure
  • Nutanix Certified Systems Engineer Core
  • VMware VCAP6-DCV Deployment
  • VMware VCP7-DTM
  • WatchGuard Network Security Essentials

I was recognized as a VMware vExpert from 2014 to 2025. After Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware, I decided not to renew the status.