My Professional Journey

A personal archive of my journey through tech, from 1999 to today.

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My Professional Journey: Vol. 2 – The Cloud Transition (2006–2012)

About This Section

This is Volume 2 in a multi-part documentation of a professional journey spanning from 1999 to present. Each volume captures a distinct technological era and the principles that transcended it:

Why This Section

Fifteen years have passed since those IBM days ended, and in the relentless pace of technology, that’s nearly a century. The proprietary platforms that once defined enterprise infrastructure—Tivoli, SmartCloud, the certifications and frameworks we built our careers around—have given way to open standards, cloud-native architectures, and containerization. The world has moved on, and yet.

The Technical Context of That Era

When this journey began in 2006-2012, enterprise IT operated in a fundamentally different landscape. On-premise infrastructure and proprietary software dominated: systems were managed through vendor-specific tools, virtualization was still finding its footing with proprietary hypervisors, and networking was largely locked into closed vendor ecosystems. The transition to cloud computing was just beginning—debated, experimental, not yet inevitable. Open-source was gaining momentum, but proprietary solutions still controlled enterprise operations.

Today, that world has transformed almost completely. Microservices, Kubernetes, serverless computing, and everything-as-a-service have become standard practice. Open-source has won decisively across infrastructure, platforms, and tools. APIs connect everything. Artificial intelligence now shapes every architectural decision. The cloud is no longer a novelty but the default assumption.

Yet looking back, the principles learned during those Tivoli and System Management years remain surprisingly relevant. Understanding service management, IT governance, capacity planning, integration patterns, and operational excellence—these concepts transcended the specific technologies. The frameworks we studied for enterprise IT infrastructure apply equally to modern cloud operations, just implemented through Kubernetes and containerization rather than proprietary hypervisors. What changed was the how, not fundamentally the why.

This section is a walk down memory lane into a specific technological moment—one where proprietary software and on-premise infrastructure still felt permanent, where the cloud revolution was unfolding in real time, and where the transition from tightly-coupled systems to distributed architectures was just beginning. It captures the gratitude for learning those principles in an era before they became implicit assumptions.

If you were there during those Tivoli and System Management years—if you remember the EMEA regional meetings, the OpenStack community enthusiasm, the shift from on-premise to cloud—then perhaps this is a welcome splash back into that era. You’ll recognize the concepts even though the technologies evolved. This isn’t a résumé or a portfolio. It’s a thank you note to a company, a team, and a time that proved foundational. IBM navigated its own challenges in recent years, struggling to adapt as quickly as the market demanded, but the education and mentorship provided during this period remains enduring.

This is shared in gratitude for that transformative journey, and in recognition that even as technology transforms completely, the lessons learned during those years still echo forward.

Introduction

This section chronicles a six-year professional journey with IBM spanning 2006 to 2012—a period of extraordinary growth, learning, and international experience across three continents. IBM provided exceptional opportunities for continuous skill development and professional advancement, enabling a career path that extended from Rome, Italy to Dubai, UAE, and ultimately to Melbourne, Australia.

The journey represents more than certifications and technical achievements; it embodies the invaluable mentorship, collaboration, and knowledge-sharing that defined IBM’s culture. Working alongside talented colleagues across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia-Pacific regions, and engaging with diverse clients worldwide, shaped both technical perspective and professional understanding in ways that proved timeless, even as the technologies themselves evolved beyond recognition.

IBM’s commitment to education extended beyond internal training, supporting academic pursuits through partnerships with institutions like Università degli Studi Roma Tre for advanced studies in IT Governance. This documentation serves as grateful acknowledgment of that investment—35 internal courses, 23 professional certifications, 4 external industry certifications, a Master’s degree through university collaboration, technical publications, and countless learning experiences. Each certification earned, each course completed, and each project delivered represents the support of managers who encouraged growth, colleagues who shared knowledge, and customers who trusted expertise.

To the mentors, teammates, and clients encountered throughout this international journey: your guidance, patience, and collaboration made this progression possible. This section is a tribute to those experiences and the people who made them meaningful.

IBM Professional Certifications Overview
IBM: A legacy of transformation and evolution

Colleagues and Collaborations

IBM colleagues during the Cloud Transition era (2006-2012) IBM team collaboration across Rome, Dubai, and Melbourne IBM colleagues and team members
The heart of the IBM journey—exceptional colleagues and collaborative teams across three continents

Contents

Timeline

Blog Posts

IBM Redbooks

Academic Collaboration

Professional Development & Certifications

Assets

The assets folder is organized into subdirectories for better organization:

Images

Certifications (assets/images/certifications/)

Colleagues (assets/images/colleagues/)

Architecture (assets/images/architecture/)

Logos (assets/images/logos/)

Companies (assets/images/companies/)

Files

Publications (assets/files/publications/)

Certifications (assets/files/certifications/)

Summary

This collection spans a six-year journey across three continents (2006–2012)—Rome, Dubai, and Melbourne—where on-premise infrastructure expertise evolved through the cloud computing transition at IBM.

This archive honors the people who made those years meaningful—managers who invested time, colleagues who shared knowledge, customers who trusted expertise. It’s a tribute to IBM’s culture of continuous learning and the global teams that made this period foundational.

Next Volume

Vol. 3 – The Cloud-Native Transformation (2012–2019)

The era of standardization. The shift from virtual machines to containers, the victory of open source infrastructure, and the rise of cloud-native architectures.

Previous Volume

Vol. 1 – The Proprietary Era (1999–2006)

The professional journey begins with foundation-building years in Rome (1999–2006) across four companies (Atos, TeleAp, RSI Sistemi, Avaya), where entry-level technical work in systems integration evolved into increasing responsibility in enterprise solutions.

Blog posts originally published on Thoughts on Cloud - IBM Cloud Products and Services platform. Technical documentation published through IBM Redbooks. All content reflects the collaborative spirit and knowledge-sharing culture that defined that chapter.

Section created: November 23, 2025
Professional journey period: Vol. 2 (2006–2012) – The Cloud Transition (Rome, Dubai, Melbourne)
Purpose: Time capsule and tribute to formative professional years