It’s not often that I write these “meta” style articles here, but I have some news that I’m really excited to share with everyone. For the last approximately 2.5 years, I’ve been the only person writing ALL the content and newsletter for BuildAzure.com. Yes, it’s really been just me. There’s been no AI involved. 🙂 I’ve been able to grow BuildAzure.com to the level of traffic, subscribers, and Google ranking from zero to what it is today; along with the help from all those of you who are reading this, subscribing, and sharing. I sincerely thank you all!!

It is now time to grow BuildAzure.com to be more than just myself, and start adding amazing Microsoft Azure experts to the list of authors and “Build Azure Experts” posting content here. This does not mean I’ll be posting less; just that I’ll be joined by others too!

Growing Beyond just Chris!

Since the beginning of BuildAzure.com I’ve had the goal of eventually growing the site to be bigger than just me. That’s why I decided to create the new domain name BuildAzure.com back in 2015; instead of continuing to blog all my content over at Pietschsoft.com like I used to. All the while I’ve been growing the site, I’ve been on the look out for great people to recruit to start contributing and guest blogging on BuildAzure.com. After all, it can’t be bigger than “just Chris” if I’m the only one writing!

This brings me to the latest news that BuildAzure.com is officially growing bigger than just me! And, I am SUPER excited about this. This is going to help take Build Azure, and the community resource it’s becoming to an entirely new level. This is super exciting, right!? Well, the latest news I’d like to announce is…

In the coming days, weeks, and months you’ll be seeing the introduction of new “Build Azure Experts” being added to the list of people posting to BuildAzure.com! (FYI, “Build Azure Expert” is the official title I’m calling them. Sounds way cooler than ‘author’, right?) Now, this doesn’t mean I’ll be posting less. In fact I’m still going to be writing and posting, and sending the newsletter just as I have been. The coming change of adding guest bloggers, is that there will be additional authors contributing to BuildAzure.com. We’ll be all working together to write awesome content, spread the latest news, and help EVERYONE get up to speed and implement solutions within the Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Cloud space.

Introducing the 1st Build Azure Expert: Dan Patrick

I’m happy to introduce you to the first Build Azure Expert. Dan Patrick will be joining the team of Build Azure Experts writing content for BuildAzure.com!

Dan Patrick is the Chief Infrastructure Architect for Solliance and a 15 year veteran at Microsoft. He has an extensive background in IT Infrastructure and Operations. Dan has both architected and lead teams building and supporting some of the largest service providers in North America with as many 15,000 Windows Servers and 120 million endpoints.

Dan has worked with Azure IaaS solutions extensively since 2012. He has a passion for Virtualization with deep experience leveraging Hyper-V, Vmware, and Citrix. He is also a Clustering specialist focusing on large host clusters and SQL Always On Availability Groups.

Recently Dan, authored the Networking, Azure Active Directory and Containers portion of the 70-533 Exam Reference for Microsoft Press.

You can also follow Dan on Twitter @deltadan.

What makes a Build Azure Expert?

I’ve been on the hunt for experts in the Microsoft and Azure space for some time now. I don’t want to have just anyone post articles to BuildAzure, as there is a minimum level of quality that I’m setting myself that all authors will need to meet. I have also rejected offers for paid or sponsored posts as part of my effort to ensure this great quality. As a result, I’ve been asking a small select group of people if they would like to write for Build Azure.

Rather than just calling contributors to Build Azure a “Author”, I’ve decided to brand them as “Build Azure Experts”. This is a credential that represents these are high quality individuals with some amazing expertise and ability to share that expertise with others. Yes, I’ve been talking to many other Microsoft MVPs to see if they would be interested in contributing, but there is no specific certification or vendor award requirement to become a Build Azure Expert.

There are only a couple requirements to become a Build Azure Expert:

Be a professional, reputable, and knowledgable expert in your area of expertise.
Be able to write and communicate your expertise and technical content clearly.

All Build Azure Experts are volunteers. They do NOT get paid for the content they write.

However, every Build Azure Expert gets the following benefits as side effects of contributing to Build Azure:

Further exposure to share their amazing content with the community, visitors of BuildAzure.com, and subscribers of the Build Azure Weekly newsletter.
Self gratification of sharing their knowledge and expertise with many other people in the community.
Help bring further awareness to the amazing technologies, tools, and other things they work with on a daily basis.

I’m currently in talks with a few others to become Build Azure Experts as well.

About the Author

Chris Pietschmann

Chris Pietschmann is a Microsoft MVP, HashiCorp Ambassador, and Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) with 20+ years of experience designing and building Cloud & Enterprise systems. He has worked with companies of all sizes from startups to large enterprises. He has a passion for technology and sharing what he learns with others to help enable them to learn faster and be more productive.