Meet The HCAF Avengers!

Hybrid Cloud Automation Framework

CDINow Ninja

CDINow Ninja

The CDINow Ninja served in the U.S. Army special operations group, and much of his history and service information, including his real name, place of birth and service number, have remained CLASSIFIED.

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CDINow Ninja’s Story

The CDINow Ninja served in the U.S. Army special operations group, and much of his history and service information, including his real name, place of birth and service number, have remained CLASSIFIED.

He is an 8th degree black belt in several martial arts, but at a young age realized his abilities to easily develop and deploy software. The CDINow Ninja was, by his own account, fascinated by machines and took apart everything he could get his hands on. After joining the civilian life and working in IT, he saw the need for people to have a flexible workflow that allows employees to easily manage their requests to IT.

For many years, the CDINow Ninja was focused almost exclusively on managing technology and keeping the lights on. After years of sitting by as employees became more and more frustrated with their IT experience, the CDINow Ninja sprang into action!

He concentrated on helping his company utilize ServiceNow software — which is easily accessible and simpler to use. Consumers and employees alike wanted one seamless experience and ServiceNow was that solution. The CDINow Ninja now helps companies bring revolutionary ideas to fruition.

Whether your enterprise is in manufacturing, financial services, retail, or any other sector, the CDINow Ninja helps IT organizations drive digital transformation by streamlining and automating processes, moving workloads to the cloud, and consolidating on strategic platforms to eliminate redundant applications to free up resources.

Using ServiceNow, the CDINow Ninja works with the HCAF Avengers to help customers around the globe run and operate a modern service management solution in the cloud. He has helped hundreds of customers to consolidate tools, transform the way they deliver services and improve their customer experience.

Cloud Panther

Cloud Panther

Will was an on-premises infrastructure guy stuck in a legacy state of mind. One early morning as he was running cables in his company’s antiquated data center, he accidentally slipped and fell into the raised floor abyss and was instantly knocked unconscious.

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Cloud Panther’s Story

Will was an on-premise infrastructure guy stuck in a legacy state of mind. One early morning as he was running cables in his company’s antiquated data center, he accidentally slipped and fell into the raised floor abyss and was instantly knocked unconscious…

His lifeless body was hidden underneath bulky hardware racks and unable to be seen from the data center world above. The floor tile was soon closed — trapping him! Will subsisted on leftover Cheetos, Frosted Flakes and pooled condensed water for almost a week before he was found.

Irradiated by the data center electromagnetism and warmth of the infrastructure heat, he was mutated into the Cloud Panther and was endowed with enhanced agility and elasticity! He swore his life to leverage cloud wherever possible so no Ops guy would ever have to face the same fate of being stuck in a data center.

Now, as a member of the mighty HCAF Avengers, his newfound abilities allow him to lead the journey out of a legacy data center and ease the cost and risk of transitioning to a modern hybrid cloud infrastructure.

Software-Defined Samurai

Software-Defined Samurai

It was October 19, 2011 — the hardware zombie apocalypse entered its 20th year. Massive amounts of inefficient processes with autonomous hardware platforms have invaded all major cities in the world, turning large enterprises into massive engineering slave yards, hastily trickling into commercial and midmarket, and devouring small business. Inefficiency became a new language, taught in kindergarten and preached in places of worship across the globe.

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Software-Defined Samurai’s Story

It was October 19, 2011 — the hardware zombie apocalypse entered its 20th year. Massive amounts of inefficient processes with autonomous hardware platforms have invaded all major cities in the world, turning large enterprises into massive engineering slave yards, hastily trickling into commercial and midmarket, and devouring small business. Inefficiency became a new language, taught in kindergarten and preached in places of worship across the globe.

A few years has passed and it became inevitable that the crisis would not stop. Someone had to stand up to the misery, someone that can transform the traditional myopic views of the ill-informed, and someone that can stand up to the inefficiency tyrants. “Who will stop this misery!” the peasant engineers shouted. A young striking but brilliant audacious hero arose from the depths of the slave yards.

Having been trained in the secret martial art of software-defined networking (SDN), Sensei Carter vowed to avenge the planet of deprived, unscalable, antiquated networking systems plaguing the world. Secretly working on emerging technologies with underground opposition forces to streamline and refine massive hardware inefficiencies, Sensei Carter knew that he alone would be unmatched in the realm of the laborious domination.

Daringly, the Sensei organized massive nerd herd campaigns to educate about the power of SDN, revealing how decoupling control plane from data plane of the invading systems will diminish their threat and eventually destroy their unproductive wastefulness. Eventually the word spread, the battle between hardware and software began, and a new HCAF Avenger was born — pledging to software define the $H!# out of anyone or anything that came his way.

The Collaborator

The Collaborator

Mild-mannered telecommunications engineer Joey Calaboroni spent most days working in the basements of hotels and hospitals. He would spend hours alone each day with nothing but massive old, clicking and dusty PBX’s – tired antiquated analog systems with miles of cable.

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The Collaborator’s Story

Mild-mannered telecommunications engineer Joey Calaboroni spent most days working in the basements of hotels and hospitals. He would spend hours alone each day with nothing but massive old, clicking and dusty PBX’s – tired antiquated analog systems with miles of cable.

Joey knew that there had to be a better way to communicate and help bring technology and people together! One day while tracing cables at the old Parker Meridian Hotel he stepped into a wiring closet and the door slammed shut behind him with a flash of light! Fighting his way out, Joey emerged with new superpowers and capabilities.

He was now The Collaborator – with the tools to bring groups of individuals together and separate technologies into messaging groups, video calls, and the power to alert teams of issues.

He joined IT’s mightiest superheroes, the HCAF Avengers, where he now helps them collaborate better as a unified team, faster and more efficiently.

Smooth Operator

Smooth Operator

Liz was an IT Engineer for a large global bank. She spent her days designing the bank’s new data center architecture and was on call overnight every three weeks, as the bank didn’t have a dedicated NOC team to monitor their infrastructure. One fateful night a meteor struck their primary data center, and their monitoring system began reporting thousands of alerts! All of these alerts went to the on-call engineer’s (Liz!) e-mail.

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Smooth Operator’s Story

Liz was an IT Engineer for a large global bank. She spent her days designing the bank’s new data center architecture and was on call overnight every three weeks, as the bank didn’t have a dedicated NOC team to monitor their infrastructure. One fateful night a meteor struck their primary data center, and their monitoring system began reporting thousands of alerts! All of these alerts went to the on-call engineer’s (Liz!) e-mail.

Her two-year-old smartphone overheated due to the thousands of incoming alert emails and it eventually ignited — causing a catastrophic fire in her house. The fire department quickly arrived on the scene and Liz was able to escape.

Stunned and standing outside of her house, a second meteor struck a nearby nuclear power plant causing a large explosion and radiation leak. The blast caused her to be launched three miles where she crashed through the window of an Amazon warehouse. There, she landed in a large luxurious reclining chair.

Unbeknownst to her, Liz had a unique DNA makeup that caused an unexpected reaction to radiation. Rather than succumb to radiation poisoning, she discovered that she had superhuman powers, one of which allowed the chair she landed on rise from the ground and fly. Not yet an expert navigator of this flying chair, she was a bit wobbly and crashed into a shelf of IT books in the Amazon warehouse. A six-pound ITIL book fell on her head, knocking her unconscious.

When she awoke, she had a moment of clarity.

Liz needed to put an end to the concept of IT engineers having day jobs where their primary function is to innovate and add value to their business, then go “on call” on nights and weekends to make sure critical systems keep running. A nearby Amazon Alexa started playing an old 80’s song called Smooth Operator, and in that moment, the Smooth Operator was born.

As the newest and arguably coolest member of the HCAF Avengers, the Smooth Operator helps keep IT invisible and ensures that whatever the rest of her team builds functions efficiently. She and the rest of the dedicated NOC engineers running enterprise tools calmly watch over IT operations with the use of well-appointed dashboards, execute software upgrades and patches, troubleshoot hardware and telco circuit issues and execute routine move/add/change requests, while allowing their customers to sleep soundly and report to work refreshed to focus on their task at hand – which is to design the next best thing for their organization, not keep the lights on.