Gordon McKenna MCSE, MVP-MOM
Gordon McKenna MCSE, MVP-MOM
Principal Consultant
Microsoft Management Technologies
After leaving school, I embarked on an illustrious career with the Royal Air Force that saw me take in the four corners of the globe, meeting lots of interesting people along the way, giving me many valuable life experiences that still stand me in good stead today.
I left the RAF in 1987, and started my journey in IT with a small systems management vendor near Bristol supporting a mixture of SME and Enterprise customers, with a range of Windows administration and management tools. After duly gaining my MCSE, I left for the big smoke of London and joined a small but up and coming Texan based software vendor called Mission Critical Software, joining a newly put together team and initially being tasked with setting up the companies new European helpdesk I began a journey that would ultimately shape the rest of my career.
For those unfamiliar with the name Mission Critical Software, they had already established themselves as one of the most forward thinking technology companies with a product known as Enterprise Administrator (EA), which in true Texan style brought the concept of dividing your NT 4.0 flat name space into Wild West like territories with Marshals and Deputies controlling portions of administrative authority, sounds quite comical in idea but this product actually gave people AD like functionality in NT 4.0 when AD was just a development idea.
On joining this adventurous, Houston based outfit, the company signed its first cross-licensing deal with Microsoft for its Domain Migration Technology, which is better known by all today as ADMT. This was followed by the acquisition of a UK based software technology known as Sentry Enterprise Event Manager, a very clever but basic event log consolidation engine for the Windows Platform, after a very aggressive development cycle this product was reborn into the forerunner of todays most exciting Management solution Microsoft Operations Manager. Named One Point Operations Manager, this incredibly versatile systems management product took the market by storm, and being directly involved in the products early betas and initial roll-outs to customers, I found myself quickly becoming the EMEA product specialist in this new technology, helping to shape the product in the field into the product that many of us have grown to love today.
Soon after the success in the field of Operations Manager, came the merger of Mission Critical Software with our biggest competitor in the marketplace NetIQ, another company with a great tradition in true Windows Management ideals, and I was propelled into an evangelical role in Strategic Alliances, being involved in presenting at events and seminars, actively engaging with partners such as Microsoft and being made responsible for technically closing some of the companies largest software deals. Next came one of the largest cross-licensing deals in history, the acquisition of the Operations Manager Technology by Microsoft for around $180million , and Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) was born.
I was immediately involved with leading the transitional team in EMEA to enable Microsoft in their new found technology, travelling around Europe meeting both Microsoft technical people and customers and showing them the new shining light in the systems management arena, and the rest so they say is history. After leaving NetIQ a year later for pastures new, I spent a year with Siemens Business Services helping to mould their new systems management centre in Bracknell, now core to their managed service offering, as well as a spell with an SME managed service provider in South Wales.
Today, I am principal consultant with systems management and security specialist Ancoris in Bracknell, heading up their growing MOM\SMS consultancy team, and am actively involved with implementing some of the UK’s first large scale MOM 2005 installations as well as actively being involved with forums, technical events and anywhere else where I can embark on my favourite pastime of talking till the cows come home on my thoughts around Windows Management.
I devote my much valued spare time, when I have some, to my beautiful partner Claire and two lovely children Aidan and Jaime, and have an active interest in photography helping out when I can with my partners very successful fashion business.