From 2012 to 2025, I had the privilege of working at Hivelocity, a leading provider in the data center and cloud hosting industry. Over twelve and a half years, I led the DevOps, Internal IT Support, and Cybersecurity Compliance teams, overseeing critical systems that powered global operations.
We weren’t on the front lines of customer facing support or networking, that was handled by other skilled teams. Our mission was to design, build, and maintain the infrastructure and security that made Hivelocity’s services possible.
I want to mention, we did have help from the other teams in the company on many of our projects. Dev, Network, Customer Facing Technical Support, Billing, Accounting, and the C-Level Teams at Hivelocity all played important roles.
Building Private Cloud Infrastructure at Scale
During my tenure, we engineered private clouds using a wide range of virtualization and orchestration technologies, including:
- VMware vSphere
- Proxmox VE
- OpenStack
- CloudStack
- Microsoft Hyper-V
- SolusVM
Every deployment came with unique challenges, requiring custom cloud solutions tailored to our clients’ needs. One of our proudest achievements was creating Instant Servers—an automated bare-metal provisioning system that allowed customers to order and deploy dedicated servers directly from our website in minutes.
We also built a VPS hosting platform, entirely open source, that expanded our product portfolio and gave us flexibility to adapt to new market demands.
Cybersecurity & Compliance
As head of the security team, I oversaw company-wide security compliance—from vulnerability scanning and penetration testing to patch management and regulatory reporting. This included website vulnerability assessments, remediation strategies, and ensuring adherence to industry compliance standards.
Security wasn’t just about tools and policies—it was about protecting the trust of our customers, some of whom ran mission-critical workloads in our data centers.
Internal IT Support for Over 150 Employees
Our internal support team was the backbone for more than 150 employees. We handled everything from employee onboarding to day-to-day technical troubleshooting, ensuring that every department had the systems, hardware, and applications they needed to excel.
Data Center Growth & Transformation
When I rejoined Hivelocity in 2012, the company had just moved into one of Tampa Bay Road Runner’s original data centers a legacy Time Warner Cable facility in Tampa, Florida. We transformed the space into a modern data center and began scaling operations rapidly.
This was a period of explosive growth both in infrastructure and in team size. Through all the challenges, the workplace culture was like a family, and that spirit made our achievements even more rewarding.
Change in Leadership & Company Culture
In 2024, Hivelocity was acquired. As is often the case with acquisitions, leadership changes brought a shift in company culture. It’s remarkable how quickly a 20+ year old tech company can evolve sometimes in unexpected ways.
While the family atmosphere I valued has faded, I’m deeply grateful for the years of innovation, collaboration, and camaraderie.
Looking Ahead with ARPHost
As I transition into building ARPHost, my goal is to recreate the same team oriented culture that made my years at Hivelocity so memorable, one that blends cutting edge hosting technology, DevOps excellence, and customer first service.
Final Thoughts
My 12+ years at Hivelocity gave me more than technical expertise, it taught me how DevOps leadership, cloud infrastructure engineering, and data center operations intersect with people and culture.
Technology changes fast, but strong teams, shared vision, and trust are timeless.