About me

I'm Ghulam Abbas, an IT infrastructure and operations leader based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. For more than 15 years I have designed, secured and run the technology that organisations depend on: data centers, networks, ERP platforms, disaster recovery and cyber security programs.

I started as a network engineer, building enterprise and carrier networks. I moved into designing a multi-agency government data center, consulting for Cisco clients across the region, and then leading IT for a large industrial company, where I answer for strategy, security and uptime at board level.

What I focus on

• Infrastructure and operations: data centers, high availability, disaster recovery and business continuity.
• Cyber security and compliance: ISO 27001, Zero Trust thinking, firewalls, access control and security governance.
• Digital transformation: ERP delivery, SD-WAN, cloud adoption and modernising legacy infrastructure.
• Leading people and vendors: clear roadmaps, SLAs and teams that deliver.

Staying current

I attend the main industry events in person: Cisco Live in the USA (2024 and 2026) and Melbourne (2025), and SecTor in Toronto (2024 and 2026). In 2025 I also marked ten years as a CCIE. See the photos and details.

Credentials

CCIE Data Center, PMP, CCNP Enterprise and Security, Juniper JNCIP-ENT, AWS Solutions Architect Associate, Microsoft Azure Administrator, and more. I hold a Master of Science in Telecommunication and an MBA. See the full list.

Why this site

Good IT help is often hard to find, or buried in jargon. People lose time and money to problems that a clear explanation could have solved in ten minutes, and to security mistakes that are easy to avoid. This blog is my attempt to give back: practical fixes, plain-language security advice, and honest career guidance for people starting out or moving up in IT.

I write in English. I'm Pakistani, based in Saudi Arabia, and I speak Urdu and Punjabi as well.