2004-2006, I started working with Dickinson + Associates in 2004 as a temporary employee and was tasked to start their IT department with maintaining their hosted email system and their laptops used by the consultant employees. In 2005 we needed to push our recruiting initiative so we purchased our first server along with Windows Small Business Server 2003. Initially the only purpose was to run a 3rd party recruiting software that required SQL 2000. After some trial and error we realized that we needed to buy a second server to run as a Terminal Server for our remote employees to have access to the recruiting software and to be able to have the Outlook 2003 integration that we wanted. Since this freed up resources on the Small Business Server, I decided to try and implement the Exchange 2003 software that's included in SMB 2003. The reasons behind this were to start enabling the ability of newer so-called smartphones (of which I was the only employee with one) and Outlook Clients to sync not only email, but contacts and calendar events as well. Our migration to Exchange from our hosted provider, which only allowed POP3 access, went smoothly and the new services were a very welcome addition in the years to come.

2007-2009, During this period I was primarily focused on ways for our employees to collaborate and communicate better. The iPhone 3G came out in 2008 and the explosion for smart phones began. First off was the implementation of Blackberry Enterprise Server for the Blackberry Users within the company. After seeing the security benefits of BES I enabled as much security as I could on the Exchange ActiveSync Service side of things as well. This push for security prompted the need to create a policy for all things related to IT and Communications. SharePoint WSS 3.0 was brought into the fold to first help out all employees that worked at the tradeshows we presented at, in tracking their follow up communication, of the leads we obtained. This was such a success that I started building other SharePoint sites for other departments as well.

2010-Present, Now after 5 years of running and maintaining the same 2 servers, we upgraded! We started with migrating our Exchange system to Microsoft's BPOS services. This decision was made after careful consideration of what it would take to have the same kind of reliability with Exchange if we continued host it internally. Since Exchange was no longer supported in house, we migrated all the other server applications, services and roles to new, dedicated servers. During this 4 month upgrade period, which also included the rollout of Windows 7 to all employee machines, my task tracking skills were pushed to their limits. With all the steps needed to upgrade everything to the latest OS and software, then to migrate the information in and to help users out in the field, I needed help. Luckily I found a free helpdesk solution called Spiceworks. Spiceworks not only fits the role of a helpdesk ticketing system, which really helped me keep track of issues and to provide better service to employees, but it also serves as my stage 1 monitoring solution for all computers in and out of the office. In mid 2011 Dickinson + Associates embarked to start a new service offering for our company. This new service was to provide application support to our customers. The big technology hurdle with this venture was that fact that almost every client we have uses a different method to connect to their systems, be it the many flavors for VPN to Citrix and others. This is an issue because installing different brands of VPN software can render the networking ability of a computer useless. I was tasked with finding a way to allow our application support employees a way of accessing multiple clients from only one laptop, instead of providing them with a laptop for each client. In comes VMware View, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. This solution alleviated the need to by laptops based on the following formula; 10 application support tech x 25 clients = 250 laptops needed. Now with VMware View we use this formula; 10 application support tech x 25 clients = 250 Virtual Machines - 45% since not all VMs will be access at the same time = 137 VM to be provisioned. After I finished the Application Support Center and learned of the great advantages for virtualization, I have since increased our virtual infrastructure, virtualized 98% of the servers/computers in the office and have brought in monitoring systems to proactively maintain everything.

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