About
Hey there!
I'm Lars Ihler, a Norwegian tech enthusiast born in 1987 and based in the charming town of Gjøvik. By day (and often by night), I'm a hands-on DevOps wizard, infrastructure architect, and AI tinkerer with a passion for turning complex systems into smooth, secure, and scalable realities. As a husband and father, I bring the same blend of patience, creativity, and problem-solving grit to both family life and professional challenges. Whether it's been automating a fleet of cruise ship servers or building AI-driven home labs, I thrive on exploration, collaboration, and that "aha!" moment when everything clicks.
My Journey in Tech: From Support Desks to Kubernetes Clouds
My career kicked off in the early 2000s with a solid foundation in electronics and electro from high school in Gjøvik and Raufoss. I dove deeper into the digital world with a Bachelor's in Information Security from the University of Gjøvik (2006–2009), where my thesis explored VLAN security for Kongsberg Maritime—laying the groundwork for my lifelong curiosity about secure, virtualized networks.
Fast-forward through a colorful mix of roles: I started in customer support at Telenor and Buypass, troubleshooting everything from broadband routers to smart cards, honing my knack for clear communication and quick fixes. Summers brought stints in healthcare integration at Sykehuspartner, handling secure XML data flows for Norwegian hospitals—a reminder of tech's real-world impact.
By 2009, I was knee-deep in operations at Bluegarden, managing stable services for over 210,000 users across Windows and Linux stacks, Active Directory, Citrix, and big-data setups with Oracle and Python. It was here I cut my teeth on large-scale server farms (300+ HP ProLiants!) and the thrill of outsourcing migrations.
The DevOps bug bit hard in 2017 at BitSpace, where I automated blockchain-related apps on Debian and Ubuntu, diving into Ansible and Docker. From there, it was full steam ahead: System Engineering at Ice Communications (2018–2020), crafting custom Ansible playbooks for IaC, Hadoop PoCs, and Azure/OpenShift explorations; then consulting at RedPill Linpro (2020–2021), leading Jamf Pro overhauls, cyber recovery, and Kubernetes migrations.
In 2021, I joined Hurtigruten, the iconic Norwegian cruise line, as Senior DevOps, redefining server management for their shipboard VMware stacks with Ansible and AWX. I climbed to Product Owner for Automation (2022–2023), streamlining IaC rollouts across 14 vessels and spearheading "Project DarkSide"—migrating Linux VMs from vendor-locked RHEL to self-sovereign Rocky Linux 9. As Product Owner for Infrastructure/Operations (2023–2025), I owned monitoring empires (Netdata across all ships), incident management, and was deeply involved in a massive IT duplication project for a new legal entity, TravelHX—all while juggling Business as Usual with my team towards hospitality systems, MDM fleets (Intune, SCCM, NinjaOne, Apple BM), and Azure hybrids.
Now, since October 2025, I've launched Ihler.Tech as a solo consultancy with aim to help businesses harness AI agents (shoutout to Grok, ChatGPT-5 and Dolphin, etc), Kubernetes-native backends (Traefik, MetalLB, LocalPath-Provisioner/Rook-Ceph/Longhorn), and Ansible+Gitea for resilient IaC. From Unifi networks and Bitcoin setups to disaster recovery and CI/CD pipelines, my focus is empowering teams to build smarter, not harder. I'm always eyeing *aaS innovations to keep things agile and future-proof.
What Fuels Me: Skills, Tools, and a Dash of Wanderlust
I'm a Linux loyalist at heart—Fedora for daily driving, with deep chops in Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL, and Rocky—but I navigate Windows (95 through Server 2025) like a pro. Give me VMware, Docker, Podman, or Kubernetes, and I'll spin up virtual worlds that scale effortlessly. Automation? Ansible/AWX is my tool of choice paired with Act, Gitea Runners and Molecule for testing. I code in YAML (my daily dialect), Python, Bash and C++, and monitor with the best: Nagios/Icinga, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK or Netdata.
Beyond code, I'm fluent in Norwegian and English, with a smattering of Portuguese ("Um pouco!"). Life's too short for silos—I love pair-programming, focused teams, and diving into puzzles together.
Off the keyboard, travel recharges me. I spent four months in Brazil in 2016 with my then-pregnant wife, embracing the vibrant culture before our darlings arrival back again in Norway. In 2014, Thailand's beaches and bustling cities taught me resilience and openness. These adventures remind me: Tech should connect us, not confine us.
Let's Build Something Awesome
Whether you're streamlining ops, fortifying security, or just geeking out over AI agents, I'm here to collaborate. Drop me a line at lars@ihler.tech or +47 99 36 73 93. Let's turn your infrastructure dreams into deployable reality.