Hybrid Cloud

This Week's Hagrid: Darryl van der Peijl

This Week's Hagrid: Darryl van der Peijl

Week 1 of The Hagrid Awards goes to Darryl van der Peijl — the connective tissue of the Azure Local community.

The Hagrid Awards

This week’s Hagrid goes to Darryl van der Peijl.

If you run anything Azure Local, you already know Darryl. He runs the community Azure Local Slack and the monthly Azure Local Insider newsletter — the connective tissue of this community, where people share what’s new, what’s broken, and what’s next. He’s a 12x Microsoft MVP and CTO at Splitbrain. He’s also the brains behind the Hybrid Platform Conference — a one-day Azure Local & hybrid cloud event in Amsterdam (Sept 28, 2026 at Hotel Casa), with a free virtual edition to follow.

Introducing The Hagrid Awards: Celebrating the Hybrid Cloud Community

Introducing The Hagrid Awards: Celebrating the Hybrid Cloud Community

A weekly, public thank-you to the people building and sharing in the Azure Local, Hyper-V, and Azure Arc community.

Community

First, about that nickname

If you’ve met me at an event, you already know the beard. And you probably know that somewhere along the way, people in this community started calling me Hagrid. I’ve leaned into it — a big, bearded guy who loves keeping things running on the ground and in the cloud. Honestly, it fits. Hagrid was the Keeper of Keys and Grounds, and that’s basically what we all do in hybrid: keep one foot on-prem and one foot in Azure.