FORUM 2007

Steve Aaker

Mainframe Storage Expert
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Steve Aaker is the manager over Virtual Tape Product Management. This is a team of people that oversees VSM and VTL market planning, product marketing, as well as general field support for VSM and VTL products. Mr. Aaker has over 29 years of experience in the computer industry, with positions ranging from manufacturing production control, product marketing, and product management. Over the past 20 years Steve has had direct product responsibility for a wide range of tape, library, and software technologies that were developed and delivered by StorageTek. For the past 10 years he has been directly involved with the VSM product which includes current and future development working very closely with SUN development. Steve has been working on the open system virtual tape solutions for the past year and half.

David Albright

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Raymond Austin

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Kris Bakke

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Jon Benson

Senior Vice President, Storage
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Jon Benson is a 20-year veteran of the storage industry and most recently served as vice president of engineering for Sun's virtual storage and tape solutions business. Previously, he was vice president and general manager of StorageTek's overall tape business. In this role, he drove the architecture and development of Sun's award-winning tape automation systems including the Sun StorageTek SL8500 and SL500 tape libraries for which he holds several patents. Benson has a degree in electrical engineering and was instrumental in bringing to market award-winning innovation such as: Sun's industry leading VSM5 virtual storage solution, Sun's T10K tape drives and tape automation systems that include the Sun StorageTek SL8500 and SL500.

Brian Brinkmann

Nordic Storage Production Lead
CSC Denmark

Brian Brinkmann is 42 years old, and started working in the IT industry back in 1985. He spent the first 12 years working with systems programming of MVS, VSE and CICS. During this period he also worked as a project manager and technical coordinator of several customer transition projects.

In 1997 Brian was appointed manager of the mainframe systems programming department at CSC. In 2004 CSC formed a storage department, and he became manager of the Storage Production department. Together with Klaus Pedersen and their boss, Brian formed and developed the foundation for CSC Nordic's Storage and Backup Strategy.

Manish Desai

Magma Design Automation

Nigel Dessau

Senior Vice President of Storage Marketing & Business Operations
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

As senior vice president of Storage Marketing and Business Operations, Nigel leads the team responsible for marketing Sun StorageTek solutions, including disk, tape and breakthrough technologies.

He previously served as StorageTek's Chief Marketing Officer. Prior to joining StorageTek, Nigel spent 19 years with IBM and headed marketing programs in the UK and across Europe for the S/390 brand and IBM Server Group worldwide - including the launch of the IBM eServer zSeries. As part of the Corporate Marketing Executive Team, he was responsible for the marketing strategy behind e-business and the move to On Demand Business. His last role at IBM was as the Business Unit Executive for IBM Virtualization Solutions.

Born and educated in Nottingham, England, Nigel currently resides in Denver, Colorado.

David Douglas

Vice President, Eco Responsibility
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

As Vice President of Eco Responsibility at Sun Microsystems, Inc., David Douglas is responsible for the strategy and execution of environmental initiatives across the company, including enhancements to Sun's products in the areas of energy efficiency, cooling technologies, product recycling and clean manufacturing; continued improvements in Sun's day-to-day operations; and management of Sun's asset sharing through programs, donations and access to Sun Grid resources. Douglas brings more than a decade of experience leading organizations to build more innovative, efficient, and eco responsible products and has along-standing passion about environmental issues.

Douglas has a wide breadth of experience in a variety of senior engineering and technology management positions in both systems and software. He served as co-founder and senior vice president of products at RFID middleware pioneer ConnecTerra, which was acquired by BEA Systems in October 2005. At BEA, he served as chief architect for WebLogic. Prior to this, he worked at Sun for nearly eight years in a number of roles including vice president of engineering for the Solaris Operating System, vice president and chief technology officer for the Network Service Provider division and director of architecture for the office of the CTO.

Douglas holds both B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. He currently lives in Concord, Massachusetts with his family.

Douglas's blog can be found at http://blogs.sun.com/enviro/

John Fowler

Executive Vice President, Systems
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Fowler has been with Sun for more than 14 years with experience in systems and software development and corporate strategy. As Executive Vice President of Sun's Systems Group, John Fowler is responsible for the delivery of all systems products including both SPARC and x64-based server products. Prior to becoming the head of Sun's Systems Group, Fowler was EVP of Sun's x64 Systems Group focused on delivering industry standard network computing systems for Solaris, Linux and Windows.

Before leading Sun's x64 initiative, Fowler was the Chief Technology Officer for Sun Microsystems' Software organization. In his role as CTO for software, Fowler was responsible for overall technical strategy and alignment in addition to managing an advanced development group.

In other previous roles at Sun, Fowler was responsible for identifying leading technology trends and the companies creating these trends for minority investment and acquisition. His group took a forward view on both hardware and software technology developments, identifying companies that are complementary to Sun. He was involved in the acquisitions of Kealia, Inc. (Advance Server Technology), Nauticus Networks (High-Performance Content Switch), Waveset Technologies, Inc. (Secure Identity Management), Pixo, Inc. (Centralized Data Services for Devices) and many others, resulting in continued innovation and product development for Sun.

Prior to his position with Sun's investment group, Fowler was Director of Engineering for the Sun Software Development Tools organization. Throughout his career at Sun, he has also held a variety of engineering management positions within Java Software, Solaris, Unix Desktop, and Graphics.

Anil Gadre

Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

As Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Anil Gadre has responsibility for all Sun marketing, which includes branding, market analysis, perception improvement, introductions, and demand creation. He is also responsible for coordinating the product-definition and Product Marketing functions across Sun, and for developing the expertise, discipline, and bench strength necessary to support Sun's Business Units.

Anil has been with Sun more than 17 years. Some of his other roles have included VP of Product Marketing, VP of North American Field Marketing, General Manager of the Solaris group and VP of Software Marketing. Anil was previously with a startup company, Apollo Computer and Hewlett Packard.

He has a B.S.E.E. from Stanford University and a Master of Management degree from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

Brian Glowacki

VP/IT Architect Senior
JPMorgan Chase-Global Technology Infrastructure

Brian Glowacki has been in the IT industry for almost 2 decades creating data storage, SAN and backup architectures. His career has spanned numerous roles with CompuServe, several telecoms and ISPs. After gaining considerable experience in this diversified background, Glowacki entered the banking industry and began establishing enterprise backup infrastructures in core data centers for Bank One, now JPMorgan Chase. As Lead Architect for JPMC's backup and recovery environments worldwide, Brian has led the charge on new technologies, infrastructure combinations, and practices.

Joe Heel

Senior Vice President, Global Storage Practice
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

As Senior Vice President for the Global Storage Practice, Joe Heel is accountable for global storage sales revenue, margin, and business objectives, and will be measured by these simple metrics every week, quarter and year -- Growth and Making Money. Joe believes that strong alignment to Sun's core product groups -- Storage, Services, Systems and Software -- helps to influence a portfolio of products and services that are responsive to our customers' needs. He and his team provide a line of sight from the customer to the Storage Product Group to ensure that Sun's R&D investments achieve maximum return. Transparency, Speed and Teamwork are the guiding principles of the Storage Practice.

Heel joined Sun in September 2005 with 13+ years experience managing senior executive relationships in the technology industry. As a Partner in the High Tech Practice at McKinsey and Company, Heel served clients in Europe, the United States and Latin America on corporate strategy, operations, mergers and acquisitions, business development and organizational design. Heel also started and led McKinsey's Miami office and its Private Equity Practice.

Born in Germany, Heel completed a PhD in Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and has published numerous academic papers. Fluent in four languages, Heel now resides in San Francisco, where he enjoys hiking, boating, biking and skiing.

Jon Hiles

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Doron Kempel

Chairman and CEO
Diligent Technologies

As Chairman and CEO, Doron Kempel is responsible for the management, execution, and strategic direction of the company. Doron is a storage industry veteran with 20+ years of executive management and technology experience in worldwide sales, business development, engineering, finance, marketing, and strategic planning. Before joining Diligent Technologies, Doron served as Vice President and General Manager for the Media Solutions Group at EMC Corporation, where he launched the organization as an autonomous global division consisting of independent engineering, sales, marketing, business development, professional services, and other business functions. Over a three-year period, Doron oversaw the development and integration of several technical solutions, established and managed a global independent sales force, directed alliance and marketing efforts, led the acquisition of two companies, and grew the business unit into a multi-hundred-million-dollar revenue source for the company. Doron holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard University and a law degree (LL.B) and Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Tel-Aviv University.

David Kenyon

Vice President of Product Management and Business Operations, Storage Division
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

David J. Kenyon is the Vice President of Product Management and Business Operations for the Storage Division of Sun Microsystems. He is responsible for driving profitable growth, expanding market share, and ensuring customer requirements are met across three major business areas within the group, primary disk and storage infrastructure, tape automation/drives/and virtualization and storage software in both open systems and mainframe customer environments. In this role, Kenyon oversees product revenues of more than $2.5B generated by Sun StorageTek's industry leading modular disk lineup, tape products and data protection solutions, including the StreamLine SL8500, Virtual Storage Manager, VTL, and Sun's Network Attached Storage product family. In addition, he manages the business operations team who are chartered with forecasting, reporting, and driving process improvements across the Storage organization within Sun Microsystems.

Prior to joining Sun/StorageTek in 2004, Kenyon served as director of enterprise product marketing for Quantum Corporation where he was responsible for 60% of the division's product and services revenue. Before Quantum, Kenyon was a strategy consultant working closely with Fortune 100 worldwide clients in defense, commercial aircraft, pharmaceutical and metals manufacturing industries. Kenyon has also held product marketing and management positions at Verizon Wireless and AT&T Global Information Solutions.

Kenyon holds an MBA from Harvard University Graduate School and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Loyola Marymount University.

Henry Kennedy

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

David Krenik

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Mark Lemmons

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Claus Mikkelsen

Chief Scientist
Hitachi Data Systems

Claus joined Hitachi Data Systems in 1998 and is currently responsible for new technology research for storage applications, storage virtualization, and Data Life Cycle Management. During his tenure with Hitachi Data Systems, Claus designed and patented the technology for NanoCopy Asynchronous Point-in-Time Replications and other related products, and continues to work with Hitachi Data Systems' business partners and other vendors on developing complementary architectures for storage solutions. Prior to joining Hitachi Data Systems, Claus was with IBM where he was one of the Chief Architects for IBM's storage replication and disaster recovery products, a position he held for 15 years. Between Hitachi Data Systems and IBM, Claus holds 15 patents for storage subsystem architectures (with an additional two pending), and is on the Technical Advisory Board for a Silicon Valley company. Claus also co-authored a book on disaster recovery called "The Resilient Enterprise" and has contributed numerous articles on storage availability and data center resiliency.

Most recently Claus has worked on defining the requirements for Hitachi Data Systems' TagmaStore Universal Storage Platform and Network Storage Controller.

Ian Murdock

Chief Operating Systems Platform Strategist
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Ian Murdock is Chief OS Platform Strategist at Sun Microsystems and chair of the Linux Standard Base (LSB), the Linux platform interoperability standard. Prior to joining Sun, Ian was CTO of the Linux Foundation (formed through the merger of OSDL and the Free Standards Group, where he was CTO) and cofounder, chairman, and chief strategist of Progeny, a Linux distribution vendor that builds custom Linux platforms for companies building server appliances and other Linux powered products. A longtime Linux user, developer, and advocate, Ian founded the Debian project in 1993. Today, Debian is one of the most popular Linux distributions in the world, with millions of users worldwide. Debian is also widely considered one of the most successful and influential open source projects ever launched: More than 1,000 volunteers in all parts of the world are currently involved in Debian development, and the founding document of the open source movement itself (the Open Source Definition) was originally a Debian position statement. Ian was also a founding director of Linux International (1993-1995) and the Open Source Initiative (1998-2001). Ian holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Purdue University.

Jay Nakagawa

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Thomas Neely

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Alex North

Group Manager, Tape Drives, Product Management
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Alex North is Sun Microsystems' Tape Drives Group Manager and oversees product management of Sun StorageTek branded enterprise tape drives (T10000, T9940 and T9840), OEM-sourced midrange (LTO and SDLT), and low-end (DAT) tape drives as well as tape devicelevel encryption. Alex joined StorageTek in 1998 after six years with Andersen Consulting's Communications Industry Group. Since joining StorageTek/Sun, Alex has held management positions in the areas of removable media, new product launch, program management, and midrange tape drives and automation. Alex received a BA in Business Economics from Colorado College and an MBA in Finance from the University of Colorado-Boulder.

Klaus Pederson

Manager of Storage Infrastructure
CSC Denmark

Klaus Pedersen is 44 years old and presently manager of the Storage Engineering department in CSC Nordic.

His IT carrier started back in 1985 when he was hired as a programming trainee. During the years he has worked with application development, database administration and systems programming.

In 2004 CSC decided to form a dedicated storage group. Klaus took on a position as storage coordinator and in 2005 became manager of the Storage Engineering Department. Together with Brian Brinkmann and their common boss, they formed and developed the CSC Nordic Storage department.

Mark Peters

Host and emcee for all General Sessions

Having hosted Forum in 2004 and 2006, Mark is familiar with the conference and the needs of its attendees, and is happy to return to host Forum 2007. Mark's 20+ years of experience in IT have always emphasized the storage business. Prior to his current role as an analyst with the Enterprise Strategy Group, Mark ran his own business specializing in corporate meeting moderation and communications consulting - again focused on the IT world. This was preceded by a varied career in high-tech commerce, working at Xerox, Memorex-Telex, StorageTek and Sun; and covering senior management roles in sales, marketing, product marketing, business development and customer advocacy, both in the US and internationally. He is based in Colorado.

Jonathan Schwartz

Chief Executive Officer and President
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Jonathan Schwartz is chief executive officer and president of Sun Microsystems, and a member of Sun's board of directors. He became Sun's CEO in 2006, succeeding the Company's co-founder and current chairman of the board, Scott McNealy.

Schwartz was promoted to president and chief operating officer in 2004, and managed all operational functions at Sun - from product development and marketing, to global sales and service. An inveterate communicator, Schwartz has led Sun's drive to engage the marketplace, and redefine corporate transparency.

A leader behind many of Sun's open source and standard setting initiatives, Jonathan's been an outspoken advocate for the network as a utility with more than just value for the computing industry - but as a tool for driving economic, social and political progress.

Prior to his position as COO, Schwartz served as Sun's executive vice president for software, its Chief Strategy Officer, and held a variety of leadership positions across product and corporate development. He joined Sun in 1996 after the Company acquired Lighthouse Design, where he was CEO and co-founder. Prior to that, Schwartz was with McKinsey & Co.

Schwartz received degrees in economics and mathematics from Wesleyan University.

Rob Shepard

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Rob Shepard has spent his career focused on improving management decision making through quantitative decision models. He began developing IT investment models and financial business cases as manager of IT Architecture and Strategy at StorageTek. This continued in his role as manager of Market Intelligence where he integrated market forecasts with primary research for the corporate strategic planning process. Today, as Chief Architect of Sun's suite of ROI/TCO modeling tools - the Sun Value Platform - Rob Shepard has established himself as Sun's resident expert on ROI/TCO methodologies.

Lisa Sieker

Vice President of Marketing & Planning, Systems Group
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

As vice president of marketing for Sun's Systems business unit, Lisa is responsible for marketing and managing Sun's computing, storage and networking businesses. In addition, Lisa has Sun-wide responsibility for the EcoEnterprise and HPC strategic growth target initiatives.

During Sieker's 18 years at Sun, she has held a series of management positions in business development, product marketing, field marketing, product sales, eBusiness Sales, and System Integrator Partner Sales, within the U.S. and internationally. Prior to Sun, Sieker worked for Pixar and NCR and has a Computer Science degree from UCSB and an MBA from Duke.

John Spataro

US Government Solutions
EDS

John Spataro is a Client Delivery Executive with the Army Portfolio in Orlando, Florida. John joined EDS in 1997 working in the Security & Intelligence Portfolio in Herndon, VA. In addition to the Orlando office, John's organization includes locations in Minneapolis, MN, Corpus Christi, TX, Tampa, FL and Huntsville, AL. Additionally, John is responsible for the US Government Solutions data centers in Orlando. John's clients include the US Army Program Executive Office, Simulation Training & Instrumentation, Corpus Christi Army Depot, US Special Operations Command and US Aviation & Missile Command. In addition, John supports several Medicaid accounts including Florida.

Prior to joining EDS, John worked for the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington, D.C. for 8 years. During his time at the CIA, John worked in several areas including the Directorate for Science and Technology, the Directorate for Administration and the National Reconnaissance Office. John received his undergraduate degree from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. He spent four years in the US Air Force.

John Toigo

CEO
Toigo Partners International

Jon William Toigo is a 25 year IT veteran, author of 14 books (including Making IT Matter, written with Sun CTO Randy Chalfant), and thousands of articles in the trade press. His work, including a blog at www.drunkendata.com, is read by over a half million business and IT professionals monthly. Toigo is CEO of Toigo Partners International and Chairman of the Data Management Institute.

Dale Trent

EDS

Dale Trent manages the US Government Solutions data centers in Orlando. Dale joined EDS in 2000. The data centers in Orlando consist of about 1000 devices (network, servers, storage, etc.) and support about a dozen separate clients including the Department of Education, Department of Veterans Affairs, NASA, as well as about a half dozen State & Local and commercial clients. Prior to joining EDS, Dale was a Project Manager for K2 Data Solutions in Palm Bay, Florida. Dale has held various Project Manager/Systems Engineer positions with Harris Corporation, Northrop Grumman and ARINC. Dale retired from the US Air Force after 20 years. Dale received his undergraduate degree from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida and he received his graduate degree from Florida Institute of Technology.

James Tummins

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Jim Tummins is a principal consultant and marketing strategist for Sun's Storage Group. During the last 6 years Jim has been a key influencer and shaper of Sun's thinking and strategy regarding storage management best practices and specifically Information Lifecycle Management well before ILM became a popular industry term. More recently, Jim has lead the effort to develop the concept of Information Management Maturity, and Sun's Information Management Maturity Model.

Jay Wallace

Distinguished Marketing Director, Mainframe Storage
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Jay has more than 32 years experience in using, selling, and marketing mainframe systems; understanding client applications and mainframe requirements; managing cross functional mainframe marketing teams; developing and implementing mainframe go-to-market strategies; and overseeing mainframe sales education and client collateral development. He joined Sun in June, 2007 as a Distinguished Marketing Director to direct the Mainframe Storage Initiative.

Jay has a BA in Applied Mathematics from Claremont McKenna College and a MS in Operations Research from George Washington University.

Ian White

Senior Vice President, Global Customer Services
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Ian White, Senior Vice President - Global Customer Services is a pivotal leader in Sun's unified Global Sales and Services organization. White leads a team of over 6000 professionals worldwide who deliver key strategic and operational services for Sun customers, and significant revenues and profit for Sun Microsystems.

White's seventeen year career at Sun is highlighted by significant executive leadership positions in sales and services, most recently as Vice President Sun-Services Americas. White has served as Vice President - International Americas, Vice President - EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), Director U.K. Installed Base Sales & Sales Support, and Director U.K. Customer Service Operations & Customer Education.

Prior to joining Sun in 1989, Mr. White held a number of management positions in customer services and engineering, including a seven year stint with Computervision where he managed sizable technical workforces in both the U.S. and U.K. He began his career with Rolls Royce followed by six years as a Research & Development engineer with a telecommunications company in the U.K. With more than 30 years in the IT industry, White is passionate about leveraging technology to create compelling service solutions as well as customers' experience with Sun Microsystems.

A native of Berwick Scotland, White is a graduate of the University of Nottingham and Derby Technical College where he received degrees in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. White and his wife Ellen have three grown sons and reside in Menlo Park, CA.

Jason Williams

COO/CTO
DigiTar

Jason Williams holds the positions of Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technology Officer at DigiTar, a premier messaging service provider based in Boise, Idaho. He directs and oversees all design, development and operations of the company's various state-of-the-art services. This includes addressing the significant storage challenges presented by the real-time analysis, archival and routing of millions of messages for customers around the world. DigiTar services enhance existing messaging systems with next-generation feature sets, through state-of-the-art technology development.

Jason co-founded DigiTar in 2004 with the mission of elucidating and aligning the world's messaging. Williams graduated with honors from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.

Chris Wood

CTO - Storage and Data Management Practice
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Mr. Leighton C. "Chris" Wood Jr, Director and Chief Technology Officer for Sun's Data Management Storage Practice - Client Services Organization - is responsible for identifying and delivering the best technologies available that can address our customer's complex data management problems. Prior to that, Mr. Wood was the Director of Technical Sales and Marketing - Global Network Storage Sales, and was responsible for delivering technical support, education and interface into Network Storage product development as well as architecting solutions to Sun's customers storage management problems.

Tom Wultich

Sun Microsystems, Inc.