The start and end of an era

In 2001 a new era in my life was about to begin. I was 17, in the final year of my Higher School Certificate (HSC) and based in Sydney. I had also started performing a customer service role for a Brisbane based hosting company Aussie Hosts.

This role continued over the next few years while I was studying at University. I gained important skills in systems and the hosted services industry – something that I wouldn’t have received if I had instead decided to work at a local business.

The next few years went along quickly until May 2005 when Aussie Hosts was acquired by Canberra based hosting company MCGOOHQ. At that stage Aussie Hosts was a small but close group of four – Gary and Marita Meadows, Stuart Low and I.

I decided to remain with MCGOOHQ for the time being with plans to leave later that year. At that stage I had a small but growing hosting business of my own, and I had planned on continuing to run that.

In September 2005 those plans changed. My presence in Canberra was required for a two week contract to help finalise the integration and relocation of all Aussie Hosts servers from Brisbane to the local TransACT datacentre that MCGOOHQ used.

At the end of that two week contract after enjoying the working environment so much I made the decision to relocate to Canberra and join the team as a full time employee. Shortly after joining, MCGOOHQ rebranded to AussieHQ to reflect the merger of the two companies.

Over the next six years I held several positions including Systems Administrator, Technical Manager, Technical Marketing Manager and Chief Technology Officer. We experienced massive growth with employee headcount nearly doubling each year, and were ranked 32nd on BRW’s Fast 100 in 2009 and 38th in 2010.

Over the years, just a few of the projects that I’ve been responsible for or played a big part in include:

• Launching new business grade Linux and Windows hosting with Internationally redundant DNS and mail.
• Launching a new fully redundant Cisco network.
• Expanding the network to cover multiple cities to support high availability requirements.
• Running a network that achieved 100% uptime (excluding maintenance and third party issues) for over two years.
• Launching Australia’s first “real time dedicated servers”.
• Launching VMware based virtual dedicated servers.
• Deploying IPv6 network wide in 2008.
• Launching IPv6 enabled shared hosting.

I have however decided to move out of Canberra and spread my wings a bit more. With that decision made, so was the decision to leave the company that is now UberGlobal and close the chapter that is the past decade of my life.

My last day at UberGlobal before handing in my building access card was Friday June 17th.

What’s coming next? I have plans, but you’ll just have to wait and see!