TechNet Wiki interview with Edward Van Biljon

Edward Van Biljon

Edward is a Senior Collaboration Specialist and primarily focus on Exchange and Lync. His passion for Exchange started with Exchange 2003.

Here are the stats of Edward who has been a member since Feb 14th, 2009.

- 65,005 recognition points
- Forums
○ Helpful Answers 1,437
○ Helpful Posts 842
○ Replies 6309
- TechNet Wiki
○ New Articles 197
○ Article Edits 5,001
○ Comments 5,047
- Galleries
○ Contributions 41
○ 4+ Star Ratings 355
- Blogs
○ Posts 0
○ 4+ Star Ratings 7
○ Comments 470
○ Posts Rated 1,329

Here is a screenshot of his achievements. As you can see, Edward has definitely been a busy guy.

EdwardBiljonAchievements

So let's dive into the interview.

Who are you, where are you, and what do you do? What are your specialty technologies?
Hi, My name is Edward (Ed for short), I was born in a small town called Krugersdorp in South Africa. I have been in the IT Industry over the last 16 years, starting out as a junior technician and now full collaboration specialist, focusing on Exchange, Lync, WAP and ADFS and F5. When Active Directory first came out, I encountered a bug and at the time MS didn’t have a fix but I was able to provide the solution which has been archived on the system.
I have been actively working in the collaboration space for the past 10 years as I have a passion for Exchange and Lync.

What are your big projects right now?
I am currently working on a major project of building new CAS servers across data centers as well as designing the Exchange 2013 Architecture for the company. I am very active on my blog which is collaborationpro.com
I am a former MVP for Exchange, 1 of the first in South Africa. I did work for Microsoft for a year and am working for a partner currently.
I have completed all the Messaging certifications and hoping that Microsoft will bring out the MCM/MCSM certification again for me to complete.

What is TechNet Wiki for? Who is it for?
TechNet Wiki is for anyone who wants to learn and share knowledge. In our industry it doesn’t help housing knowledge, the more you can share and empower people, the better. TechNet WIKI has great content and the more people that can contribute in there space, the more resources we will have amongst each other.

What do you do with TechNet Wiki, and how does that fit into the rest of your job?
I used TechNet WIKI as a portal to share my experience and knowledge on how to do things, from simple articles to complex ones. I look through articles on a daily basis to see if someone else maybe wrote something that can better the way I’m doing things or provide an alternative way or insight on a product.
I am also a council member, and am currently busy with a cleanup of articles that don't have tags. This is important for ensuring the WIKI indexes correctly.

What is it about TechNet Wiki that interests you?

The people that are on the WIKI. For example, MR X posts greats articles, Ed Price as well. Seeing what the MVP’s are writing and sharing. My big interest is working with Peter who has taught me a lot and is still teaching me stuff about the WIKI.

What is your favorite Wiki article you’ve contributed?
My favorite article that I have contributed: Exchange 2013 Setup Guide. I have spent hours on this article and feel it will help a lot of people out there.

What are your top 5 favorite Wiki articles?
1. Exchange 2013 Setup Guide
2. WAP setup
3. ADFS Setup
4. SCOM & SCCM installation along with SQL
5. WAP – Default IIS Settings for WAP and SPF Web Sites

Everyone, join me congratulating Edward for all his success and thank him for all his contributions.