cl0uddaddy is my alias which came about when I was asked to enter the world of Twitter. At the time I was deep into Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) research and I was about to become a dad for the first time, so it just stuck from there.
My real name is Paul Ruler and I have worked in the IT industry as many term it for over 10 years.
I began working as a Sales Support Resourcer for Computer Futures the recruitment company, this was a placement via an NVQ Level 2 and 3 I was taking. This is of course not where I wanted to be but qualified as a placement due to the fact I was “using a computer on a daily basis”.
That lasted for a year whilst I got close to a Site Support Administrator who would be regularly moving around the Cheshire / Manchester area supporting a few offices with all of their IT needs. I got the side job of changing the backup tapes on a daily basis, getting near those servers caused me to re-evaluate my position and make it known I wanted to be involved rather than just wondering past.
That led to getting a role as a Site Support Administrator for the Computer Futures umbrella group company SThree.
I met some good people and they all have their own aspirations, they leave to pursue something else and they usually take you along for the ride which is what happened and I ended up as a Systems Administrator at Leap29.
I then started at Quantiv Limited back in March 2003, staying an enjoyable 11 1/2 years before leaving at the end of September 2014. This role has built on what I gathered in my early career days with all of the classics such as Windows NT4 Server / Workstation and Exchange Server 5.5 and now makes me what I am today (clean opinions welcome!).
Quantiv has been a Microsoft Gold Partner for the years I have been around and so we are always able to gain deep exposure to the latest Microsoft technologies. I was responsible for the Enterprise Architecture of the infrastructure that is required for Quantiv’s customers to run their enterprise systems which covers many vertical markets:
- Retail
- Insurance
- Logistics
- Defence
Microsoft Dynamics AX technical consultancy and architecture is now also added to my skill set, designing and implementing scalable and resilient solutions across various vertical markets including Retail and Logisitics.
In this blog I am trying to share what I am doing on a daily basis so I can hopefully help others digging for the answer. You can expect mainly Microsoft technology stuff around Windows Server, SharePoint, Exchange, Lync, Office365, Windows 8, but I will also try and throw in some experience around Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) as and when.
You can also find me in all other usual places:
Gap Fusion Blog 