Our company dates back to the early 1980s. Elisabeth Norz, at that time a young telecommunications engineer, worked in an office partnership with one of these early IT companies. They had more than enough work, but Elisabeth’s company not, so she switched over and started developing software.
In 1989, Elisabeth officially founded her own business. It had been a one-woman show, until, two years later, Johannes joined. Together, they developed a payroll application for healthcare businesses in Clipper and C/C++. Johannes had been working in the development of medical ultrasonic appliances for Kretz-Technik (today: GE-Medical) and had a strong UNIX and networking background.
Our own shop, Schörfling am Attersee, Agerstraße 8
In 1997, Norz Computer moved to Schgörfling, a village on a beautiful lake called Attersee. At that time, we rented a shop and founded a computer service business. Our main focus changed to PC trading and installations, databases, networking and end-user training. We got our first certifications (Windows), and soon after, Citrix came into the picture: Metaframe 3.5 for NT 3.51, Metaframe 4 for NT 4. Elisabeth got Certified LPI, a leading certification for Linux.
This shop had also been equipped with a cable TV-based permanent internet connection, a great improvement, compared to these modem-based analogue dial-up connections we had before! We also hosted our own web pages, frau.co.at (from 1997) and norz.at (from 1998) as well as our own mail server, still Microsoft Exchange at that time.
At that time, Elisabeth founded the very first computer school for women only. The school had not been located inside our office but in the neighboring village Seewalchen. It had been a big success and existed for about ten years!
Johannes started teaching in 1997. The first themes had been TCP/IP and Windows Terminal Server. For a short time, Johannes held an MCSE for Windows 2000 and 2003 as well as an MCT. In 2002, Johannes got certified CCA, Citrix Certified Associate, and, at the same time, CCI, Citrix Certified Instructor (he still renews this certification annually), main focus: CSG, Citrix Secure Gateway, later on also Citrix Metaframe.
Elisabeth backtracked from daily business. She does all the paperwork, accounting, and legal stuff. Besides, she studied science in sports and works part-time as a trainer for one of Austria’s leading handball teams and a scientist in sports.
Moving to Baden, Lower Austria
Computer Networking and training became more and more important, and most training centers are located in Vienna, so in 2001 we decided to shut down our beautiful shop and moved to Baden. Baden is a small, but very old beautiful city, round about half an hour south of Vienna. The first site had been in Lokalbahnzeile 10, Baden. The company later moved over to Beethovengasse 2.
Johannes always loved UNIX, and when Linux gained bigger market shares, Johannes more and more turned away from Windows. Elisabeth already held a Linux LPI certification, and Johannes specialized in computer networking, mainly using NetScaler, today called Citrix ADC. Due to lack of interest, his Windows Certification expired. CCE (Citrix Certified Expert on Application Delivery and Security) is his most important certification. Besides this, he constantly learns about security, vulnerabilities, and protection of applications, he is very much focused on security and web application firewall (WAF)
Beginning in 2018, he started working as a contractor for Citrix Consulting Services. The main focus here, no surprise, is Citrix ADC WAF, the web application firewall. Working for Citrix Consulting Services brings great projects for outstanding customers and challenging problems.
Johannes is a very open-minded and communicative guy, so he still loves teaching. Teaching and consulting still go hand in hand, profiting from each other: A strong theoretical background and plenty of practical experience make him an outstanding expert. In 2020, Citrix honored him as a member of the elite circle of Citrix Technology Advocates (CTA).
Elisabeth and Johannes also created and sponsored the ADC testing and learning platform wonder-kitchen. It allows ADC administrators to test their ADCs. It’s an easy-to-use and well-designed platform available for free. While its lab guide is specific to Citrix ADC, the platform itself (containing three webservers, both, for http and ssl, on IP addresses 93.83.148.43-45) is useful for all kinds of ADCs like F5, Kemp, A10, Brocade, …
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