Meet NPX 011 – Samuel Rothenbühler
- Name: Samuel Rothenbühler
- NPX Number:011
- Employer: Amanox Solutions
- Blog URL:
- Twitter: @bancswissunique
- Virtualisation background: Started working with VMware VI 3.5 in 2008 at a VMware customer. Today I work as an architect mainly with VMware vSphere and Nutanix AHV and to a smaller extend with Hyper-V.
- Storage Background:Storage was my main focus when working for EMC (whole EMC storage portfolio). Still very passionate about storage in general and especially about the more recent developments introduced by HCI and SDS architectures!
- Hyper Converged Infrastructure background: Working with Nutanix since early 2014 (NOS v3.5) on a daily basis. Nutanix is a focus products and strategic asset in our portfolio. As a partner we also regularly evaluate other HCI and SDS solutions (e.g. vSAN, ScaleIO) for performance and feature comparison.
- Future of HCI and other emerging technologies:By now large deployments for a wide variety of workloads showed the majority and broad application of hyper converged architectures. It is however increasingly important to not only offer simple and efficient infrastructure for virtual machines but also for other workload types like containers and offer integrated, simple tools for process automation and orchestration. The raise of DevOps becomes apparent with a good percentage of customers transitioning from a siloed operations organization to a more agile DevOps model.
- Value of NPX: NPX is the ideal certification for everyone who is looking to achieve a profound knowledge and competency in designing highly virtualized data center platforms built on a hyper converged foundation. Since different organizations and workloads have different needs and preferences, the NPX certification will ensure you are ready to design solutions using a variety of (the most common) hypervisors in use today.
- What made you go for NPX:My main goal was to improve my skills as an architect and consultant designing solutions using Nutanix in combination with vSphere and AHV. Attending an official NPX boot camp and eventually defending my design was a great opportunity to learn from the best in the industry. This alone is worth all the effort necessary to become an NPX!
- Advise to people looking into the NPX track:Take your time to work on the documentation and the presentation. The more relevant explanations and answers you deliver within your documentation the better. Furthermore a well structured documentation will help you throughout the process and when working on the defense presentation later on. Structure your defense presentation according to the NPX scoring rubric as outlined within the exam blueprint.