Now and in the future
“What I like is that I now get to work for different customers. And that here I can put into practice what I have previously obtained certificates for, such as setting up projects in Azure or finding advanced solutions to customer questions.”
The focus of Michael’s work is consulting for Microsoft services with clients. “I especially get energy from projects where something has to be set up. So starting at the beginning, and then not a standard configuration but customization that fits a client’s wants and needs. Give me a vision, the big picture, and then let me fill it in, and I’ll be happy with my work.”
Michael, of course, hasn’t finished learning. So he is now trying to master the intricacies of project management: “My colleague Martijn is a good teacher in this. How he documents everything and builds up a project, how he formulates things: he is just very strong in this. I can learn a lot from that; up until now I have mainly carried it out. The quotation process is also new for me, so for now I don’t have to worry that there is nothing to learn, on the contrary.”
“Consultancy is new to me, of course, so new challenges come up in other areas as well. In terms of hardware, for example, I’m not at all familiar with Fortinet’s firewalls, FortiGate. I would like to get a certification for that in order to be able to advise even better in the future. Other than that, I’ll let everything that’s new now come to me for a while.”
The urge to want to do something else right now is not there. “Of course, I just made the move to IT consultant, but I don’t care much about titles anyway. To me, certifications are worth more than an interesting-sounding job title. So I think I’m definitely going to learn more and develop in the future. I get that opportunity within CaptureTech and that’s very nice.”
Where is IT going?
A true IT professional naturally stays abreast of what is going on in the market and what the latest developments are. Michael sees a particularly important role for Azure: “If Azure were to fall away, I do have a challenge, because that’s what I specialize in. But of course that’s not going to happen, because the cloud is becoming more and more important. Eventually I see everything going to the cloud in one way or another; that trend has been going on for a few years now. Everything you can have in terms of infrastructure on-premises, you can also build and set up in Azure. More and more organizations are doing that, at least in part. And Azure is important in that because many organizations already have and know Microsoft. The advantage of the cloud is that it works anytime, anywhere. If your network is down, or something happens like a fire, your IT just keeps working. No matter where you are.”
“In addition, security is a very important pillar, as an organization you just have to have that in order. You can’t leave your door open at home anymore either, as an organization you have to have the digital door shut tightly. And so much is happening in that now, that changes every time and that’s good.”
