Hi, I’m Michael McKenzie and I’m glad you stopped by. I’ve made this website mostly for academic reasons, for myself and others, but also for any feature employers who want to know more about me. I went to school for Networking and am currently working as a data center technician. Most people would consider me a nerd, I love computers, Star Trek, and the Chicago Cubs (October 3rd 2016 was awesome!). I also love tabletop gaming, mostly euro board games (Viticulture, Caverna, Carcassonne etc.). Let me be a little more specific with computer, since this website is specifically about IT stuff. A few month before I started my first semester at college I found out about virtualization. In fact, I’d say I enjoy it the most of all the areas of IT. Networking is great, and all, but virtualization is even more fascinating and fun to play with. I even put ProxMox (a type 1 hyper-visor) on my old laptop for my first lab setup.
I have made this website to document my IT career journey; to show very one what I have and am currently learning. This will not only show people what I know and am learning; but will serve as a place for me to come back to and refresh my memory on things that I haven’t used. It will also be here for me to look back at where I came from, how my journey started. (If you don’t want to read the whole story then scroll down to find the TL;DR summary)
My journey started in high school. I was going to go into audio engineering. I knew that it might be hard to get a job in the field however, so I decided I needed a backup career. I was talking with a friend, and he suggested that I look into networking, as most audio equipment these rely on networking. After considering this, I decided that I would start off with networking and at some point take classes for audio engineering to try and break into the field.
Fall of 2018 I started my first semester at Forsyth Technical Community College (FTCC) going for an associates in applied sciences Information Technology with an emphasis not Network Management. In other words, I got a 2-year networking at a community college. In May of 2019 I got my first industry certification, the CCENT (Cisco Certified Entry Level Network Technician). After getting my CCENT I knew that I wanted to stay in networking, so December of that same year I passed my ICND2, which got me my CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate). During my time at FTCC I took several Linux and Windows courses, as well as a few other introductory courses. I had the opportunity to take 5 certifications, and I passed 4 of them. The one that I failed I plan on going for again in the next year or so. The certs that I passed were the ICND1, (CCENT, this was a year before Cisco changed there certs) the ICMD2 (CCNA), MTA Network Fundamentals, and the CWT (Certified Wireless Technician) from CWNP (Certified Wireless Network Professionals). The cert I almost passed was the Linux+, which I do plan on trying again in a year or two.
After I graduate in spring of 2020 I started looking at jobs. I didn’t start applying right away due to COVID-19, but I did keep an eye on some jobs. It was hard to find the right job because I needed an in-person job due to the fact that we had very bad Internet speeds (under 10Mbps down and under 1Mbps up). I found a NOC position for Segra in September of 2020 and was hired. I started in October 2020 as a Data Center Technician I in Segra’s Winston-Salem data center (formerly NorthState Technology Splutions, which was formerly Data Chambers).
As a Data Center Technician, I have escorted customers to their collocation racks and cages, helped perform tape rotations, and remote hands when needed. I’ve helped run cross connections, and both racked and unracked servers, routers and switches. I have occasionally helped in troubleshooting issue for customers as well. I have also had to create and delete users in customer’s Active Directory environments.
At present I am studying for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner and the AWS Solutions Architect Associate so that ways I can get a better understanding of virtualization and the cloud itself. After I get those certs, I plan to go after more Cisco certs and, as I mentioned earlier, the Linux+.
TL;DR Summary
I went to Forsyth Tech Community College and graduated with an associates in IT Network Management. I was able to get 4 certifications while in college (CCENT, CCNA, MTA Networking, and CWNT by CWNP). I now work as a Data Center Technician at Segra, specifically the legacy NorthState Technology Solutions data center in Winston-Salem, and am currently studying for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner and the AWS Solutions Architect Associate. I am using this site to document what I’ve learned so that ways I will remember it better and can refer to it when I need to refresh my memory. I also hope that other people find my site useful in learning the topics I mention.