Kevin Daum
Professional Summary
Kevin is a senior technical architect and IT consultant with extensive experience designing, stabilizing, and modernizing complex IT environments. His career is defined by a consistent ability to resolve high-impact infrastructure challenges, architect resilient systems, and guide organizations through mission-critical migrations and contract transitions with clarity and precision.
He specializes in infrastructure modernization, disaster recovery, and knowledge management, with deep expertise in technologies like HPE SimpliVity and Active Directory. Kevin is known for his methodical, risk-aware approach — building detailed roadmaps, validating topologies, and ensuring operational continuity during high-pressure projects.
In recent years, Kevin has integrated AI into his practice, leveraging it as a force multiplier to accelerate analysis, enhance documentation, and automate workflows. He serves as an internal AI subject matter expert, shaping service offerings and mentoring peers on the practical application of AI in IT operations. His work focuses on building scalable knowledge infrastructures and using multi-model AI orchestration to solve real-world business problems, blending deep technical rigor with creative synthesis.
Three Areas of Expertise
Infrastructure & Modernization
Complex infrastructure migrations, Active Directory architecture and recovery, disaster recovery and incident response, network topology design, and risk-aware remediation with detailed backout planning.
AI & Knowledge Architecture
Advanced knowledge management with Obsidian PKOS, multi-model AI orchestration, agentic AI workflows and RAG pipelines, workflow automation, and applied AI for troubleshooting, documentation, and decision support.
Strategic Consulting
Executive-level communication and stakeholder alignment, director-ready roadmaps and runbooks, IT service offering development, long-term environment stabilization, and vendor transition management.
Core Skills
HPE SimpliVity Migrations
Complex hyperconverged infrastructure deployments and migrations
Active Directory Architecture
Design, recovery, and modernization of enterprise directory services
Disaster Recovery
Incident response planning and operational continuity assurance
Multi-Model AI Orchestration
Gemini, Claude, Copilot, LM Studio, and Ollama coordination
Knowledge Architecture
Obsidian PKOS, MOCs, custom templates, and AI context systems
Agentic AI & RAG Pipelines
Retrieval-augmented generation and autonomous agent workflows
Executive Communication
Translating technical complexity into business-relevant strategies
Risk Assessment & Backout Planning
Methodical validation and controlled remediation strategies
Security Policy & Compliance
NIST CSF, CIS Benchmarks, OWASP, and Fortinet best practices
Codex → Nexus → Clarity
Signature Strengths
Systems-Level Thinking
Blends infrastructure, security, and operational insight to see the whole picture. Architects solutions that account for interdependencies across the full technology stack.
Calm Under Pressure
Maintains clarity and direction during high-impact outages and complex transitions. Trusted to lead when environments are at their most critical.
Risk-Aware Execution
Methodically prepares backout plans and validates assumptions before acting. Every migration, every cutover, every change — tested before it touches production.
AI-Enhanced Efficiency
Uses intelligent tools to accelerate analysis, synthesis, and documentation. AI is a force multiplier, not a replacement — applied with precision to real consulting workflows.
Client-Centric Communication
Translates complex technical issues into business-relevant language and actionable plans. Delivers director-ready roadmaps and stakeholder-aligned recommendations that bridge the gap between engineering depth and executive decision-making.
Technology Stack
Research & Knowledge Base
Project Portfolio
ITSG Clarity Framework
Building ITSG Clarity — a three-layer AI pipeline (Codex → Nexus → Clarity) that transforms tribal knowledge into queryable intelligence. Working implementation: Nexus indexes 619+ vault items instantly; Clarity produces analyst-grade briefs via local Gemma 4 at zero cloud cost. Four-zone air-gapped architecture designed for regulated industries. Scales from personal expert system to enterprise air-gapped platform — same framework, different prompts per vertical.
AI-Powered Knowledge Mining for Online Presence Elevation
Designed and built a repeatable AI workflow for mining a structured personal knowledge system — Obsidian vault, multi-model AI memory exports, and project scope files — and transforming that intelligence into polished public-facing content. Current outputs include corporate-style HTML bio pages and a WordPress content strategy for an IT managed services firm.
FortiGate Policy Audit Platform
Built an AI-assisted FortiGate firewall policy audit workflow that ingests structured policy exports, evaluates them against Fortinet Best Practices, CIS Benchmarks, and NIST SP 800-41, and produces professional Word audit reports with scorecards, severity-rated findings, and optimization recommendations. Phase 1 validated against a 76-policy production environment.
Obsidian AI Integration Platform
Designed and operates a Personal Knowledge Operating System (PKOS) on Obsidian with layered AI integration — Gemini Scribe for vault synthesis, Copilot for in-note actions, and Claude Code for direct file system operations and skill invocation. Assigns distinct functional roles to each AI layer with structured anchor documents for cross-session context.
WordPress Level-Up Rebuild
Internal website modernization project transforming ITSG's public presence from a generic MSP template into a structured, agent-optimized showcase of the firm's infrastructure, cybersecurity, and emerging AI capabilities. Leverages an Obsidian-based knowledge management system as a content pipeline for blog posts, case studies, and service descriptions.
Municipal AI & Agentic Security Policy Modernization
Developed a strategic planning brief for a municipal government to modernize its security and privacy policies for the age of AI. The roadmap provides concrete, defensible policy updates to address agentic AI risks, API security, and new state-level compliance mandates.
