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Virtual Elephant
About Me

Chris Mutchler - VCDX#257

Cloud & Data Center Architect

Twitter: @chrismutchler

LinkedIn: Chris Mutchler

The site is focused on discussing current technologies within the VMware and Cloud Native spaces. Most of the articles discuss various aspect of these technologies and how to operationalize these technologies in an Enterprise environment. I am extremely passionate about helping individuals increase their DevOps skill sets through automation, or Infrastructure-as-Code. My past endeavors included building out customized Hadoop clusters based on the workload needs within a VMware SDDC private cloud infrastructure. I have worked extensively with VMware Big Data Extensions since I was first exposed to it in a private session at the 2013 VMworld US conference. I have dedicated countless hours to implementing and enhancing the capabilities Big Data Extensions to include many of the new cloud native technologies and Hadoop-focused applications.

More recently, I have found myself focused on Cloud Native technologies, specifically Kubernetes and VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid. These technologies are transforming the way enterprise IT organizations deliver cloud capacities to their consumers. The transformation required of organizations transitioning from the old IT model move beyond just the technologies deployed and focus more on individuals within their organizations. Through my role at VMware, I have been given the ability to share the insights I have gained over the past 20 years to help customers adapt to these changes and find success within their organizations.

BIOGRAPHY

I am a VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX-257) and VCDX Certification Panelist.

I am currently a Senior Staff Cloud Infrastructure Architect at VMware. My role currently allows me to take my operational experience and assist VMware’s largest global customers to deliver business outcomes that are aligned with the business goals, through architectural design reviews and operational guidance. As a subject matter expert in the full-stack of VMware products, including vSphere, vSAN, NSX and Tanzu, I am able to assist customers work through current challenges across the entire VMware and Public Cloud ecosystems.

I was previously (2015-2018) a Cloud Services Architect on the VMware internal private cloud team. The VMware private cloud is consumed by the VMware Education, Hands-on-Labs and various other engineering teams within VMware. The team is highly motivated to run the VMware products at an extremely large-scale to help address issues external customers could possibly see in their own environments.

Until May 2015 I was employed at Adobe in the Digital Marketing business unit, where I was a Cloud & Virtualization Engineer. At Adobe, the team specialized in designing Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service offerings.  Before Adobe, I managed a team of system administrators that grew a virtualized web-hosting business from a few hundred servers to over 10,000 servers.

My career has been focused entirely on enterprise operations and working in large scale environments. I have managed environments that have started out as a few hundred physical servers to thousands of physical servers and hundreds of thousands of virtual machines.

The challenges around running a large-scale enterprise private cloud has been very rewarding and I continue to enjoy learning each day how to implement robust architectures.

 

SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS

2014

  • Hadoop Summit (San Jose, CA) – VMware Big Data Extensions & Virtualizing Hadoop
  • VMworld US (San Francisco, CA) – Virtualizing Hadoop & Building Hadoop-as-a-Service
  • VMworld EMEA (Barcelona, Spain) – Virtualizing Hadoop & Building Hadoop-as-a-Service

2015

  • Adobe Tech Summit (San Francisco, CA) – HDFS as a Data Warehouse
  • ISC Cloud & Big Data Conference (Frankfurt, Germany) – Virtualizing Hadoop

2016

  • VMUG Webcast (Online) – How Did VMware IT Upgrade to vSphere 6.0?
  • Salt Lake City VMUG UserCon (Salt Lake City, UT) – vSphere Security

2017

  • VMUG Virtual Event 2017 (Online) – VMworld Hybrid Cloud Hands-on-Labs Architecture

2018

  • Phoenix VMUG (Scottsdale, AZ) – Upgrading to vSphere 6.7
  • Indy USERCON (Indianapolis, IN) – Upgrading to vSphere 6.7
  • VMworld 2018 US & EMEA – How VMware IT Transformed to a Services-based Organization
  • vBrownbag 2018 – VMware Hands-on-Labs community session
  • VMware {code} at VMworld 2018 – Automating the SDDC with Ansible

CERTIFICATIONS & AWARDS

  • VMware vExpert 2015 – 2023
  • VMware Certified Professional – Data Center Virtualization
  • VMware Certified Advanced Professional – Data Center Administration
  • VMware Certified Advanced Professional – Data Center Design
  • VMware Certified Advanced Professional – Cloud Management & Automation Deployment
  • VMware Certification Subject Matter Expert – Cloud Management & Automation
  • VMware Certified Design Expert – Data Center Virtualization
  • The Open Group TOGAF 9 Certified
  • Certified Kubernetes Administrator

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions expressed on this site are strictly my own and do not reflect the opinions or views of my employer.

TWITTER

@chrismutchler

LOCATION

Colorado