Graham Watts

(he/him) IT geek - DevOps Engineer - Rescue dog and cat dad - Sometime runner and cyclist.

About Me

I am an IT and tech nerd with a passion for both technology and the people working in it. I have been in the industry since 2008 and am now focusing on AWS Cloud and DevOps having previously worked in a number of roles covering System Administration, and Technical Support. While DevOps is a multi-discipline field I used to say that I have come to this field via a less traditional path as I’m not a long term developer. I bring a background of Windows and Linux administration, cloud and virtualisation technologies, network design, implementation and operation covering both wired and wireless networks, and telephony. However, the more I work in the Cloud, Platform Engineering and DevOps space I realise that actually there is a diverse collection of backgrounds in the field. I find that this diversity is one of the strengths of the community, bringing together people with varied experiences and perspectives. For myself, my networking background in particular is frequently in demand when it comes to cloud projects.

A picture of the author, Graham, in a checked shirt and smiling
This is me! 📸

I live with my partner, Elina, and our 3 rescue pets, a cat, Diesel, and dogs, Lili, and Bella. Rescued is absolutely my favourite breed and I love providing the opportunity for them to have a new start and live with us in a safe, loving home. I enjoy running and cycling in addition to my lifelong interest for tinkering with technology. Where possible I try to support charities that I believe in, particularly around trying to make life better for those people and animals in need.

A picture of our tuxedo cat, Diesel, sitting on a table in our conservatory A picture of our first rescue dog, Lili, standing in front of a waterfall A picture of our second rescue dog, Bella
❤️ These are our rescued pets, Diesel 🐈‍⬛, Lili 🐕, and Bella 🐕‍🦺 ❤️❤️❤️

I am driven by a continuous excitement to learn, as well as the people and teams around me. Continuously learning is not just a buzz word for me, it’s a way of life. I am always looking for new challenges and opportunities to grow and improve; such as creating this site, before making this site I’d never built a website! I also take my role as a lead, or senior engineer very seriously; I believe in leadership through example, mentorship and providing growth opportunities. Guiding individuals to new learning that will benefit them and providing the opportunities to exercise those new skills alongside mentoring is a keystone of how I approach working with the teams around me. For me leadership is not about knowing more; it is about providing a framework where development is encouraged and learning through failure is expected and made safe.

For work, I am a Technology Principal, and Senior Cloud Architect working for Cloudscaler. I joined Cloudscaler in August 2026. Previously I spent three and a half years with Version 1 as an AWS Architect. While I was with Version 1 I was given the opportunity to become a manager and eventually grew out a team of 20 engineers who it was my privilege to lead. Before that I worked as a Principal Engineer in DevOps for Stryker after they acquired Vocera in 2022. It was my second spell with Vocera, having originally joined them as a Technical Support Engineer in 2014. In March 2020 I left to join Microsoft as a Senior Technical Support engineer; moving companies at the height of a global pandemic and lockdown was an interesting time. I worked on Windows Performance and became a global SME for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). I learnt a lot at Microsoft, however one of the things I learnt was that I needed a new challenge, away from Customer Support roles. Vocera offered me an opportunity to transition into DevOps, which led me to where I am today. I’ll be eternally grateful to Vocera for giving me the opportunity to transition into DevOps and I’ve loved my journey since then and I continue to be excited to see what the future holds.

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Charities

I have a number of charities that I support, primarily financially through donations, and who I often ask for donations to in lieu of cards and presents.

  • National Animal Welfare Trust
    • Particularly the Berkshire branch where our rescue cat Diesel, and dog Bella came from. I used to sponsor their small herd of Alpacas, but they’ve now left but I continue to be a general sponsor for the branch.
      • If you live nearby and have dogs then check out their Secure Dog Paddock! Lili loves it!
  • National Trust
    • Protecting both the physical and natural history of the UK; who doesn’t want a beautiful place to explore and probably a delicious tea/coffee/cake to go with it?
  • Shelter
    • Being homeless is not a personal failing, as society often tries to teach us, it’s a societal failing. It’s often little more than luck that we’re not in the same position ourselves, we’d want compassion and care if our luck was to change; be the human that you’d hope to meet.
  • WWF
    • Even if you still question climate change, we’re not isolated in this world, we benefit from the natural world around us and we should care for it so that it can continue to care for us.
  • The Woodland Trust
    • Protecting and restoring the UK’s native woodland, ensuring future generations can enjoy and benefit from these natural spaces. I mean, who doesn’t like fresh air and a walk in the woods?

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Equipment

A list of things that make my working or personal life easier or more enjoyable.

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Home Office Setup

  • Laptop(s) (as per Equipment)
  • Displays (as per Equipment)
  • Keyboards (as per Equipment)
  • Mice (as per Equipment)
  • Lenovo ThinkPad Thunderbolt 4 Dock
  • Lenovo ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 Dock
  • Dual gas strut monitor arm mount
  • Single gas strut monitor arm mount
  • Laptop stand
  • Custom made powered sit/stand desk

Home Lab

  • Lab/Test VM Hosts
    • 2 x DroiX CK1 Pro
      • Proxmox with Ceph distributed storage
      • Intel i7-8565U / i5-8365U
      • 32GB RAM
      • 1TB NVMe SSD
      • 1TB SATA SSD
      • Benfei USB-C External 2nd NIC (for management traffic)
    • 1 x Beelink EQi12
      • Proxmox with Ceph distributed storage
      • Intel i5 13420H
      • 32GB RAM
      • 2 x 1TB NVMe SSD
    • Lenovo ThinkPad T480 as a podman container host
  • GMKtec Mini PC
  • DreamQuest Mini PC
  • Raspberry Pi(s)
    • Pi4 8GB - currently unused
    • Pi4 8GB - currently unused
    • Pi3B+ 1GB - Running as a data collector for FlightRadar24 using Pi24
  • Turing Pi 2
    • 4 x Turing Pi RK1 compute nodes
    • Serving as a Kubernetes cluster

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Technologies

A (fairly exhaustive) list of the the tools and technologies that I am familiar, and have worked with.

  • Operating Systems
    • Windows
    • Linux
      • Fedora
      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
      • Ubuntu
      • Amazon Linux
      • Omarchy
    • MacOS
  • Virtualization
    • Hyper-V
    • VMware
    • Nutanix
  • Cloud Infrastructure
    • AWS
    • Azure
  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
    • Ansible
    • Terraform
    • OpenTofu
    • Terragrunt
    • Amazon AWS CDK
    • Amazon AWS CloudFormation
    • Microsoft Bicep
  • Languages
    • PowerShell
    • Bash
    • Python
    • C#
    • Go (go-lang)
  • Containers
    • Docker
    • Podman
    • Kubernetes
  • Visual Studio Code
  • Visual Studio Professional
  • Networking
    • Wired
      • Routing
        • SonicWall
        • Draytek
        • Ubiquiti
      • Switching
        • HP ProCurve
        • Draytek
        • Ubiquiti
    • Wireless
      • Ubiquiti
        • AirMax
        • UniFi
      • Cisco
    • Telephony
      • Samsung

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Updated: