Even with my 20 years of experience working in technology, I am just a baby compared to some people I have encountered along the way.

Still, I sometimes think about the “old days” in IT. It was a time when data centers were dominated by mainframe systems and midrange monoliths like the AS/400. A time when virtualization was something done only on these big systems, and the only need for an x86 system was under your desk to access a mainframe when you didn’t have a classic thin client. 

When my career in IT really began, I was working with systems like Windows NT and Exchange 5.5, and we were creating Web pages with this mysterious language called HTML that magically made things appear. Even in those days, there was this thought that there was no need for companies to be beholden to the largest vendors.

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