About - J House Consulting - DevOps, Microsoft, Citrix & Desktop Virtualisation (VDI) Specialist

My aim is to achieve the best user experience aligned with good industry and vendor practices for optimal business outcomes. With a vast set of skills and four decades of experience across industries such as mining, resources, finance, education and technology, customer success and excellence are my obsession.

The challenge of terminating useability problems, whether solved with innovative technology or some good old-fashioned “MacGyvering” is what I enjoy. Continually looking for ways to fill gaps with product integration or missing features that will enhance the delivery and stability of an IT service, I aim to leave no problem unsolved, consistently delivering valued outcomes.

I’m driven by enabling customers to become more efficient and effective at achieving their own outcomes and KPIs. Leveraging my deep knowledge of IT infrastructure and advanced programming skills I develop tools and solutions that improve the user experience, productivity and deliverability, unlocking maximum value for the business and end-users.

Having a growth mindset with a passion to contribute and follow best practice, I believe in sharing knowledge and experience to collaborate and help others. Recognised as a Citrix and Microsoft technical leader in Australia and being community oriented I actively share technical knowledge and insights through contributing to online discussions and user groups, and publishing technical documentation, articles, and scripts/tools via this blog.

I continually extend and expand my software development and reverse engineering skills and experience. My development portfolio includes five public projects on GitHub, with comprehensive documentation detailed on this blog. Further information for these projects can be made available on request.

Views and Intellectual Property (IP) published on this site belong to me.

Key strengths:

Leadership and Collaboration
- Technical leadership, knowledge transfer, and mentoring to peers..
- Stakeholder engagement to understand use cases, requirements, work patterns, and pain points.
- Collaboration to deliver the best customer outcomes.
- Driving product enhancements in collaboration with application vendors.
- Effective communication and presentation to stakeholders, including C-level executives.
Problem-Solving and Innovation
- Relentless problem solver to identify root causes and re-engineer solutions to prevent recurrence.
- Identify opportunities to increase operational productivity through automation.
- Diverse set of skills to facilitate the most effective solution.
Process and Compliance
- Ensuring compliance with security, monitoring, and support requirements.
- Clear, comprehensive documentation.
- ITIL and Kanban methodologies for efficient process management.
Project and Risk Management
- Project management expertise, ensuring timely and successful delivery of initiatives.
- Risk assessment and management at both technical and business levels, balancing priorities effectively.

Achievements:

Awards
- Citrix MVP Club ANZ member (Oct 2024 – present)
- Citrix Technology Advocate (CTA) (Jan 2022 – 31st Jan 2025 when Citrix ended the CTA program)
- BHP CTO Award (Mar 2019) for delivering value to the business by deploying a Technical Computing Environment platform to the Geoscience team in Saskatoon, Canada working on the Potash mine exploration. This CTO Award recognises outstanding contribution in the field of technology and innovation.
- Citrix Technology Professional (CTP) (Jul 2013 – Jan 2015)

Speaking Engagements
- Citrix Converge 2021 Session Speaker (developer focused): The Self-Service Session Reset Tool 12 months on; How feedback, experience and lessons learnt have driven new features and security enhancements.
- ANZ CUGC (Citrix User Group Community) December 2020 meeting where I delivered most of my Citrix Converge 2020 Session.
- Citrix Converge 2020 Session Speaker (developer focused): Building Useful Tools to Enhance the User Experience; Reducing the Service Desk Burden: Self-Help for Citrix Customers.
- Citrix TechXperts May 2016 on Optimising Session Hosts for NUMA.
- Perth Infrastructure Group (User Group) February 2015 on Rapid Deployment of Citrix XenApp/XenDesktop 7.6 using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit.
- Citrix Synergy 2013 Session Speaker. Topic: Learn why AppDNA should be a part of every consultant’s toolkit.
- Citrix Perth Forum June 2013 on AppDNA and application compatibility testing.

Specialist Skills

Software Development & Engineering: Full Stack Development (advanced coding in multiple programming languages and frameworks), Reverse Engineering.
Infrastructure & Systems Architecture: Technical Architecture, Technical Leadership, Stakeholder Management, Virtualisation, High-Performance Computing (HPC).
Application Management & Delivery: Application Portfolio Management, Assessment, Compatibility & Remediation, Delivery & Virtualisation, Packaging/Scripting.
End-User Computing (EUC) & Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI): Citrix Solutions, NVIDIA vGPU (GRID) Technologies, Desktop Virtualisation, Desktop Transformation, User Environment & Profile Management.
Cloud & Enterprise Technologies: Active Directory, Group Policy, Public Cloud (Azure & AWS).

Education and Qualifications

Bronze Medallion (May 2025)
Provide First Aid, CPR and basic emergency life support (HLTAID009, HLTAID010, HLTAID011) (Jan 2025)
Currently undertaking Ansible & Packer training.
Currently learning to reverse engineer code and read assembly language using x64dbg, IDA Pro/Free and Ghidra disassemblers.
Currently undertaking further studies to complete the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner exam.
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner course
Azure Fundamentals course
Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012 (70-243)
AWS Essentials 3.0 course
Australian Government Baseline security clearance sponsored by Telstra 09/04/2013, which is inactive as of 23/10/2024.
Architectural Thinking course (IBM).
Certificate IV in Information Technology Programming (C, C++, C#) (2005 – 2006)
Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) NT4/2000/2003 with Messaging & Security Specialisations
VMware Certified Professional (VCP) 3
Citrix Certified Integration Architect (CCIA) – 4.0 – Access Suite 4; 1.0 – MetaFrame XP Presentation Server FR2/FR3
Citrix Certified Enterprise Administrator (CCEA) (XP)
Citrix Certified Administrator (CCA) – XenApp 6.0, Presentation Server 4, MetaFrame XP
Cisco Certified Networking Associate (CCNA) 2.0
Cisco Unity Support Specialist (4.0.5)
Cisco IP Contact Centre Express Specialist (3.5)
Advanced Certificate of Microcomputer Technology TAFE (1985 – 1987)