Win Vahlkamp

Background

About Win Vahlkamp

When I was 11 my dad bought an Osborne computer and I became his sysadmin because he couldn't figure it out. I had the knack. But I also had a burning love for learning about World War 2, history and teaching people. It's in my genes coming from a family of teachers. I entered college thinking I was going to be an engineer and left college as a high school history teacher having forgotten I had the knack. I taught high school history for seven years, but it wasn't satisfying. Something was missing. One day someone told me I should look at this Microsoft certification thing and everything came together. Some time later my love of history and teaching came together with my love of technology when I became a pre-sales Solutions Engineer. Since then I have been able to teach others how to find and develop elegant solutions to complex problems, especially problems related to the oil and gas industry. Today (25+ years later) I help people solve the most complex problems around data management and operating their data in the cloud and teach them how to do it with great designs, gathering the data they need, creating the feedback loops necessary for success, understanding the limits they face, and how to operate their technologies, especially with cloud architectures and paradigms. My love of history, computing, and technology still find their outlets in the great satisfaction of seeing someone have that "a ha!" moment in the discovery of the solution to the problems they are trying to solve. Specialties include: NetApp ONTAP, Solidfire, HCI, Azure NetApp Files, E-Series, Microsoft Azure, cloud design and architectures, and service design.