Hi! I’m Alex Galbraith, and most of the time you can find me working as CTO for the global AWS business for SoftwareONE. Based in Surrey, UK, I live with my wonderful family and our dog/ewok, Millie!
I’ve been an IT pro since 2003 (not quite the punch card era, but a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away). Put it this way – I managed a few mainframes and some Netware 3 in my early career! Seeing the future, I got into the world of virtualisation shortly thereafter, with the release of VMware ESX & GSX 2.x! I’ve designed, built and managed many virtual environments from tiny two host solutions, to thousands of VMs and due to my love of all things virtual, was fortunate enough to be awarded vExpert status for ten years straight (2013-2022). This even led to being invited to be a delegate at several Tech Field Days, which were truly awesome experiences!
We all know though things move pretty fast in technology and since 2015 I shifted my focus to cloud, certifying across AWS, Azure and Google to enable me to spend most of my working (waking!) hours doing cloudy things! I genuinely believe cloud can be a game-changer for businesses, IF they adopt it openly (not just lift/shift and your mess for no less!).
This site contains a bit of info about me, links to my other presences on the web, and a few technical ramblings which started mainly an aid to memory for me, and grew into an itch I had to scratch most weeks for a long time… Work and home life have been all encompassing for the past few years which is why the content has been… sporadic of late! I am committed to find the time to rekindle that output in the future, but in the mean time you might find the occasional post on something which has been bouncing around in my brain and needs an outlet!
This blog can also be accessed at the following addresses:
tekhead.it/blog
galbraith.it/blog
www.tekhead.org/blog
PS – Memes are also my guilty pleasure!
Tech Field Day
I’ve been fortunate enough to be invited along to be a delegate at a number of TFD events, which are available online here:
- Oct 2015 – Storage Field Day 8
- Mar 2016 – Storage Field Day 9
- Nov 2016 – Tech Field Day 12
- June 2017 – Storage Field Day 13
Speaking, Podcasts, Interviews, External Blogs, etc
I’m a bit of a gab, so I try to practice a bit of public speaking, or do the odd podcast when people are foolish enough to let me do so! This is a list of some sessions and the decks associated:
- Jan 2014 – London VMUG – Intel NUC Nanolab
- Apr 2014 – London VMUG – Noddy’s Warty Guide to Storage Design
- Jan 2016 – London VMUG – Ask the Expert Panel
- Apr 2016 – London VMUG – Open Homelab Project Squaretable event
- Jun 2016 – London VMUG – Extreme Data Centres
- Aug 2016 – Ridecast with Marc Farley – Rethinking data protection strategies for Seagate’s 60TB drives
- Aug 2016 – Open TechCast – Episode 1:- The NEW Beginning
- Sep 2016 – In Tech We Trust Podcast – A Bitcoin in the backend
- Sep 2016 – Open TechCast – Episode 2:- Breaking International Waters
- Nov 2016 – Full Stack Journey Podcast – Ep10 – AWS
- Nov 2016 – Open TechCast – Special Episode 3: – TFD12
- Jan 2017 – London VMUG – AWS for VMware Admins (with Chris Porter)
- Feb 2017 – Open TechCast – Episode 3.1:- The Longest Chat Yet – Part 1
- Feb 2017 – Open TechCast – Episode 3.2:- The Longest Chat Yet – Part 2
- Mar 2017 – Open TechCast – Episode 4:- Homelabs or Home Data Centers
- Apr 2017 – Scotland VMUG – AWS for VMware Admins (with Chris Porter)
- Aug 2017 – Open TechCast – Episode 5:- Time for a Catch Up
- Sep 2017 – VMworld – Open TechCast Episode 6:- Interview with Pat Gelsinger
- Sep 2017 – VMworld – Open TechCast Episode 7:-Interview with Sanjay Poonan
- Nov 2017 – UK VMUG – AWS for VMware Admins (with Chris Porter) – Now on YouTube!
- Jan 2018 – Open TechCast – EP08:- UKVMUG 2017 EP1
- Jan 2018 – Open TechCast – EP09:- UKVMUG 2017 EP2
- Jan 2018 – CloudSpotting – Season 1 Ep 1 – Peaking Early – A discussion on Application Scaling
- Feb 2018 – Open TechCast – EP.10 – New year, New Security
- Feb 2018 – CloudSpotting – Season 1 Ep 2 – Keeping it Reel – The Art of Phishing and Advanced Persistent Threats
- Mar 2018 – CloudSpotting – Season 1 Ep 3 – At rest encryption and exploding boxes
- Mar 2018 – Open TechCast – EP.11:- A Ravello Cloudy day with a side of AWSome vExpert announcements
- May 2018 – CloudSpotting – Season 1 Episode 4 – Application development, security injections and cluster questions…
- Jun 2018 – CloudSpotting – Season 1 Ep 5 Well-Architected Framework Reviews, hay fever struggles and code inception
- Jul 2018 – Open TechCast – vMashup EP1:- vSoup Edition
- Jul 2018 – CloudSpotting – Season 1 Ep 6 – Deeper into the mysterious world of DevOps
- Aug 2018 – CloudSpotting – Season 1 Ep 7 – The business “why” behind the cloud
- Aug 2018 – Open TechCast – EP14:- A chat bout #CFD4, news and what to look forward to
- Sep 2018 – Open TechCast – EP15:- Racking up some changes
- Oct 2018 – CloudSpotting – Season 1 Ep 8 – CDN – back to tech
- Nov 2018 – Open TechCast – SPEP07 – Joe Baguley @ VMworld EU 2018
- Dec 2018 – CloudSpotting – Season 1 Ep 9 – Special Episode – AWS Re:Invent Recap
- Dec 2018 – Open TechCast – vMashup EP2:- Virtually Tech Cast at VMWorld 2018
- Jan 2019 – CloudSpotting – Season 2 Ep 1 – What Cloud?! – A portfolio architect’s viewpoint.
- Feb 2019 – CloudSpotting – Season 2 Ep 2 – Some people just talk too much about SRE/CRE
- Mar 2019 – CloudSpotting – Season 2 Ep 3 – Diving into WAF and on ways to prevent DDoS
- May 2019 – CloudSpotting – Season 2 Ep 4 – Not so timely on Google Next…
- Jun 2019 – CloudSpotting – Season 2 Ep 5 – OnCloud vs ToCloud – who’s born in the cloud?
- Jul 2019 – CloudSpotting – Season 2 Ep 6 – Who is paying for the Game of Clouds? – this one is about FinTech
- Sep 2019 – CloudSpotting – Season 2 Ep 7 – Back to school – on their Rackspace anniversary grads share their journey
- Oct 2019 – CloudSpotting – Season 2 Ep 8 – It’s always sunny in California…
- Jan 2020 – CloudSpotting – Special Episode – re:Invent destroyed my pedometer
- Jan 2020 – CloudSpotting – Season 3 Ep 1 – Personal Development – Are you doing things to make yourself grow?
- Mar 2020 – CloudSpotting – Season 3 Ep 2 – VMC on AWS: getting the best of both worlds
- Apr 2020 – CloudSpotting – Season 3 Ep 3 – Not another work from home podcast
- Apr 2020 – CloudSpotting – Season 3 Ep 4 – You’re not alone. Join our discussion about mental health.
- May 2020 – CloudSpotting – Season 3 Ep 5 – Can security keep up with digital transformation?
- Jun 2020 – CloudSpotting – Season 3 Ep 6 – The future is even more cloudy after COVID
- Jul 2020 – CloudSpotting – Season 3 Ep 7 – A day in the life of a Solutions Architect
- Aug 2020 – CloudSpotting – Season 3 Ep 8 – Being authentic and building trust in the machine age
- Sep 2020 – CloudSpotting – Season 3 Ep 9 – It’s Black Friday every day as ecommerce booms
- Nov 2020 – CloudSpotting – Season 3 Ep 10 – Going digging down the data goldmine
- Mar 2021 – CloudSpotting – Season 3 Ep 7 – Women in Tech: Creating stronger female networks
- July 2021 – Open TechCast – Series 4 Ep 1 – Series 4 Episode 1:- Lets get back to it
- July 2021 – CloudSpotting – Season 3 Ep 8 – What can AI and machine learning do for your business?
- Nov 2021 – CloudSpotting – Season 3 Ep 9 – Why ITIL isn’t dead — and how it’s relevant in a cloud world
- Dec 2021 – vBrownBag – vBrownbag: Alex Galbraith at AWS re:Invent 2021
- Mar 2022 – Open TechCast – Series:-5 EP1:- vRetreat and being all virtual…
- Nov 2022 – ComputerWeekly – Microscope: SoftwareONE marks a year since HeleCloud move
- Feb 2023 – SoftwareOne Blog – Build a strong foundation for cloud transformation now… or pay the price later
- Feb 2023 – SoftwareOne YouTube – De-risking Cloud Migration
- Feb 2023 – SoftwareOne YouTube – Working with AWS
- Nov 2023 – SoftwareOne Webinar – Cloud Native Data Strategy: Foundations for an AI future
- Nov 2023 – AWS LinkedIn – AWS re:Invent 2023 Interview
- June 2024 – AWS YouTube – AWS SaaS Fireside Chat
- June 2024 – SoftwareOne Blog – Insights from The AI Summit, London, 2024
Certifications
People usually like to see all those lovely “certified” logos, so here are mine:
Disclaimers:
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent SoftwareONE’s positions, strategies or opinions.
All data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. tekhead.it makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site & will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.
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