Hello, my name is Michael McGarrah and I am a technologist at heart. This is my hobby and personal website combination.
Professional Background
I am primarily working in Cloud Architecture for enterprise infrastructure with a mixture of Machine Learning or other domain expertise I have picked up over the years. I’m a jack of all trades and master of some. Part of what makes jobs interesting to me is gathering up domain expertise in lots of areas. I have over 25 years of professional experience in software engineering, system administration, and infrastructure design.
My LinkedIn page covers my professional career. For an insanely detailed version of my resume, you can go here.
Education
I have been fortunate by having very diverse professional experiences. I attended both NC State University for my Bachelors of Science in Computer Science and later the Georgia Institute of Technology for my Masters of Science in Computer Science with a focus in Interactive Intelligence the new name for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. My research areas included perception systems, natural language processing, and computer vision using Machine Learning. I am currently pursuing an Executive Masters of Business Administration at the University of North Carolina Wilmington to complement my technical expertise with business acumen.
About This Blog
I have been writing about technology since 2004. This blog covers topics I work with professionally and in my homelab, including:
- Homelab Infrastructure — Proxmox, Ceph, virtualization, and clustering
- Networking — SFP+, switches, VPN, SDN, and OpenWRT
- Cloud & DevOps — AWS, containerization, automation
- Machine Learning — NLP, computer vision, and applied AI
- Hardware Projects — Dell Wyse 3040, refurbished enterprise equipment
All content is based on my direct, hands-on experience. I write about what I actually build, break, and fix.
For a guided tour of my most popular topic, see the Proxmox & Ceph Homelab Guide.
Profiles & Publications
You can find me on these platforms:
Personal
On the personal side, I am married with two great kids. We recently have the addition of a grandson who keeps us on the move. My wife is also in computing as a programmer and database analyst. She is wonderful and keeps me both sane and grounded. My son is a Computer Science major and daughter is an Industrial Engineer in the aerospace industry. We are a technical family. Computers vastly outnumber people in our households.
I have two brothers, one of whom was a computer professional and worked for a major logistics distribution company. My other brother is in the medical profession for the military. My father is a retired Lt. Colonel in the United States Army and mom is a home maker.
You can review our Privacy Policy at your convenience.