Global IT Executive Summit

Originally from Slovakia, Vladimir joined the CERN IT department in 2001 to work as a service manager for the scientific computing batch farm. Later, he moved into the storage group, where he is now responsible for CERN’s data archive, the largest in the domain of High Energy Physics.

He closely collaborates with major tape vendors for beta-testing, commissioning and running their equipment at CERN.

James Cates is Senior Vice President at Oracle Corporation, where he is responsible for the Archive Development organization. His portfolio includes the SL8500, SL3000 and SL150 tape libraries, LTO and T10000 Enterprise tape drives, virtual tape disk products, encryption, Oracle HSM software, and DIVA software, including the associated cloud offering.

These storage offerings are deployed by customers for data protection and long-term digital preservation in diverse areas, including cloud, finance, media and entertainment, high-performance computing and national libraries.

Previously at Sun Microsystems and StorageTek, James held various management and engineering positions in the storage development organizations. James has an M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Alabama. He holds 23 patents related to data storage technology.

David Cerf is president and CEO at StrongBox Data Solutions, Inc. With more than 25 years of corporate development experience in the IT industry and new product development, David is focused on innovations to storage and data management that combine artificial intelligence (AI) with rich metadata, advancing machine learning to overcome siloed, storage-centric solutions to these problems.

This unique approach is called “cognitive data management,” and includes comprehensive solutions to automate data classification and data life-cycle management, as well as storage resource management. David is an accomplished author and speaker on topics surrounding data growth, storage, and data protection.

Ed Childers is a technologist focused on cold data storage. A 35-year career in storage development
has given him both a deep knowledge of storage technologies and a unique perspective of the storage industry. Starting with floppy disks, (yes, that long ago), he has worked on HDD, optical, and tape technologies.

He is currently a senior manager responsible for tape drive and LTFS development in IBM’s Tucson Lab. Along the way, he’s accumulated numerous patents and published papers but the highlight was being recognized for his contributions to the Linear Tape File System in the form of an Emmy awarded to IBM in 2011. Ed has a BSME from the University of Texas at Austin and an MSME from the University of
Arizona.

Roark is responsible for SanDisk’s Emerging Storage Solution’s forays into new areas to enable flash adoption. He is a 20-year veteran in solid state development and operations in companies ranging from Quest Software (now Dell), Pillar Data (now Oracle) and Network Associates to Apple.

Previously Roark was an eBay Storage Architect/Infrastructure Technologist. He enabled eBay’s Flash adoption strategy for DBs, NoSQL, Cloud and Big Data. While at eBay, Roark’s team received the Flash Memory Summit Flash Innovation award in 2014.

Craig Lewis is the Founder and Executive Director of the Clean Coalition, a non-profit organization whose mission is to accelerate the transition to renewable energy and a modern grid through technical, policy, and project development expertise. Mr. Lewis has 20+ years of experience in the renewables, wireless, semiconductor, and banking industries.

Previously VP of Government Relations at GreenVolts, a solar technology company, Craig was the first to successfully navigate a solar project through California’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS)
solicitation process. He was also the energy policy lead on Steve Westly’s 2006 California gubernatorial campaign. His resume includes senior government relations, corporate development, and marketing positions at leading wireless, semiconductor, and banking companies, including Qualcomm, Ericsson, and Barclays Bank. Craig received an MBA and MSEE from the University of Southern California and a BSEE from the University of California, Berkeley.

Marvin McNett is a software engineering manager in Microsoft’s Azure Storage group. He has worked on storage systems in Azure that have proven capability at exa-scale for the past eight years. Marvin currently leads the team developing all archive and cold tiers for Azure Storage, driving costs for storing Zettabytes down by an order of magnitude compared to standard hot HDD-based systems. A large part of his time is spent in moving and integrating archival systems, including tape storage systems, into modern adiabatically cooled, ethernet-connected data centers.

Quinn Mitchell has been a High Performance Computing UNIX/Storage Systems Administrator with the National Center for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in East Tennessee for nearly four years. He is a member of the Archive Storage Team serving ORNL’s leadership computing program. Titan and the other HPC resources at ORNL produce a growing 1 PB per month of data requiring archive. Quinn’s role has been as an Archive Storage Team member managing the ingest, housing and serving of the 63 PB and growing highperformance storage system (HPSS). HPSS is the archive software solution at ORNL and has been collaboratively developed with several Department of Energy labs to include ORNL and IBM.

Prior to ORNL, Quinn worked for six years at Brigham Young University, MERS and FSL supercomputing installations, in part managing the world’s largest iceberg-tracking database and the research data for Dr. David G. Long. He has worked in IT as a Systems Administrator since 2001 and HPC since 2006.

Additionally, Quinn earned a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology from Brigham Young University, is a veteran of the U.S. Navy and has served as a Planning Commission Member and Chair for Copperton, UT. He currently serves as the Boy Scout Troop 301 Chairman and the Large Tape User Group Logistical Officer, and is heavily involved in his community and with his family.

Fred Moore began a 21-year career with StorageTek as the company’s first systems engineer, and concluded as Corporate Vice President of Strategic Planning and Marketing. In 1998, Fred founded Horison Information Strategies in Boulder, Colorado, a data storage industry analysis and consulting firm specializing in executive briefings, market success strategy development, and identifying key and emerging technology trends for end users, storage industry suppliers, and start-up ventures.

A sought-after motivator and frequent keynote speaker at storage conferences and IT events worldwide, Fred completed the Berkeley Executive Program in 1997. He currently serves on a few select boards in the storage networking industry.

Fred also served as Editor of Storage for Computer Technology Review magazine, and has produced numerous books, articles, research reports, white papers, analysis, infomercials, and webcasts for the storage industry, analyst groups, and financial groups.

He is a 1989 recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award and a 2004 recipient of the Arts and Science Scholar-in-Residence Award at the University of Missouri, Columbia where he received a B.A. in mathematics and an M.S. in computer applications in physical geography.

Chris Powers is Vice President of the Data Center Development Unit for the Hewlett Packard Storage Division.  Chris’s organization is responsible for development and delivery of the mission critical tier 1 disk array and long term retention product portfolios.

In his nearly 25 years of experience in the data storage industry, Chris has experience in a broad range of  roles spanning finance, strategy development, operations, product development, product management  and P&L responsibilities.  Chris’s experience has spanned across a broad range of technologies including disk and tape drives, high end disk array, tape automation and library products.  Chris has extensive experience in successfully developing and managing complex global development and operational partnerships across the value chain.

Chris holds several technical undergraduate degrees in technology and business and has an MBA from the University of Arizona.

Chris is based in Ft. Collins, CO

Sujata Ramamoorthy is Director and Chief Security Officer for Cloud Platform and Services at Cisco.

Ramamoorthy is an information security leader with 10+ years of experience transforming the security architecture and operations of the business to continually adapt to the dynamic business and threat landscape. She has a proven track record of building and sustaining effective teams and delivering capabilities with significant results. She is a frequent speaker at internal customer briefings and external industry events to share security strategy and practices.

Ramamoorthy’s experience at Cisco transcends both the business and technical realms, as she strives to generate innovation and business value for Cisco, its partners and customers. Prior to joining the Information Security team in 2007, she has held senior positions in technical services engineering, advanced services, and information technology at Cisco. Prior to joining Cisco in 2000, she held software development roles at Informix and Hewlett Packard Corporation. She holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science.

Ramamoorthy has also received industry recognition for her leadership. She received the Gold Winner for the 2014 Women World Awards for Female Executive of the Year and the Golden Bridge Bronze Award for Security Woman Executive of the Year 2014.

Greg Schulz is Founder and Sr. Consulting Analyst of independent IT advisory consultancy firm Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC (e.g. StorageIO®). He has worked in IT for an electrical utility, financial services, and transportation companies in roles ranging from business applications development to systems management, architecture, strategy, performance, and capacity planning.

Mr. Schulz is the author of the books “Software Defined Data Infrastructures Essentials” (CRC Press), as well as Intel Recommended Reading List books “Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking” and “The Green and Virtual Data Center” via CRC Press, along with “Resilient Storage Networks” (Elsevier). Greg is a Microsoft MVP and VMware vExpert. Learn more at www.storageio.com and www.storageioblog.com  on Twitter @StorageIO.

Marc Staimer, as President of the 18-year-old Dragon Slayer Consulting in Beaverton, OR, is well renown for his in depth and keen understanding of user problems, especially with storage, networking, applications, and virtualization. Marc has published thousands of technology articles and tips from the user perspective for internationally renown online trades including Search.xxx.com, GigaOM, and Network Computing. Marc has additionally delivered hundreds of white papers, webinars, and seminars to many well known industry giants such as: Brocade, Cisco, DELL, EMC, Emulex (Avago), HDS, HP, LSI (Avago), Mellanox, NEC, NetApp, Oracle, QLogic, SanDisk; as well as smaller less well known vendors/startups including: Asigra, Clustrix, Condusiv, DH2i, Diablo, FalconStor, Gridstore, Nexenta, Nexsan, Neuxpower, NetEx, NoviFlow, Permabit, Qumulo, StorONE, StrongBox Data Solutions, Tegile, and many more. His speaking engagements are always well attended, often standing room only because of the pragmatic, immediately useful information provided. Marc can be reached at marcstaimer@me.com (503)-579-3763, in Beaverton OR, 97007.

Matt Starr’s tenure with Spectra Logic spans 24 years and includes experience in service, hardware design, software development, operating systems, electronic design and management. As CTO, he is responsible for helping define the company’s product vision, and serves as the executive representative for the voice of the market. He leads Spectra’s efforts in high-performance computing, private cloud and other vertical markets.

Matt served as the lead engineering architect for the design and production of Spectra’s TSeries tape library family.

Spectra Logic has secured more than 50 patents under Matt’s direction, establishing the company as the innovative technology leader in the data storage industry.

He holds a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Jon Toigo is an outspoken technology consumer advocate and vendor watchdog whose articles, columns and blogs are enjoyed by over a million readers per month.  He is CEO and Managing Principal of Toigo Partners International LLC, an independent consultancy and technical research/analysis firm and Chairman of the Data Management Institute LLC, a professional development organization for those who design, plan, manage and administer storage infrastructure and data assets.

Toigo is a 30+ year IT veteran who has worked both as an operative and manager within corporate information systems departments and as a senior consultant with two international systems integrators.  He has supported the development of over 150 disaster recovery plans for a broad range of businesses and non-profit organizations.  He is also a prolific writer with 15 books (five covering disaster recovery planning) and thousands of articles in the technology trade press to his credit.  In 2014, Toigo introduced IT-SENSE.org, a quarterly web publication focused on common sense IT strategy to rave reviews.  The first issue focused on the renaissance of tape technology.

David Wasserman is the Director of Digital Media at The American College in Bryn Mawr, PA, as well as the founder of Kenzie Media, a full-service video production house.  Kenzie Media clients include: Boeing, Biogen, The Pokémon Company International, VF Corporation, BJ’s Wholesale, ABB Inc., OfferUp, United TranzActions, Monsanto, and others.

In his primary role at The American College, David leads a team of seasoned producers, editors, motion graphics artists, and studio crew to produce high quality, in-depth distance learning content.  The Digital Media team produces and manages tens of thousands of media assets (primarily video), both online and onsite, delivering content to the likes of State Farm, New York Life, Aflac, Northwestern Mutual, Pacific Life, Merrill Lynch, and more.  David was the first to introduce LTO to the department’s media workflow, and is committed to continuing to develop an efficient, scalable, and stable production environment to meet the needs of a growing organization.