After nearly 2.5 years from start…this second volume of Stories from the Field has been released!

Link here to the book page on our site!

Many thanks to those who contributed.
Many thanks to those of you who already have purchased & read it!
…and MANY thanks to all of you who were patient waiting for this release!

Now in the works.
With a fresh start at the beginning of 2021, over 40 individuals are contributing stories fro the field.

It will have the same goal….to share the lessons learned during the writers journey of personal and professional growth.

More to come.
With the disaster that was 2020, our timelines are striving hit July for publication, so that this can make your summer reading list.

IT Architect Resources, LLC announces the release of book 4 in the IT Architect Series, IT Stories from the Field, Vol. 1.
The book can be found on Lulu.

“What is it like to be engaged on an IT project when it turns into a horror story?! Thirty-five prominent IT professionals describe their most challenging datacenter projects and provide insights into why failures occurred, including lessons learned and what they would do differently. Recommended reading for members of the IT community who deliver IT solutions in the field and want to avoid learning the hard way….”

Editor in Chief Matthew Wood, Editor and Project Lead John Arrasjid, and Editor Mark Gabryjelski have worked with over 35 individuals to create this work of stories related to project design, implementation, and operations related to IT Infrastructure Design.

Each story has information tied to a failure, and includes lessons learned based on hindsight from our experiences. The stories provide insight on resolving problems tied to people, process, and technology.

The contributors have their biographies on the IT Architect Resource website, itaseries.com. They include managers and individual contributors. Their roles include that of an architect, project management, and more. Each story is told from the perspective and writing style of the contributor. Story contributors include:

Abdullah Abdullah, Johan van Amersfoort, John Yani Arrasjid, Steve Athanas, Marco van Baggum, René van den Bedem, Doug Baer, Daemon Behr, Hans Bernhardt, Michael Berthiaume, Jayson Block, Wayne Conrad, Paul Cradduck, Sachin Dharmadhikari, Tony Foster, Mark Gabryjelski, Faisal Hasan, Ray Heffer, John Kozej, Christopher Kusek, Sean Massey, Wences Michel, Christian Mohn, Geoffrey O’Brien, Josh Odgers, David Quinney, Bas Raayman, Yves Sandfort, Rachit Srivastava, Jorge Torres, Raman Veeramraju, Matthew Wood, Szymon Ziolkowski, Chip Zoller.

The artist Ioannis Dangerous Age created the book cover artwork. Art prints and other options will be available on his site
www.dangerousage.com.

Reviewers: Dorine Arrasjid, Steve Bochinski, Kirkland Brown, Darrel Carson, Kenneth Moore, Rudi van Drunen.

What is it like to be engaged on an IT project when it turns into a horror story? Here are some of the questions that are answered through the stories told.

• What do you do when you are asked to design a resilient and recoverable datacenter in a war zone?
• What happens when your VDI launch fails because of the missed requirement that your customers did not want to mention?
• How do you deal with scope that creeps all the way from a Proof of Concept to production?
• How do you respond when a small underground transformer fire initiates a cascade of events that threatens to take down a major data and communications center?
• How do you recover when a ransomware attack locks out all of your corporation’s Windows computers, including computers at 50 remote branch offices that require site visits.
• How do you salvage the project when the Project Manager from Hell commits to an impossible schedule before you have even finished gathering requirements and designing the solution?
• What happens when your risk assessment identifies a potential water hazard in a datacenter and the customer decides not to mitigate the risk?
• What is the impact when you deliver a new Cloud Management Platform and discover that key stakeholders were not included when the requirements were gathered?
• Can you deliver an effective solution when security is so tight that requirements are not fully disclosed and you are not even permitted to observe the tests you provided for the solution you designed?
• What is the cost of ignoring a potential single point of failure when snow melt drips along an improperly sealed air conditioning cable and through the main (un- virtualized) file server in a datacenter?
• Can your datacenter migration succeed when lack of preparation and due diligence pushes Murphy’s law into overdrive?

The stories demonstrate what can go wrong and paths to prevent or resolve the failures experienced. For those new to the field of IT design, implementation, and operations, this will provide you insight into issues you may encounter in the future. For those with experience, this can be fun reading while serving as a reference for the types of challenges faced.

Finally! The IT Architect Series is getting another release!

More coming as we get through the initial writings, but this next release will be a fun read, with good takeaways for the reader.
Which audience?
Anyone who is looking to be a leader of a team, project, or even those looking to enable themselves to be an architect.

As we get closer to the publishing date (June probably), we’ll provide more information.

Other books are in the works as well, but it is very hard to write, and hit the goals ITASeries has for itself….to provide the logical approach to problem solving in the world of IT.
It may be possible that one or two of these int the works could see 2020 as publication potentials, but probably not for the summer reading list.

PS
Have had quite a few comments asking about registering the book to get additional information.
While we had planned on requiring registration, any content that is available not he ITASeries site is available to all, not just those who have purchased the book.
This decision was made to enable the community, and not lock things up behind a paywall.

We keep getting great feedback on the first book:  The Art of Infrastructure Design.

It means a lot to us authors, so if it has helped you, please let us know.

Which is why we are so excited for 2017.
We have books in the works that we believe will be invaluable for those looking to better themselves professionally through IT strategies, certifications, and new methodologies in managing and deploying application or hybrid cloud solutions!

I’d love to give you a peek at what we see behind the scenes, but that will have to wait…. legalese and all….

The authors working to contribute to this series are hard at work to share THEIR knowledge with you, and hopefully, make your day to day IT lives easier…..

Have something you’d like to see included as an IT Architect Series book?  Let us know…..in the meantime….we are looking forward to what this year will include in the IT Architect Series

So we have started to get the backend ready for downloadable content.  This took a bit, because we really wanted to make it simple for Registered Users on this site to get content.

Once you are logged into this site, you will see a new Link in the header for Downloads & Resources.

This is where we will add content for Registered Users.

Right now, just a simple page, with only 1 download available…a PowerPoint Presentation made by Tim Antonowicz, to use as a template for creating your own presentation.

More coming.

Feedback welcomed on what YOU think should be in this area for Registered Users.

Welcome to IT Architecture Series, we are currently at VMworld, promoting our book, meeting the audience, and having a great time!

You will see this site mature over the next few weeks, and you will see content added to download (albeit, a bit at a time).

Sign up for an account, get involved with the community, and be ready to share ideas, critique content, and maybe even write a book under the series to enable and help others!