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The Cloud Guy

Derek Ryan Cox

Colorado Springs, CO

Professional Experience

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Denver, CO May 2019 – Present
Principal Consultant - Data Center Migration Expert
Nov 2025 – Present
  • Migration of 5,000 VMs for a Global Financial Bank
  • Migration of 1,200 VMs for a large Payment Processor
  • Migration Lead providing Technical Leadership for a team of 12-15 people
  • Mentor and Develop other consultants on Datacenter Migrations
Principal Architect - ProServe Expert Services
May 2024 – Nov 2025
  • Principal Cloud Architect Designing Solutions for Rehost Migrations to EC2
  • Designing Solutions for Replatform/Refactor to Elastic Kubernetes (EKS, ECS)
  • Expert with AWS Well Architected Framework and Cloud Adoption Framework
  • Launched Migration and Modernization Projects of $252M Total Revenue in 2025
  • Developed the Migration Practice for Elastic VMware Service within ProServe
  • Designed and Developed Elastic VMware Service Offerings, Sales, and Delivery Kits
  • Single Threaded Leader for all VMware Migrations within ProServe
Principal Consultant - VMware Global Specialty Practice
June 2020 – May 2024
  • Built $140M YoY Business within AWS Professional Services
  • Developed Migration Practice for VMware Cloud on AWS within ProServe
  • Training and Enablement for 55 VMware Delivery Resources Worldwide
  • Delivered 14 Migration/Modernization projects for Fortune 500 Companies
Technical Account Manager - Global Accounts
May 2019 – June 2020
  • Led a Global Team of 4 Technical Account Managers for a Top 50 AWS Customer
  • Assisted Account Team to help Drive $100M in Annual Spend
  • Assisted Customer Integrate AWS Architecture for a $34B Tech Merger in 2019

Emory University

Atlanta, GA May 2009 – May 2019
Lead Systems Engineer
May 2009 – May 2019
  • Led a Team of 6 Windows Administrators
  • Built a VMware Environment consisting of 2 Data Centers, 54 Hosts, and 2,500 VMs
  • Consolidated 34 Racks of Hardware Down to 5 Racks Within 10 Years
  • Led the transition of HP Blade Hardware to Cisco UCS Platform
  • Led the Migration of 1500 VMs to Amazon Web Services

Compaq / Hewlett Packard

Alpharetta, GA May 1998 – May 2009
Account Support Manager
Sep 2005 – May 2009
Technical Account Manager
July 2002 – Sep 2005
Technical Support Engineer
May 1998 – July 2002

Professional Certifications

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

  • AWS Certified Cloud PractitionerFeb 2018 - April 2029
  • AWS Certified AI PractitionerNov 2026 - April 2029
  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect AssociateMarch 2018 - April 2027
  • AWS Certified SysOps Administrator AssociateDec 2018 - August 2028
  • AWS Certified Developer AssociateMarch 2019 - August 2028
  • AWS Certified Data Engineer AssociateJan 2025 - Jan 2028
  • AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer AssociateApril 2026 - April 2029
  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect ProfessionalApril 2018 - April 2027
  • AWS Certified DevOps Engineer ProfessionalJan 2020 - August 2028
  • AWS Certified Advanced Networking SpecialtyMay 2022 - May 2028
  • AWS Certified Security SpecialtyNov 2021 - August 2027

Other

  • Project Management Professional (PMP)March 2012 - March 2030
  • ITIL Expert v3Nov 2012 - Present

Education

Masters of Information Systems

December 2010

Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA

  • Focus on IT Leadership, IT Service Management, and IT Project Management
  • Summer study abroad to Nagoya and Tokyo, Japan in June 2009
  • Graduated with a 4.0 GPA
  • Awarded most outstanding student for the MSIS December 2010 graduating class

Masters of Business Administration

August 2005

Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA

  • Focus on Strategic Management, Leadership, and Organizational Behavior
  • Graduated with a 3.75 GPA

Bachelor of Science in Telecommunications Management

June 2002

DeVry Institute of Technology, Alpharetta, GA

  • Graduated with a 3.29 GPA
  • Dean's List

Skills

AWS Migration & Modernization AWS Well Architected Framework Cloud Adoption Framework VMware AWS Project Management Agile Software Development Jira Service Now PCI HIPAA FISMA Security Compliance ITIL Expert AWS Landing Zone AWS Networking Dev/Ops Automation CloudFormation Ansible GitHub Bash Scripting PowerShell SQL Python Pandas NumPy Microsoft Windows Linux macOS