Hello and welcome to my blog. I’ve worked in IT for over 15 years. Having spent several years in a number of different roles including Systems Administrator, Technical Trainer and Design Architect predominantly with a Microsoft bias, it was in 2008 that I decided to branch out and increase my networking knowledge.
At that time, I was working at an MSP with a leaning towards Cisco and so dived in to studying for my CCNA which I attained within six months via the two exam CCENT\CCNA route. Two years later, I was aware that I needed to renew my CCNA within 12 months and brokered a deal with my company to move full-time in to a networking role based on the experience I had gathered over the previous two years.
Twelve months of hard studying later (with my 1st Cisco Live trip thrown in to the mix for inspiration), I had restudied for and successfully resat my CCNA to confirm the standard of my foundational knowledge and also gained my CCNP.
Since then, I’ve managed a Network Operations team and done an interesting blend of consultancy and network design. In more recent times, I’ve returned to an old interest in the form of coding. Having worked with various flavours of BASIC, VBScript and PowerShell over the years, I naturally embraced Python and love both its simplicity and broad range of use cases. Creating useful tools to help productivity or just for the fun of it is one of my geek hobbies.
Throughout my career, I’ve always had an keen interest in Information Security, particularly where it meets the coal face in operations and after working closely with security topics in my previous IT roles, I decided to make the full jump to an information security role. I have a passion in raising security awareness and trying to help organisations recognise the FUD and doing the fundamentals well.
Always trying to keep busy and relevant in an ever changing IT world.