Interview with a Wiki Ninja: Danny van Dam - MCC, MCSE, and Windows Server 2012 Expert

Today's interview is with Danny van Dam!

Danny van Dam's avatar 

Danny's Profile

Danny has over 120 Wiki edits and received the Wiki Editor III Gold Achievement Medal!

 

 

Who are you, where are you, and what do you do? What are your specialty technologies?

My name is Danny van Dam, I work for  Atos in the Netherlands for the Consulting and Technology unit as an Architect specialized in Desktop and Application Delivery with Microsoft and Citrix solutions. I plan, design and  implement solutions that include Windows Server 2012, Windows 2008 R2, Remote Desktop Services, VDI, Hyper-V 2008 R2/2012 , SCVMM, SCCM, App-V and Office 365.

In my spare time I blog on my Microsoft Technology blog  www.rds-support.eu, my Citrix Technology blog www.citrix-guru.com or my personal blog www.dannyvandam.net. I am also active on twitter (@dnyvandam) and provide public presentations about Microsoft and Citrix Technology at user group meetings.

 

What are your big projects right now?  

I am  currently working on a project to upgrade a large Remote Desktop Services/Citrix XenApp environment based on Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008 R2/2012 RDS, Windows 7/8 VDI’s and Office 365. This project also includes App-V 5, SCCM, Citrix XenApp 6.5 and Citrix XenDesktop 7.

Internally at Atos I am the competence leader for the infrastructure workspace community for my unit where I also share a lot of the wiki goodness.   

With Microsoft Press I am discussing the possibility to work on a small pocket title for the beginning of next year. Their final planning and budget for next year will determine if I can start writing this book.

Before the end the year I would like to add MCSE: Private cloud to my list of certifications, I already achieved MCSE: Server Infrastructure and MCSE: Desktop Infrastructure certification and by adding Private cloud I will have all the MCSE certifications for the Microsoft solutions  I use the most in my daily job.

Beside the TechNet Wiki’s I am also active in the TechNet Training and Certification forum as an answerer/editor.

 

What is TechNet Wiki for? Who is it for?

The TechNet Wiki is a great place for everyone that uses Microsoft Technology to find more in-depth information and real-life experiences about Microsoft products and solutions beside the TechNet Forums and blogs.

 

What do you do with TechNet Wiki, and how does that fit into the rest of your job?

I use the TechNet Wiki’s to find answers, information and real-life experience about the Microsoft products I use and I will create a new wiki when I feel that something is missing or would be a valuable contribution to save others time in searching for the same answers. My job provide good opportunities to create new wiki’s for Remote Desktop Services, App-V, SCVMM, SCCM and for the TechNet Training and Certification forum  where I participate. 

  

What is it about TechNet Wiki that interests you?

The TechNet Wiki is the best place to look for how to guides and real-life experience information about products and solutions. The possibility for others to edit and update the wiki’s will keep the content valid. Blogs and public articles will usually not be updated by the publisher once they have been released. The TechNet Wiki is self-sustainable with a large community of Wiki Ninja’s and fanatics  that keep the content up to date and organized.

 

On what articles have you collaborated with other community members on #TNWiki? What was that experience like?

I have not yet collaborated with other community members on one topic but I do hope that I will have the opportunity to do this in the near future.  

 

What are your favorite Wiki articles you’ve contributed?

My Favorite articles I have contributed are Upgrade from MCSA/MCSE 2003 to MCSA: Server 2012 and Study guide for MCSE: Desktop Infrastructure

  

Who has impressed you in the Wiki community, and why?

Many of the Wiki Ninja’s have done some very impressive work, especially the ones that show up on the top contributors of the week leaderboard every week. It takes a lot of effort to get a high ranking for multiple weeks in a row. https://blogs.technet.com/b/wikininjas/archive/tags/top+contributors+of+the+week/

 

What does success look like for TechNet Wiki?

I would like to see every product and solution to have multiple wiki’s from getting started to advanced implementations and design specifics with an active community that will update the wiki ‘s on a regular basis including the best practices and knowledge from Microsoft MVP’s for all products.

 

Do you have any comments for product groups about TechNet Wiki?

It might be interesting to build a reward system for creating a wiki whenever a forum question has a marked answer if the answerer or moderator that identified the correct answer creates a wiki about the topic discussed. Something like ‘Forum answer to Wiki I/II/III Bronze/Silver/Gold”.  This might motivate more TechNet forum users to start writing wiki articles. :)

 

 

Thanks to Danny van Dam for all your contributions!

 

Please join me in thanking Danny and feel free to ask him any more questions!

  

Thanks!

   - Ninja Ed