They say that life is a constant battle... And we’re all soldiers in some way, right from beginning to end, struggling against challenges and fighting against the odds.
Just as C. JoyBell C. said: “Choose your battles wisely. After all, life isn't measured by how many times you stand up to fight. It's not winning battles that make you happy, but how many times you turned away and chose to look in a better direction.”
For one of our Community members, Mohamed Hamdy, this quote is very close to his heart. He was, and he is experiencing many challenges, but he chooses to not give up and keeps on fighting to achieve further goals.
From military to observability? Yes, it’s possible.
Read further and get to know @Mohamed_Hamdy, our Community member of May.
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Can you share some details about your past? What is your story, and how it happened that you decided to work in the IT / APM area?
Hello, and may peace be upon you. This is Mohamed Hamdy. I grew up in Egypt, and I have a bachelor's degree in computer science and information technology. After graduation, I joined the military as a First Lieutenant for three years. After that, in 2011, I didn't have many choices in searching for a job, so I started to work in the industrial field. Things didn't go as I planned, so I decided to get into the IT field and started to learn software testing and networking.
I had completed my ISTQB and CCNA and was looking for a job. I got rejected multiple times… 😆 …but finally, I got accepted by one of the ISP companies as an IT technical support engineer in 2013, and from there, my IT journey began.
My first encounter with Dynatrace was in 2018 when I was working as a Senior Application Support and Systems Analyst in one of the telecommunication companies in Egypt. I had a lot of rules and responsibilities, and one of them was to maintain and support the production applications 24/7 to ensure healthy system status, so APM was one of them.
Back then we were relying on alerting and traditional monitoring which based on log patterns, DB queries, Shell Scripting, ...etc. And when I was just getting started to know AppMon, the Dynatrace OneAgent came in, and I was amazed by the OneAgent concept, Davis AI, and a lot of features and benefits. For me, the essential advantage, besides the technical benefits, was breaking down the silos between the teams.
I left this position in May 2019 to become a Dynatrace Solutions Consultant, and since then, I've been working to deliver Dynatrace Solutions to customers. I had been promoted to Senior Consultant and then SME, with multiple achievements and success stories. Also, I was responsible for Training and Certification planning, readiness, and best practices for both Associate and Professional Certifications (2021–2022), which led Dynatrace Partner in Egypt to be nominated among the Best Three RFOs in the Dynatrace RFO Training and Certification Award – 2021.
Can you tell us a little bit about your professional life? Where do you work, and what do you do in your job? And how does Dynatrace fit into the picture?
Currently, I'm a solution architect working for Your Compass, a Dynatrace Solution Partner in the UAE. As a Dynatrace Certified Professional and Services Delivery, I'm handling the following:
- planning, designing, and delivering Dynatrace solutions and best practices according to the customer’s needs
- providing services that maintain and grow the adoption of the Dynatrace Platform in customer environments
- assisting client staff and colleagues in the troubleshooting and root-cause diagnosis of performance issues
- delivering expert-level support to clients and to other internal teams and colleagues as well
- mentoring and training customers and colleagues on the Dynatrace platform and best practices
What was the biggest challenge Dynatrace helped you to overcome?
This is a difficult question, as I've been through multiple challenges. But what I can say is that Dynatrace was and is helping me to get knowledge about multiple technologies in different sectors. I was able to troubleshoot many issues and identify the root cause easily thanks to this tool. Dynatrace also helped me fine-tune my presentation skills, which I needed to polish while working with customers.
What brought you to our Community? What made you stay?
My first interaction with the Dynatrace Community was reviewing and checking "what is happening here." Then I saw some use cases for different technologies with answers, tips, best practices, and solutions by experts.
Even if some of the cases were not directly related to mine, they gave me some hints to complete my investigation.
What best advice can you give someone who just started using Community?
My advice to the new members is to plan time for the Dynatrace Community. Your expertise in some technologies might help someone there, and if you’re looking for answers for a case or if you have an idea, search for it; if it's there and works for you, then you can support the authors with kudos or votes; if it's not there, don't be shy, post your inquiry or case, and I'm sure that Community heroes will help.
Tell us something about you that most people don’t know. What is your biggest joy or passion in life?
My life outside the job is simple 😄, I really enjoy spending time with family & friends, walking, working out, learning, and gaining knowledge about new technologies.
What’s one thing on your bucket list? Your dream?
I've got multiple on my bucket list 😄, regarding my career. I keep learning and developing my skills, seeking the Dynatrace Master Certification. Also, I'm working hard to complete my cybersecurity studies and training.
On a personal level, I wish to learn to play the saxophone someday 🎷🎷
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Mohamed, we’re happy that Community helps you to be familiar with many use cases, reach new skills, gather knowledge, and improve in many different areas. Keep learning, hope to see you with a Dynatrace Master Certification in your hand soon!
And when you’ll play the saxophone one day, get back to us with a recording maybe. We have on the Community many music lovers, so you’ll have friends to play with! 😎
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