Paul has enjoyed decades of being an IT Professional, doing a lot of hands-on deployments of x86 servers and VMware installs during his 21 years at IBM, and had a lot of HCI conversations with customers when working as an SE at VMware. Since 2019, he's enjoying his work as a Solutions Architect at Dell Technologies, with a focus on helping Enterprise customers right-size solutions to their complex IT challenges.

Paul created TinkerTry.com in 2011, and has created over 1,100 technical articles and 650 videos. His close looks at the vSphere install and upgrade process has produced numerous revelations about VMware licensing (vExpert / VMUGAdvantage / Essentials) and support, and the variety of upgrade techniques. Many of his home lab challenges were of the self-induced variety, others were related to unusual use-cases. Once the rough edges were resolved, he used the lessons-learned to finalize his configuration on his 8 core Xeon D-1541 "production" server. This crucial always-on system is where his VCSA 7.0 Update 3 resides, along with daily automated backups of his critical VMs, and of his 12 core Windows 11 workstation were all his content creation at TinkerTry is done. He's doing 4K video editing from this workstation on triple monitors that are located in another room 20 feet away, keeping his office quiet and cool. Topics he's covered at TinkerTry include automated graceful ESXi shutdowns, UPS battery failures, router and network issues, and long shipping delays that all conspired to break his lab. Reading is work is like coming along for a ride through his deep dives into exactly what went down during Paul’s relentless evening and weekend tinkering, and also learn exactly how he ultimately prevailed over some small and not-so-small issues. Along the way, you’ll see the variety of simple tools he’s come to rely upon in the 17 years since his first VCP, when tuning his compact and efficient home data center, running the latest VMware ESXi 7.0 Update 3, gearing up for torture testing of the new Intel Xeon D-1700 processor including thermal imaging with a FLIR camera and carefully measuring noise as well. He's also wandered into the wonderful world of home tech, sustainability, and EVs lately too, covering those adventures at TinkerTry as well, always with a focus on optimizing the ownership experience while reducing costs.
HP: https://tinkertry.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/TinkerTry