About

Introduction

My name is Karl, a husband and father of 5 wonderful children living in Northern Ireland. I am passionate about all things IT and enjoy learning new things. When I am not working, studying for an exam, or learning something new, I can be found watching Star Trek or spending time with my family. We enjoy exploring Ireland and finding new places to play.

What I do

I am a Microsoft MVP for Azure and an Azure Architect at Avanade specialising in the Azure space, with a passion for cloud native technologies and cloud networking. My role involves designing and implementing Azure-based solutions for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

I enjoy my role as an Azure Architect as every day is different and getting to work with clients to help them modernise their applications and grow using the power of the Azure platform is a lot of fun.

Why I Blog

I’ve been talking about starting a blog for years but, as my wife will attest, I tend to procrastinate. The primary purpose behind this blog is to share my experiences as an IT Professional, both technical and not.

I believe that we, as human beings, are stronger when we work together. Community is important. I look forward to contributing to the IT Community by sharing with you all.

I’ll be writing about what I learn as I work with Azure and other Microsoft technologies. You can expect blogs on different Azure and M365 services as well as articles that explore the various Infrastructure as Code (IaC) options available to us when deploying resources to Azure.

Available for

I am thankful to those in the community that have taken time over the years to give me advice and to mentor me whether formally or informally. Please feel free to reach out to me if I can help you in any way with advice or mentoring. You can find my contact details to the left or above, depending on where you are reading this.

Certificates

There is often a lot of debate around the benefits of professional certifications within the IT Pro community. I have always found them very useful when coupled with experience in the field.

Earned

I currently hold the following certifications:

  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
  • Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Security Engineer Associate
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Network Engineer Associate
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate
  • Cisco CCNA (Routing and Switching)
  • Microsoft MCSA: Office 365

You can see my Credly badges on my Credly Page.

In Progress

My current focus is preparing for the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam. You can find out more about the CKA exam here.

If you want to follow my journey, you can connect with me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Thank you

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog. I hope you find some useful articles here. Feel free to reach out to me on Twitter or LinkedIn. You can find links to both at the bottom of the page.