Jacob Hopkins

Technology enthusiast since 1994.

About me

For the past 12 years, I've had the privilege of working along side an incredible team to bridge the gap between hardware and software, in order to create better delivery of healthcare to our communities.

I currently help architect, deliver and support proof of concepts and pilots related to technology strategy; while assessing risks and mitigation strategies for mission critical workloads. I maintain close vendor relations to research and develop hardware configurations for accurate and efficient procurement of assets optimized for specific healthcare applications.

Skills

x86 SERVER HARDWARE

Establish and maintain Tier 1 hardware vendor relations to standardize optimized configurations of Intel/AMD enterprise-class server hardware.

DATACENTER INFRASTRUCTURE

Ensure interoperability of server, network and storage components in 40k+ physical server hardware datacenter.

VMWARE ESXi

Standardize, deploy and maintain VMware hosts from ESXi4 to 8.0 utilizing vendor toolsets such as vLCM, vROPS and HPE OneView.

INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY

Develop automation pipelines to deploy, test and improve security posture with server firmware and Windows OS standardization and implementation.

Work Experience

SENIOR TECHNOLOGY ARCHITECT

Oracle / March 2023 - Present

Create SOPs and automation pipelines for the lifecycle management of 40k+ x86 Server Hardware fleet including deployment, security patching and reclamation. Evaluate Capex/Opex opportunities in alterative hardware architectures. Create/utilize BI reporting to optimize distribution of server hardware based on datacenter power and cooling constraints.

TECHNOLOGY ARCHITECT

Cerner Corporation / January 2020 - March 2023

Establish and maintain Tier 1 hardware vendor relations to standardize and optimize enterprise-class server hardware for healthcare specific workloads. Ensure interoperability of server, network and storage architectures. Evaluate and provide feedback on future hardware platforms using vendor pre-release hardware.

LEAD SYSTEM ENGINEER

Cerner Corporation / October 2019 - January 2020

Develop and maintain 3rd-party (non-SCCM) automation to patch offline Windows Server 2012-2019 images used to deploy all frontend workloads. Adapt custom automation workflows to BMC Blade-Logical Server Automation for consistent server delivery.

Passions

HOME LAB

I'm always tinkering with different automation/entertainment platforms within a small home lab. I maintain the network/technology infrastructure for friends and family through multiple software-defined networking (SDN) platforms.

LIVE MUSIC PRODUCTION

There's not much I won't listen to, but I primarily gravitate toward Pop/Electronic Dance Music. I love understanding the lighting and sound technologies used to deliver the best possible performances.

TRAVEL

You can typically catch my friends and I all over the country attending different music festivals. I've had the privilege of meeting countless great individuals from our different journeys.

SMART HOME

Avid user and contributor to the open-source home automation platform: Home Assistant. Since joining the project in 2018, I love finding new ways to solve problems and seeing how technology can bring quality-of-life improvements.

Education

B.S. MANAGEMENT/COMPUTER INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Park University / 2015 - 2018

ASSOCIATE OF ARTS (A.A.), INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Metropolitan Community College / 2012 - 2014