As year 2014 is almost finished I would like to share with you with my 2014 review and plans for next Year. I had quite a lot of achievements and success stories and I have as well a lot of plans for next Year.
2014 Review
Work
At work there was quite a lot happening in 2014. I was acting as Track Lead for VMware and Windows in Datacenter migration project. I was responsible for successful migration of servers with and applications to new location ensuring zero downtime ensuring availability of services. Datacenter was successfully migrated to new location and I am very proud of that.
Blog
In 2014 I focused more pure VMware technologies rather than jumping from Windows, Linux and VMware. Somewhere in the middle of the Year I opened FaceBook page and Google Plus page and I unified logos and fonts on blog.
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/wojciehnet
Twitter page: https://twitter.com/wojciehnet
Google Plus page: https://plus.google.com/+WojciehNet
I would like to share with you blog statistics after whole Year. I think they are quite impressive - at least for me comparing to previous years.
Blog Statistics
- Unique users: 75,106
- Pageviews: 414,732
- Pages / Session: 3,99
- Avg. Session Duration: 02.27 min
Top 10 most popular posts in 2014
- vCenter Server 5.5 on SQL Server 2012 installation – Part 1/
- vCenter Server 5.5 on SQL Server 2012 installation – Part 2
- Upgrade ESXi 5.1 to 5.5 Part 1 – VMware Update Manager
- vCenter Server 5.5 on SQL Server 2012 installation – Part 3
- Vyatta – Router running on VMware Workstation – Part 1 basic networking
- VMware vSphere Update Manager 5.5
- Upgrade ESXi 5.1 to 5.5 Part 3 – esxcli
- VMware vSphere Auto Deploy configuration guide – Part 2/
- VMware ESXi 5.5 Active Directory authentication – step by step
- VMware vSphere Auto Deploy configuration guide – Part 1
Top 10 Countries visiting blog:
- United States: 22,42%
- Poland: 21,19%
- Germany: 5,55%
- United Kingdom: 5,15%
- India: 3,61%
- France: 3,17%
- Canada: 2,94%
- Australia: 2,32%
- Russia: 2,26%
- Netherlands: 1,87%
Top 5 Browsers:
- Chrome: 46,29%
- Firefox: 28,14%
- Internet Explorer: 17,06%
- Safari: 4,28%
- Opera: 2,48%
Top 5 Operating Systems:
- Windows: 85,54%
- Macintosh: 6,33%
- Linux: 3,24%
- iOS: 2,4%
- Android: 2,17%
I am really happy, because I increased number of readers overall, now most of the viewers come from English speaking countries and viewers are quite involved per visit. Besides that I got new blog sponsor: Veeam.
vExpert
Since I started to work in European Central Bank I worked with many skilled and educated IT Professionals. From one of the colleagues - Artur Krzywdziński VCDX #77 who worked with me for a while I learned a lot not only about VMware but as well about blogging, vExpert and VCDX program. Since I am quite ambitious I thought - hey I am smart as well. I can do it.
I read about vExpert program and immediately after I refreshed my homelab https://www.wojcieh.net/virtual-home-lab-upgrade/ I started to write post about VMware. A little bit shy I applied for vExpert 2014 and in April 2014 I got it https://www.wojcieh.net/vmware-vexpert-2014-award/.
Education
My plan for 2014 was quite simple - pass VMware Certified Advanced Professional 5- Data Center Administration exam. I did it and I am really proud about it. You can read about it here: https://www.wojcieh.net/vmware-certified-advanced-professional-5-data-center-administration-exam-experience/. As I wrote in previous part - I am quite ambitious and after speaking with Artur about certification I have a dream to become VMware Certified Design Expert. Passing VMware Certified Advanced Professional 5- Data Center Administration exam gave me courage and confirmed my skills in my VCDX journey.
2015 Plans
Work
You never know what will happen in future, but after visiting VMworld in Barcelona https://www.wojcieh.net/vmworld-2014-barcelona-day-0/ automation will be most important topic next Year. I agree with that approach completely because quite often people spent to much time fighting fire instead of preventing fire. Automation will help focus people on finding new solutions and exploring new possibilities.
Blog
I will not stop blogging - that is for sure. I love when I got positive feedback from readers in comments, twitting and messages. I will still try to deliver good quality content and focus on work and education related tasks and I am pretty sure you will enjoy it.
vExpert
Following last year I focused on providing good and useful blog post about VMware technology. I didn’t have so much time to spend on VMware forums as I did previous Year and I regret that. I already applied for 2015 vExpert and I hope I will be rewarded this prestigious award again.
Education
Cloud and Automation. These two phrases will dominate my education in 2015. As you might know VMware / market pushes very hard to be Software Defined and heavy automated. If you want to be top on IT market you have to have those skills. vSphere stack is not enough if you speak with companies / recruiters so if you want to dictate terms you must have special knowledge.
Besides that I still want to pursue VCDX certification and missing milestone is one exam - VMware Certified Advanced Professional 5 – Data Center Design. I plan to pass it in February and of course I will share my exam experience with you. I hope that I will start VCDX preparation somewhere after summer if everything will go as I plan it.
Last but not least is TOGAF® 9 Certified - level 1 and 2. As you might know I would like to become an Architect and I believe that this training and certification will help me achieve my goal. If you want to learn more about TOGAF® 9 course and certification visit this page http://www.opengroup.org/togaf/.
Happy New Year!
At the end of this post I would like to wish you all the best you can ever imagine.
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” — Albert Einstein