Monday Jan 05, 2009
How long have you been employed at Sun and where are you located?
I was born in Paris, France.
I have been working for Sun since January 2001. I am GSE Lead Architect at Velizy, France.
What do you like best about working for Sun?
I like working on datacenter consolidation, business intelligence, architecture design, methodology and business consulting.
Innovation and community development make the difference at Sun face to competition, and it's very exciting for me!
I appreciate the opportunity to give Sun employees the possibility to work at home and have their desktop environment with collaborative tools.
Today, Sun technologies can make it!
What is your current job role and how does it help solve customer business problems?
My challenges are to develop Sun value propositions to aquire new accounts, to propose IT solutions aligned on customer business needs, to create new sales opportunities, to give the means of being more upstream on decision-making processes and to present at high level unique Sun values. I have an expertise in Business Intelligence and I provide architecture solutions for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data in order to help customers make better business decisions. I am working for top accounts in datacenter consolidation and I design the best architectures, improving TCO and better ROI with virtualization and green technologies.
Because they are Super Heros, Sun Stars use their Super Powers to get the job done. What are your Super Powers?
I work with all Sun organizations, practices, marketing, sales operations, finance and legal to deliver best solutions for my customers. I am geek of technologies and I like to share my vision and ideas with Sun people, not only with System Engineers but with all Sun people. Explaining technologies for business and sharing known-how with the greatest number of people is really gratifying. "Share with people, People share with you!"
Have you had the opportunity to assist customers in creating energy efficient data centers? If so, please give us an example.
I have had an opportunity with a server consolidation project for a car manufacturer. This project will reduce the installed base by 20% in 2009. For having the better ROI, the solution has been implemented with Solaris 8 Containers and Sun Eco Servers...
By the way, the cost saving is very good because the applications installed base haven't been transformed and the energy consumption has been reduced significantly.
Do you have a favorite blog or website?
Because, except for the fact that I like coffee (Java coffee of course 
), this site is a good marketing example for trademark adoption.
Name one thing you worry about.
The war in Afghanistan and Irak. The economical crisis in the world is also worrying..
Do you participate in any social networking websites?
Yes, I am SunSpace (Sun's internal site) and LinkedIn member.
Please list any Sun or external communities that you are a member of.
In 2006, I worked for the Systems Practice. Once, a customer required technologies and reliable products, but in fact wanted that Sun provide business value for his company. That day, I understood that we had to change our speech and have an approach based on business value not only on technology and products.
Rapidly, I started to launch this challenge with sales managers in manufacturing and telecommunications companies. It was a hard work because that imposed changing our positioning, but that ended up with sales opportunities. At the same time, I led trainings for sellers, architects and systems engineers.
In November 2007, I became a community driver. I took the decision to develop "Sun Value Propositions" in order to share this know-how as much as possible. I wrote many publications and gave life to this worldwide community by using different means of communication in order to permit everyone to give their point of view and exchange their experience. This community relates technologies, methodologies, services, references and key performance indicators to manage and measure the infrastructure performance and value; alignes IT solutions on company business drivers, goals and strategy with business value; Implements business intelligence for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data to help enterprise make better business decisions and builds datacenter efficiency according to three major steps like standardization, virtualization and automation. Today, this community is classified in the top ten performances with more than 600 members and mean of 500 downloads and 1500 views per month.
Wow- those are very impressive numbers!
Where did you last go on vacation?
I travelled in the South-East of Spain, near Granada. I spent 2 weeks in the midst of nature with my wife and my two children 
.
Italian westerns movies in the sixties have been shooted in this area.
Outside of work and family, is there anything that you're passionate about?
I am fond of Home Theater; my preferred movies are science fiction like Cube, eXistenZ, Matrix, The Thirteenth Floor, The Fly, Star Wars... These movies are recorded on High Definition Blu-ray DVD, images are really different compared with a standard DVD. With this system, it is fun to play video games on a large screen: my children love it, so do their friends!
I like skiing in Jura, in the south-east of France. In this country, Nordic ski is common because you can find many great forests and protected spaces..
I have a true passion for sea fishing, particularly at Belle-Ile-en-Mer. It's a beautiful Brittany island in France. In this area, sea is full of white sea bass and sea-breams: these are excellent good tasting fishes.
Do you blog?
I maintain my blog based on Business and IT value.
Thursday Sep 04, 2008
This is a special edition of our SunStars blog. We would like to recognize the winners of the Sun Microsystems
Asia Pacific Systems Engineer (SE) of the Year Award for FY08:
Gold Medal Winner
Takafumi Sasaki (Japan)
Silver Medal Winners
Shailesh Bhadoria (India)
Jongjun Son (Korea)
Bronze Medal Winners
William Lo (Greater China)
Andrew Foote (Australasia)
Tepparit Ritthongpitak (Asia South)
Congratulations to all the winners - GREAT JOB!
Tuesday May 20, 2008
What Hungarian city is administratively divided into 23 numbered districts, always written in Roman numerals??
If you don't know, you will have to pay a visit to this month's
SunStar, Erik Fischer, to find out!
How long have you been employed at Sun and where are you located?
I am with Sun since 1994, which means that I am in my 15th year at Sun. (Happy Anniversary from the Divas ! )
I am dwelling in the Budapest, Hungary Sun office.
What is your current job role?
At Sun, you don't have one job, you have many .
I am a Principal Engineer and also managing the Hungarian Systems
Engineering team. My background is computer and CPU architecture,
compliers, operating system architecture, application and system
performance measurement and tuning, and High Performance Computing.
My working hobby is security and CGI. So, the background and the long
time experience makes me to have not a single job, but to help and
contribute wherever I can. It is indeed a very pleasing situation,
since the toughest, hardest and most challenging problems find me
and I am happy to solve them! I am also handling the official press
conferences on technical subjects and organizing and participating
in many customer, partner and community activities. Finally I develop
a bunch of tools for fun.
Because they are SuperHeros, Sun Stars use their Super Powers to get
the job done. What are your Super Powers?
Well, I hardly believe, that I am a SuperHero, but my abysmal and
everlasting love towards the architecture of microprocessors helped
Sun and our customers a lot all over the world. It is truly one of
the major passions of my life to let people know and understand more
about the wonderful world and the technical beauty of the
microprocessor microarchitecture. So I grab every possible opportunity
to talk about it and help. Well, it might qualify as a Super Power...
What do you like best about working for Sun?
The talent, the excellence and the fantastic engineers that surrounds
us all at Sun is the foundation of the company and what I like best.
Have you had the opportunity to assist customers in creating energy
efficient data centers? If so, please give us an example.
I am an advocate of the energy efficient computing using our UltraSPARC
T processor family, which I demonstrated and introduced at many
customers and conferences.
Do you have a favorite blog or website? What about a favorite movie?
I do not have a single favorite site. I am a strong believer, that the
Internet as a whole is one of the marvels of what technology can do to
serve people. The Internet is something very close to mobile telephones
and mobile communication which gives an unprecedented communication
freedom to all of us. The wonder of the Internet is the community, the
content and the possibilities both on gathering information, doing
business or simply just reaching the other side of the world. This is
fascinating, entertaining and also challenging at the same time and
I love it!
Regarding movies, I am die hard fan of the moving pictures, but can not
name just a single one. There are so many marvelous and beautiful
movies and also there is a large number of very entertaining movies.
I own a DVD collection of around 600-700 disks, each one is my
favorite - and I can not have so many older ones - so if would be
definitely a long list to name them all...
Do you participate in any social networking websites?
I regularly posting at various forums in my native language
on the field of Solaris and microprocessors. I am also member of
Facebook and LinkedIn.
Please list any Sun or external communities that you are a member of.
I am member of IEEE CS, I am a Sun Principal Engineer, member of
the Sun Technical Systems Ambassador group, member of the Sun HPC
Aces community and participating in several Hungarian Unix related
user groups.
If you could go back or forward in time,where would you go?
Well, it is not an easy question. There were many-many interesting and
wonderful moments in the history of our small planet, furthermore the
future looks also very-very interesting. However, if I have to pick just
one moment, I definitely would like to see the times (if they will come
at all) when the human race leaves this planet and starts to colonize
other habitable planets or finds intelligent life forms.
Outside of work and family, is there anything that you're passionate
about?
As I already mentioned, I am a die hard fan of good movies. I am also
the fan of contemporary classical music and own around 1200-1300 CDs
full with truly wonderful - and sometimes hard to listen - music. I also
very much enjoy contemporary literature, especially from South-America,
from the Mediterranean region of Europe and from Japan. I am a collector
and reader of science fiction and own around 2000 books. Also enjoy the
history of computing machinery, drawing huge and small dragons and
learning the Maori language. I try to ride my bike as much as possible
and if my sons give me some free time, I make nature photos.
If you have an external blog, please send us the url.
I have my own web site, which is under construction currently: www.nomac.org
Monday Apr 28, 2008
Did you know that during the 2007
Oktoberfest
there were 6.2 million visitors, 69.406 hectoliters of beer consumed and 58.446 units pork knuckles eaten??
I bet our latest
Sun STAR, Constantin Gonzalez, can tell us many more interesting facts about his home town of Munich, the capital of the German state of Bavaria!
How long have you been employed at Sun and where are you located?
I've been with Sun for more than 10 years now. I live in Munich, Germany with my wife Friederike and my 21 months old daughter Amanda.
What is your current job role?
At Sun, you don't have one job, you have many .
I work for Franz Haberhauer's Platform Technology Team in Sun Germany's Global Systems Engineering (GSE) organization and I'm part of the international Technical Systems Ambassador group.
We evangelize new hardware and OS technologies to customers and take back
their feedback to the product groups. Interesting technologies today are
Sun's new CMT processors, x64 systems and of course Solaris. Grid Computing
and Visualization are other favourite areas of mine, as is Web 2.0.
Most of the time, I stand in front of partners and customers and present about
interesting Sun technologies, do pre-sales consulting for customers or
help out in internal projects. For instance, I've been lately involved in
creating a Solaris training curriculum for GSE in europe.
We also have a group blog called Solarium
in which we blog in German about interesting Solaris features, tips and
tricks.
What do you like about working for Sun?
I'm a computer scientist (that's a formal term for "geek") by nature, and
at Sun you get to play with new and exciting technologies every day!
But the biggest part are people. No matter who you work with, there's
always a sense of helpfulness and, well, Sun spirit to it.
Please briefly describe any projects you are involved in that support
Sun's vision to see everyone and everything participating on the network.
There's a podcast we produce in Germany for the system administrator
community at Systemhelden.com. That's german for "System Heroes.com". (There's
also an english version at systemheroes.co.uk). The podcast is called
HELDENFunk ("Hero Radio") and it's produced by a couple of people from
(product) marketing and myself. We feature interviews with interesting people:
Sysadmins, bloggers, principal engineers, Sun partners, etc. By encouraging
people to podcast (and to blog, participate in wikis, etc.), I try to turn
them into active participants in the network.
You may not expect that from someone who's supposed to sell tech stuff, but
the reason that user generated content in web 2.0 is successful is because
it is authentic. You can't create a portal for sysadmins without having
sysadmin/tech type people behind it. Also, it's a great way for me as
an SE to reach a bigger audience than would be possible with traditional
presentations.
Have you had the opportunity to assist customers in creating energy
efficient data centers?
I was involved in introducing customers to UltraSPARC T1 and CMT in
Germany. For example, I worked with a financial customer in showing the
efficiency and throughput benefits of the T2000 for their Java based
application server infrastructure. I've also helped a telco OEM beta test
the T2000 for video streaming to handhelds and it proved to be a great
streaming server!
Do you have a favorite blog or website?
It's amazing how many bright people blog on blogs.sun.com. You could
spend hours reading them! Also, there's some fascinating stuff happening
at the Foresight Institute which deals with
advancing beneficial Nanotechnology. Who knows, we might end up using
tiny rods and gears instead of silicon for very futuristic CPUs...
When commuting or traveling by car, I like to listen to a couple of
podcasts, such as the one from
Extremetech.com, the EGM live podcast, the German
Podcast for Alternative Computer Systems,
the Blick ueber den Tellerrand, which is
a German web-2.0-in-business podcast, or BrainCast, a German podcast about your brain.
Do you participate in any social networking websites?
Yes, sure. In Europe, Xing is very popular. I'm also on
Facebook, LinkedIn and even Twitter.
Please list any Sun or external communities that you are a member of.
I'm a member of the Sun Technical Systems Ambassadors, a worldwide
group of senior SEs that serve as a link between customers and the
product groups for CPU, System and HPC related technologies. I'm also
a member of the German Unix User's Group " GUUG" and
a senior associate at the Foresight Institute.
If you could meet anyone tomorrow, who would it be? Why?
I'd love to meet Rhys Fulber, an amazingly creative electronic musician. He does everything from
electronic to punk to metal to sweet pop and if I had more time, I'd spend it learning to create music on my own .
Other interesting people I'd like to meet would be Robert Scoble, the famous blogger and Ray Kurzweil, the inventor, futurist and author.
Tell us a little known fact about yourself.
My dad is from Chile, my mother from Germany. I was born in Germany, went to
kindergarten in Colombia, elementary school in Turkey and Germany, then I
finished high school in Italy. So I grew up multilingual with Spanish and
German, then added English and Italian to the mix .
Outside of work and family, is there anything that you're passionate about (sports, causes, etc.)?
I'm always passionate about the future. That's why I like to be at Sun and
why I think Web 2.0 plays such a significant role in the world's culture.
At home, I have a lot of gadgets that are "future" to family and friends.
Those are mostly part of our home theater. It's one of those hobbies that are
never finished and where you always find something to improve on: Better
sound, better picture, streaming audio/video from a ZFS file server in the
basement, you know. But it's also one of those hobbies that bridges technology
with people: There's nothing like watching a great movie with family and
friends, nice picture, clean sound, a good wine (or beer, depending on the
movie) and no hassles or endless commercials you'd otherwise get at one of
those crowded multiplexes .
Do you have a blog?
Yes, Constantin's Blooog!
Maybe Constantin will add the
GSE Divas to his blogroll
Thursday Mar 20, 2008
Not only is this Sun Star a great engineer, he can cook too!!
Introducing Franz Haberhauer, Technical Director and Chief Technologist!
Franz, we heard that you recently celebrated a milestone anniversary at Sun?
I just had my 15th anniversary - I joined Sun in January 1993 and I'm
based in Stuttgart, Germany.
What is your current job role?
As a Technical Director and Chief Technologist I evangelize Sun's new technologies and
work towards their adoption among our customers. I'm leading a small, highly skilled team of OS and Technical Systems Ambassadors focusing on platform technologies especially Solaris, HPC, but also Web 2.0. On the other hand we provide technical support for Sun's education and research business in Germany.
What do you like about working for Sun?
I enjoy working on the (b)leading edge of technology. Sun is an incredibly creative and innovative company with passionate
employees. The ambassador program and other international initiatives and task forces gave me a great opportunity to learn about and appreciate the cultural
diversity in an international company.
What paradigm shifts do you currently observe?
Sometimes it takes time until new technologies get adopted.
Sun Ray
isn't the latest technology, it had been on
the forefront of thin clients since years with session mobility as a
highlight. But now we are facing a perfect storm:
Desktop virtualization based on Sun Secure Global Desktop and Sun Ray on one hand are an approach
for a more efficient desktop provisioning and management and on the
other hand ultra thin clients are now
recognized as a means towards a more power efficient desktop landscape.
One of our projects in Germany
at University Hospital rechts der Isar, Munich has just been featured at
the Sun Analyst Summit 2008 session
on The New
Eco-Nomics. Sun Rays consume 95% less power than a PC based solution.
Another positive trend is the large interest in Solaris and OpenSolaris.
Sun's open source strategy is recognized
in the market - we get invited to events like
Linux Day or
LinuxTag which once picked Linux as a
synonym for Open Source but are still looking at the larger picture. Another driver are the technologies in Solaris, especially ZFS and Solaris Containers. At our recent partner university for which I acted as agenda lead the sessions on
ZFS and Container Best Practices have been the two most popular ones
among 30 breakout sessions coverings Sun's whole product and technology portfolio. Speaking about filesystems: SAM-FS is on the rise as well - a great fit for the digital archiving and library projects which are popping up everywhere.
Do you have a favorite blog or website?
blogs.sun.com has evolved into a great technical resource. Yet for much
information actually a Wiki would be better suited - like the
ZFS Best Practices Guide
on solarisinternals.com. But now there is Sun Wikis.
Beyond Sun - being a passionate photographer - dpreview is one of my favorite ones.
What about a favorite "junk" food?
One of my other passions is cooking - therefore "junk" food is not
really my favorite topic. DIVA comment: Oh... that explains the photo!!
Do you participate in any social networking websites?
Like most colleagues in Sun's German sales force I'm in
Xing - and internationally in
LinkedIn.
Beyond my professional life I'm participating in some German and
international photographer's forums
and communities like Flickr,
fotocommunity, and
Panoramio - I enjoy my pictures
showing up in Google Earth's geo layer.
Please list any Sun or external communities that you are a member of.
One of the most vivid communities within Sun are the worldwide OS Ambassadors.
They meet once or twice a year. Having met someone personally also
strengthens the relationships in a virtual community. I've made the experience that
people in virtual groups at some point in time want to meet others face to face in other
communities as well, e.g. within the fotocommunity
there are several local groups in Stuttgart which meet monthly.
Jointly with our local Sun Education Center I've set up a series of evening events
around Solaris and OpenSolaris:
Solaris@STEP
(named after the location STuttgart Engineering Park).
If you could meet anyone tomorrow, who would it be? Why?
Geoffrey Moore, author of "Crossing the Chasm". Having a focus on technology adoption, this book is a must read.
Tell us a little known fact about yourself.
Despite living in the home town of two leading car manufacturers - Mercedes and Porsche - I'm driving a BMW 525d touring.
Outside of work and family, is there anything that you're passionate about?
I mentioned my passions already: photography - taking pictures with my
Canon DSLR bodies (a 20D and a 40D)
as well as optimizing them through digital image processing , cooking
and eating out, and fine wines - especially from Tuscany and Bordeaux.
Do you have an external blog?
I maintain a blog in German on
blogs.sun.com/FranzHaberhauer.
While most
Germans in the IT business do speak
English pretty well many nevertheless prefer reading publications in
German. While I'm not very active in my own blog
I regularly contribute to my team's group blog
blogs.sun.com/Solarium which focuses on
Solaris and is maintained in German as well.
Thursday Mar 06, 2008
What is this Sun STAR doing in front of a ship in Santander, in the North of Spain? What do you think?? A dedicated Sun engineer will use all available resources to help out a customer or colleague!
Introducing ---> Juan Carlos Fernandez Martin!
Juan-Carlos, how long have you been employed with Sun and where are you located?
I joined Sun 2 Jan 1997 so let me think uhmmmm 11 years, I didn't realize it was so long, it looks was yesterday when I started....
I am located at the Sun office in Madrid, Spain.
During this 11 years we have moved from Torre Picasso in the middle of the city
to Parque Empresarial "Parque Norte" that is not exactly in the downtown but I am happy because it take me 10 min to come
to the office, and 5 min to go back home (Guess why ?)
What is your current job role?
My current role is Solution Architect, but I have been 6 year as Benchmark Engineer, 4 year as System Engineer on Migrations
and last October I moved to Finance Business unit.
Have you had the opportunity to assist customers in creating energy efficient data centers?
In LBS (Life before Sun) I worked for a Siemens partner, and he tell me his biggest dream to see a Mainframe application to run on a Unix system (at the level it was sinix, Unix from Siemens) . I worked very hard for 9 months but when I showed him the results , and how easy it will be implement at the customer data center, he was nearly crying. This was a great moment.
What do you like about working for Sun?
Each new project is a new challenge, where in addition to helping a customer, It allows me to learn something new, so from this point of view I am very happy to work at Sun, and I am always ready to learn anything.
What is your favorite "junk" food?
Without doubt is "Tortilla española", not only tourists who like it, also me of course.
Do you participate in any social networking websites?
Yes, I participate in LinkedIn, Neurona, Xing, but it take me too much time but really now, I only maintained Linkedln.
Please list any Sun or external communities that you are a member of.
From the first days I joined Sun I started as Technical Ambassador, now I would like to continue as Solaris Ambassador but there is not free place for me in this moment, so I am waiting a free slot.
Tell us a little known fact about yourself.
Oh my family, I have a wife and two daughters, the biggest is studying at the Heidelberg University in Germany, so I learn to use
the skype and tools like this, that allow us to be in touch with my daughter.
Outside of work and family, is there anything that you're passionate about?
Always I have curiosity for Mayas, Incas, etc civilizations, so any time I found a book that tell me about this civilizations
I read it without sleeping until I finish. That's really what I like.
Thursday Feb 21, 2008
What do Hamburger Aalsuppe
(eel soup -- without the eel??) and Joerg Moellenkamp have in common? They are both
favorites of Hamburg, Germany!
Joerg, how long have you been employed with Sun and where are you located?
I'm at Sun since July 2001. I'm located in the Hamburg office.
What is your current job role?
Blooded Sunnie .... okay, more formally: I´m a Senior Systems Engineer at Global Systems Engineering. I see my primary role as an evangelist for Sun´s technology at customers and partners.
What do you like about working for Sun?
You see the world (okay, mostly it´s Germany, but I wasn´t in Las Vegas before Sun's Customer Engineering Conference (CEC) 2007 and I won´t visit it for vacation now. I didn´t like the city, the event was cool), the colleagues are nice, it´s paid well and they let you play with cool systems. And well, once you work at Sun you never have to buy a t-shirt or a polo again ... okay ... almost never.
Please briefly describe any projects you are involved in that support Sun's vision to see everyone and everything participating on the network.
A few years ago I invented and developed an secure online payment system for a mobile telephone provider. It was based on challenge-response and deliberate media breaks between web and mobile phones.
In the mean time I worked on many web projects as a networking specialist, as this was my specialty before and at Sun.
I´m an avid user of Web 2.0 services. My bookmarks are at del.icio.us, my favorite music is visible at last.fm, the list of my flights in the past are at flugstatisitik.de. I just
don´t like services based on my actual location out of security reasons. People know where you are at a given time, but they know as well, where you aren´t.
My main project to support that vision: www.c0t0d0s0.org. A blog about Sun, my life at Sun and all the rest. It´s an important part of my life since three and a half years and it´s getting quite successful now. 5000 Visits a day. 500 to 600 subscribers (but: web analytics is to computer science, what astrology is to astronomy).
Have you had the opportunity to assist customers in creating energy efficient data centers? If so, please give us an example.
In LBS (Life before Sun) i worked as Senior Director for Networks and Infrastructure at Canbox Systems AG (Senior ... what a joke, I was 27 at that time). I was the manager and the lead architect for the world wide datacenter project. Two datacenters (in Singapore and Boston) were used one, but the one in Germany (in the nice but small city Oldenburg) was a complete new one. My team worked on more efficient cooling at that time and the usage of the heat in the datacenter to heat our offices. But then came the German version of Chapter Eleven as one of the smaller explosions of the burst of the dot com bubble.
Since i´m working at Sun I help my customers by working together with them to make their datacenter more efficient ... and by selling them CMT servers, of course
Do you have a favorite blog or website?
Oh, my feedreader collects 300 feeds. Hey ... I´m a news junkie. My "A-Blogs" list contains 10 blogs on average. But "favorite blog" is singular. That´s a difficult decision. The blog with the longest history of being in this list is Schneier on Security. This blog is written by the security luminary Bruce Schneier. Yes, the Schneier who knows Alice´s and Bob´s shared secret
What about a favorite "junk" food?
My favorite "junk" food isn´t really junk food in it´s normal definition. It´s a pastry called
Franzbrötchen. It´s made out of flaky pastry dough with cinnamon and butter. This pastry is something local to Hamburg. Just a few kilometers outside of Hamburg it´s getting increasingly harder to buy some.
Do you participate in any social networking websites?
Yes ... I´m participating in LinkedIn and
Xing. Xing is somewhat similar to LinkedIn but more popular in Germany.
Please list any Sun or external communities that you are a member of.
I´m part of the Solaris Adoption team here in Germany. And I try to form a community of people around my blog. Hey, and I´m member of the SunDragons, a dragonboating team founded by some Sun employees.
If you could meet anyone tomorrow, who would it be? Why?
I would like to meet Hector Berlioz, as i want to know if he was really that weird as the massive orchestration of the "Grande Messe" suggests.
Tell us a little known fact about yourself.
The facts I want to share, are already in my blog, and the ones, I don´t want to share ... well, I won´t write them here, either Okay, one fact I didn´t publish in my blog so far: I´m a fan of the German soccer club Werder Bremen, but I´m not a really passionate fan. It´s more like local patriotism, as I lived near of Bremen for a longer period.
Outside of work and family, is there anything that you're passionate about?
I´m an avid semi-pro photographer. You can look at some of my photos on Flickr. In spring and summer I try to get as often as possible on my mountain-bike and try to avoid hitting jaywalkers. I´m a fan of classic music, jazz and electronic music.
*******
Visit Joerg's blog at c0t0d0s0.org: The Sun in a Lighthungry Universe
Wednesday Jan 23, 2008
Direct form the silk capital of the world, and the home of
Interpol, we are thrilled to
introduce you to Dominique Merle, Engagement Architect!!
How long have you been employed with Sun and where are you located?
I have been working at Sun for 14 years and I am located in Lyon, France.
What is your current job role?
I am currently developing and managing the Sun resellers network in France. On a day to day basis, i simply share my knowledge to partners through training, help on Request For Proposals, with the help of Quentin and William, two trainees.
What do you like about working for Sun?
Always something new to learn from a technological point of view. At Sun there are lot of smart people you can learn from. Diversity, autonomy, many contacts inside and outside Sun.
Please briefly describe any projects you are involved in that support Sun's vision to see everyone and everything participating on the network.
I maintain several CEpedia wiki pages (Sun's internal Customer Engineering wiki) to share information with my colleagues in either French or European. I am impatient to have this CEpedia opened to our partners.
I am also a Solaris ambassador and promote Solaris with Solaris Installfest. I leverage as much as possible my network at Sun and the work of other colleagues.
As a Java Certified Architect, I am also a fervent advocate of software at Sun and I always try to synergize different entities, different subjects, communities or colleagues. I recently organized a master software event at Sun Grenoble Engineering Center mixing partners, customers, campus ambassadors and Sun people. I believe in what we call "best practices" and I am often looking how my colleagues in others countries are doing tasks.
Do you have a favorite blog or website?
Jonathan's blog
What about a favorite "junk" food?
For a French, food is very important and can't be neglected. I like to have lunch or dinner in a typical "bouchon" at Lyon where we can eat andouillette with a Beaujolais wine and have a talk with friends!
Do you participate in any social networking websites?
Facebook
Please list any Sun or external communities that you are a member of.
Linkedin
If you could meet anyone tomorrow, who would it be? Why?
Steve Jobs, the boss of Apple. I would like to know the recipes of Apple's success.
Tell us a little known fact about yourself.
I am from a family of 10. I have six sisters and three brothers. We had no TV at home as we were living in a farm. At the age of 17, I asked my father if I could go to study after the baccalauréat and he said a sentence I will ever remember "if you work, I will pay for your studies".
Outside of work and family, is there anything that you're passionate about (sports, causes, etc.)?
Jogging. I usually run a marathon each year. It's a battle against myself. I did my first marathon three years ago after a period at the hospital. As an objective, I decided it was a good way to recover and to see if i could do something who seemed to be unreachable.
Reading. I read at least one book a month. It's my "intellectual food" and a way to relax and see what the others are thinking.
*******
Please visit Dominique's blogs:
Sun blog in English and his French blog.
Tuesday Dec 18, 2007
Born in France in the Doubs department, this Sun Star even has a family crest:
Introducing Benoit Chaffanjon, Principal Engineer for Sun's Customer Benchmark Center:
Benoit's family is from the
Beaujolais
area where they have been producing
Fleurie
wine since the year 910. It is to be noted that the original domain name "Les Chaffangeons" stayed. His ancestor, The Vicomte Bertrand de Chaffangeon changed his name to Monsieur Chaffanjon in 1789 to escape the
French revolution
and save his head from
La guillotine.
Great stuff Benoit! Now on to our interview...
How long have you been employed with Sun and where are you located?
I have been working at Sun since May 1998. I was initially located in Menlo Park, then in Newark,CA (a bridge away) now back in Menlo Park. We are opening the new Sun Solution Center in MPK15 early February 2008.
What is your current job role?
I am the Principal Engineer for the Customer benchmark center. My role is to assist our customers to get the best performance out of their solutions. I also help our architects to validate their designs. In addition, I publish characterization white papers to assist our customers choose between all the different type of chips & servers available.
What do you like about working for Sun?
The Sun culture is simple and powerful. As Scott McNealy used to say : "Kick butt and have fun !" It also takes time in a large company to develop a network of experts who can help you.
Please briefly describe any projects you are involved in that support Sun's vision to see everyone and everything participating on the network.
I am a strong advocate of the Sun Customer Engineering Conference. This phenomenal event designed for the customer facing Sun engineers is an exceptional opportunity to exchange & learn. This year's event was in las Vegas and I used the opportunity to present my vision of how to analyze performance. Just google "Pessimistic Performance Analysis" to find out.
Do you have a favorite blog or website? What about a favorite "junk" food?
Definitely Wikipedia. A phenomenal web site showing worldwide knowledge in multiple languages.
Of course I can also advocate for the Internet Cello Society or the Sun Microsystems Golf Association.
Regarding junk food, I strongly recommend to skip all junk food in 2008. You would have saved enough money to bring your family to the French Laundry.
Do you participate in any social networking websites?
LinkedIn definitely.
If you could meet anyone tomorrow, who would it be? Why?
I'd like a meeting with all the major religious leaders in the world (including the pope
Benedict XVI) to discuss the Golden Compass atheist trilogy and its implications.
Tell us a little known fact about yourself.
I started my career as a college math teacher but also as a week-end boomerang teacher (yes !). I built more than 250 boomerangs including very dangerous models in milled aluminum. These models, not for sale anywhere, are to be used only on an empty beach at 6am ... They can fly up to 300 feet at a speed of 150 mph and come back in your hands. If you want to see one, let me know....
Outside of work and family, is there anything that you're passionate about (sports, causes, etc.)?
Well, you will find some passion with the 156 HP Kawasaki Concours 14. If you like speed and want more acceleration than a Ferrari Testarossa, check it out!
Before driving this airplane (sorry -bike), you will need to complete the excellent class provided by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation.
Thanks for teaching this Diva some French during the interview! Or should I say "merci"?
*******
To learn more about Benoit and what's going on at Sun's Customer Benchmark Center, read his blog: Mr Benchmark.
Monday Nov 26, 2007
When Joel Weise isn't fulfilling his role as Principal Engineer and Chief Technologist for the Global Systems Engineering (GSE) Security Office at Sun, he's enjoying
the view while flying an Enstrom F-28!
How long have you been employed with Sun and where are you located?
7+ years and work in Menlo Park, CA
What is your current job role?
My 'day job' is to promote Sun as the thought leader and strategic provider of secure solutions.
In this role I work with GSE, Engineering, Labs and other areas of the company to research, identify, design and integrate security into various Sun products and services. I act as the Sun Microsystems representative to the American National Standards Institute and work on the X9F4 sub-committee on security. We are currently developing a new standard on Secure Remote Access. I am also the chairman of the ISSA Journal editorial board and help set the editorial direction of the Journal.
What do you like about working for Sun?
Sun is without a doubt the most fun place I've ever worked! Sun provides me with the latitude to work in a number of different engineering and data processing disciplines - I never feel boxed in as I suspect the average 9-5'er is - I'm always given the opportunity to seek out new and different ways to challenge myself.
Please briefly describe any projects you are involved in that support Sun's vision to see everyone and everything participating on the network.
I am working to define Sun Microsystems, Inc. strategy with respect to security and integrity for network-scale systems. This includes the use of autonomic
self defense techniques and adaptive security.
Do you have a favorite blog or website?
I'm a news junkie - Yahoo News, CNN, BBC - anything with the latest news story.
What about a favorite "junk" food?
Burrito al pastor y cerveza negra modelo
but sushi will always do
Do you participate in any social networking websites?
No - being a security geek and privacy freak I do not participate in any social networking sites.
Please list any Sun or external communities that you are a member of.
Within Sun, I am the co-chair of the Security Ambassador community and a member of the GSE Patent Review committee.
Outside of Sun, I am a life member of the Sierra Club and a founding member of the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA).
If you could meet anyone tomorrow, who would it be? Why?
Any of the Founding Fathers or Framers
(e.g., Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, etc).
What exactly were you guys thinking when you were writing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?
Tell us a little known fact about yourself.
I collect books on botany and always wanted to be a forest ranger or naturalist.
In the technical world, I am one of the co-inventors of the multi-application smart card (US Patents 6005942 and 6233683).
Outside of work and family, is there anything that you're passionate about (sports, causes, etc.)?
I think of myself as more of the individualist that likes a good challenges - from flying, scuba diving and skiing to camping, geocaching and archery. I like anything that's a challenge with a dash of risk.
Friday Jun 22, 2007
When Arkady Polyak, Enterprise Architect, Sun Financial Services isn't traveling around the world, listening to opera music, playing soccer or skiing, what's he up to??
How long have you been employed with Sun?
I am working at Sun for 2.5 years.
Where are you located?
In New York City.
What is your current job role?
Enterprise Architect, Financial Services.
I worked with the sales team to drive solutions, product and services revenue throughout Major Financial Organizations on Wall Street, particularly in Capital Markets, Global Fixed Income,
Derivatives and Algorithmic Trading.
Please highlight past or current special projects that you have worked
on at Sun.
I am currently working on various projects that tie Sun's product components together to demonstrate a cost effective solution to a very expensive
application environment - Solaris x86, Galaxy, Grid Compute Farm, and Services.
Designing solutions with my customer for critical GFI Merit, GFI Confirms Monitoring, GFI CDO Trading and Capital Market Derivatives Trading Systems.
I am also spending a fare amount of time evangelizing Grid Computing and High Performance Computing to Major Financial Organizations on Wall Street.
Name 1 - 2 people that you would like to have lunch with.
Internal - Jonathan Schwartz, Chief Executive Officer and President Sun Microsystems, Inc.
External - Charlie Rose, American television interviewer and journalist.
Favorite blog or website?
Jonathan Schwartz's Blog
Google
Sunday May 06, 2007
Introducing Bonghwan Kim, Senior IT Architect, Solaris Specialist, OS ambassador, speaking to us from the capital of South Korea!
How long have you been employed with Sun?
11 years 3 months. Quite a long time.
Where are you located?
Seoul, Sun Korea
What is your current job role?
I have worked to evangelize Solaris in the market. I am all the time with ferrari notebook running Solaris to show Solaris. I remember how pleased I was to win over 2500 Solaris 10 AMD boxes in a deal against Linux two years ago.
Also, I am enjoying helping many developers working for ISVs developing on Solaris
Please highlight past or current special projects that you have worked
on at Sun.
I am working on the biggest Korea Supercom project with regards to HPC softwares. This is very new to me. But I am happily enjoying that.
Name 1 - 2 people that you would like to have lunch with.
Steve Jobs
Bill Gates
Favorite blog or website?
Wikipedia
Do you have a personal website?
Beautiful OS
Thursday Apr 19, 2007
Direct from the sporting and cultural capital of Australia, we would like to introduce Paul Hatfield, Sun Systems Engineer
How long have you been employed with Sun?
12 years. (second time around) 3 years previously.
Where are you located?
In Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne is affectionately known as Australia's sporting capital.
What is your current job role?
I am currently the Systems Engineer Lead for the Telstra
Account Team.
That means I am responsible for applying Sun's products, technologies and partner solutions to solve the customer's business needs.
I have previously worked in various pre-sales and pre-sales management roles at Sun.
I have also worked in support services at Sun.
Prior to Sun I worked as a Systems Administrator at Coles Myer, Ltd
and before
that at Control Data working as an engineer on storage, mainframes and supercomputers.
Please highlight past or current special projects that you have worked
on at Sun.
Currently involved in supporting our largest Telco in the region through
their large transformation program. The transformation program involves renewing their network, online,
billing and operational systems, enabling delivery of new network services, simply.
Some of the many exciting areas/projects that I am involved with are,
leveraging the great work by our OSS/J team to simplify the customers systems, fixed mobile convergence, identity
management deployments, and softswitch implementations. Working closely with our partners is a critical component of these
solutions.
Name 1 - 2 people that you would like to have lunch with.
Jonathan Schwartz and Andy Bechtolsheim from Sun and external to Sun Dame Elisabeth Murdoch and her son Rupert.
Favorite blog or website?
Technology Evangelist
Richmond Football Club -my footy team Richmond
Do you have a personal website?
I have an internal CEpedia page
Note:
CEpedia is Sun's internal Wiki for all things related to Customer Engineering
Monday Apr 09, 2007
We are pleased to introduce you to Santhosh D'Souza, Chief Technologist, India.
How long have you been employed with Sun?
6 Years.
Where are you located?
Bangalore (the Noun, not the Verb), India.
What is your current job role?
Chief Technologist for India.
Please highlight past or current special projects that you have worked
on at Sun.
I am excited in general about the customers and partners we work with in India. Whether they were founded a century ago or in the last two decades, these organizations have developed the reach and scale to transform lives and society. India is a red-shifting nation (to borrow Greg P's term), and some infrastructure issues notwithstanding, another five years should see yet more dramatic changes.
In particular, I am proud of playing a bit role in the IT infrastructure build-out across several private and public sector banks.
Name 1 - 2 people that you would like to have lunch with.
I am cheating a bit here.
My all time favourite companions at a meal would have to be the Borgias - if nothing else, it would be entertaining to see who gets to poison whom!
Assuming I survive that meal, my second lunch would be with Andy Bechtolsheim, Bill Joy, Greg Papadopoulos, Jonathan Schwartz, Scott McNealy and Vinod Khosla [what one might call Six of The Network, a half dozen of The Computer(TM)].
The final one is with
Calvin & Hobbes,
Don Camillo,
Jeeves and
Rumpole
contrary to rumours, they are alive and in frequent need of lunches.
Favorite blog or website?
The Wikipedia is fascinating, in terms of both content and evolving community structure/interaction.
Do you have a personal website?
WAITING FOR I/O
Sunday Mar 25, 2007
Today, we are honored to recognize Tepparit Ritthongpitak, IT Architect. Tepparit is our very first Sun Star from Thailand!.
How long have you been employed with Sun?
3 years, 3 months.
Where are you located?
Bangkok, Thailand.
What is your current job role?
I am working as IT Architect since day one. My job is to take care of T1 accounts
in FSI. Now, my coverage has been extended to Finance Security Insurance (FSI) industry.
Please highlight past or current special projects that you have worked
on at Sun.
-KrungThai Bank Core Banking System upgrade and relocation.
-Coordinating and clarifying things in the project such that they can be seen by project teams and get the project accomplished.
- Data Center Building for PTT, the largest oil company in Thailand. This was a construction project where Sun was involved and I was assigned to take care of. Very impressive and fun. Once in a life time, it will never happen again, I guess.
Name 1 - 2 people that you would like to have lunch with.
My king. He is a role model for me.
Favorite blog or website?
Google: well, this is where we can find all things.
Do you have a personal website?
My interest is about the psychology and religious matter, the fact of life. I have an external blog at
doadae. Of course, it is in Thai.
Monday Mar 12, 2007
How long have you been employed with Sun?
I have been working at Sun for the past seven years. During this time, I have worked in Sun Professional Services, including Sun Java Center, at Sun Client Solution Services, and most recently in Sun Global Systems Engineering.
Where are you located?
I am based out of Sun's East Coast campus in Burlington, MA
. Since most of my work involves spending time with my customers and partners in the Greater Boston area, I am often on the road. Thanks to Sun's Open Work policies and technologies, I also at times work from my home in the historic Town of Lexington.
What is your current job role?
My current role as an Engagement Architect in the Global System Engineering practice is to help solve Sun's customers' business problems with Sun's technology. My role includes mapping customer business requirements to technical solutions and providing technical leadership towards their implementation. I also provide technical oversight for the overall design of complex business initiatives in customer-consulting engagements. My role spans all layers of the business interfaces -- from defining requirements to recommending solutions. I have helped establish an architectural center of excellence, standardized development methodologies, advised on both pre- and post-sales efforts, helped develop architecture service offerings, and devised business development and go-to-market strategies.
The fun part of my role is the multitude of technology (from hardware systems and software to storage and services) and business/technical conversations with CIOs, business unit VPs, and IT managers. In a typical week, I may be having a Service-Oriented Architecture
and Center of Excellence
conversation with a Chief Architect of a large insurance company to Next Generation Enterprise Computing Architecture and Virtualization
discussion using Solaris 10
and VMware with another customer. Several of my customers are deploying Sun's Identity Management
solution (for HIPPA and Sarbanes Oxley compliance) and Information Life Cycle Management
solutions.
Overall, I have a very satisfying and gratifying job and I am glad to be a Sun citizen!
Please highlight past or current special projects that you have worked
on at Sun.
1. I was Sun's chief architect for one the largest RFID
deployment at a major manufacturer in Boston. My role included developing the IT architecture, SOA Strategy, designing/developing the EPC Information Services, and participating in EPCglobal
EPC Information Service to help develop a description of Web Service interfaces for capturing, securing, and accessing EPC-related data with supporting data meta-models. We also gave first ever live demonstration
of Secure EPC Network
Web Services during the EPCglobal annual conference.
2. I was also Sun's chief architect at one of the largest U.S. pharmaceutical companies (4000+ stores). I helped develop their next generation IT architecture and EAI/SOA strategy.
3. Before joining Sun, I spent a lot of time in the Intelligent Agent technology to solve complex problems using emergent behavior. I was the product manager/architect for an agent development environment that was used to simulate and deploy Java based agents over a distributed network for supply chain management, network transaction management, and CRM applications. I have a Ph.D. from the Institute of Systems Research
at University of Maryland, College Park in the area of solving complex operational research problems using distributed computing.
Name 1 - 2 people (internal or external to Sun) that you would like to
have lunch with.
External: Warren_Buffett
Internal: Greg Papadopoulos
Favorite blog or website?
Jonathan Schwartz
Internal: Onestop and CEpedia
Thursday Feb 15, 2007
Mike Briggs was recently awarded the distinguished title of Sun
Principal Engineer. This position represents the point in an
individual's technical career where their contributions have extended
beyond organizational boundaries and beyond the demands of their regular
job function. We have worked closely with Mike in our current role and
couldn't agree more!
How long have you been employed with Sun?
I joined in 1984 as employee 340.
Where are you located?
Alamo, CA about 30 miles East of Menlo Park.
What is your current job role?
My current title is Principal Engineer. My main mission in life at Sun
is to foster collaboration and to enable engineers (primarily customer
facing) to contribute to, and participate in the community.
Past roles at Sun have included Regional Systems Engineer Manager and Technical
Product Marketing Manager.
Please highlight past or current special projects that you have worked
on at Sun.
I'm part of a small team that is behind OneStop and CEpedia. OneStop is
arguably the most successful collaboration at Sun, and the CEpedia is hot on its heels.
I edit a monthly newsletter called the Technocrat that goes out to 2200 subscribers. We recently shipped our 48th issue.
I spend a lot of time with search. This includes coding and architecting
IC Search, as well as hosting search for OneStop, CEpedia, SAE, Sun
Solution Centers, and the Communications and Healthcare Industries.
Name 1 - 2 people (internal or external to Sun) that you would like to
have lunch with.
Neal Stephenson. I'd love to hear how and when he thinks Virtual Worlds and Metaverses are going to become an intrinsic part of our lives.
Favorite blogs or websites?
A VC
TechCrunch
GigaOM
Techmeme
Mike has a personal page on Sun's internal CEpedia site.
Thursday Jan 18, 2007
Glenn Brunette calls New Jersey home, and is no stranger to our blog. Although we've mentioned him in a recent blog
, we would like to give you a more in depth view into the world of Glenn Brunette, Distinguished Engineer & Director, Global Systems Engineering Security Office.
How long have you been employed with Sun?
I have been employed at Sun for over 7.5 years. During this time,
I have worked in Sun Professional Services and Client Services and
most recently in Global Systems Engineering.
Where are you located?
I am based out of the Somerset, NJ office although I am rarely there.
More often, I am on the road speaking with our customers and partners,
at conferences and industry events, or working from my home office in
scenic Medford Lakes, NJ
. Gotta love iWork!
What is your current job role?
I am currently leading a team of security architects and ambassadors
in Sun's Global Services Engineering organization whose charter is
threefold. First and foremost, we work with our field organizations
and our customers to develop solutions to their information security,
privacy and compliance challenges. Secondly, we act as customer
advocates to our internal engineering, support, services and marketing
organizations bring to light customer security needs, concerns, and
even solutions so that we can all work to improve the quality and
security of the products and services in our portfolio. In this way,
we are helping shape the directions that Sun takes with respect to
security. Lastly, we work with our partners, industry organizations,
standards bodies, and non-profit groups to provide technical leadership
and share experience and content in the area of information security.
In this capacity, we also do quite a bit of evangelism that often takes
the form of publications, conference presentations, and even technical
workshops.
On a historical note, I once worked for Martin Marietta and later
Lockheed Martin in their Artificial Intelligence Lab. While there,
I worked as a software engineer on a variety of projects focused
primarily on satellite telemetry and control, combat identification
and multi-sensor, multi-target data fusion.
Please highlight past or current special projects that you have worked
on at Sun.
One thing about the information security
profession is that no matter
how far you have come, there is never really a shortage of work to do.
I have had the pleasure of being involved in quite a few projects over
the past year, but I would like to highlight three that I believe
stand out.
1. Sun Systemic Security. Initially developed as a way to better
understand and discuss how Sun's portfolio of products and services
can be used to help design, build and manage more secure and
compliant IT environments, Sun Systemic Security has matured into
Sun's de facto security strategy.
2. Solaris Secure by Default. As a member of this team, I was able to
inject customer requirements and practical experience from years of
designing and building hardened operating system images to help
influence the ultimate design of this project. Now, with Solaris 10
11/06, customers can select the Secure by Default profile that will
significantly limit the exposed, network-accessible surface of
Solaris OS systems.
3. Solaris Fuzz Test. This is the most recent project that I have
completed. My initial testing focused on fuzz testing Solaris OS
commands using standard input. Thirty-six different tests were
conducted against every binary program delivered in OpenSolaris
(more specifically Nevada build 55) and bugs have already been filed
for any programs that exhibited any anomalous behavior.
On a more fun note, I was also recently able to get Solaris Trusted
Extensions (based upon Nevada build 55) running within a Parallels
virtual machine on my MacBook Pro. Pictures of Trusted JDS have been posted to Flickr.
Name 1 - 2 people (internal or external to Sun) that you would like to
have lunch with.
Internal:
* Greg Papadopoulos, Sun Chief Technology Officer
* John Gage, Sun Chief Researcher and Director of the Science Office
External:
* Michio Kaku, Theoretical physicist/Co-founder of string field theory
* Jon Stewart, Host of the Daily Show (Comedy Central)
Favorite blogs or websites?
Hal Stern
Dave Walker
Darren Moffat
My blog is at:
Glenn Brunette's Security Weblog
Tuesday Jan 02, 2007
Happy New Year! The GSE Divas are back from holiday break and would like to introduce you to Takashi Shitamichi, Chief Technologist, System Engineering, Japan.
How long have you been employed with Sun?
11 Years.
Where are you located?
I am located in Tokyo, Japan.
What is your current job role?
Working with customers in a pre-sales capacity and supporting external projects with a broader technical perspective.
Prior to current job, I worked extensively in the software technology
world and held the role of field Systems Engineer manager for Systems Integrator / Financial Services companies which handled transaction intensive on-line trading systems.
Before joining Sun, I had mostly worked for internationalization and localization of UNIX OS including Sun OS. It was I who wrote codes of borne shell ( bin/sh ) to pass 8-bit characters including Kanji-Japanese characters when I worked with guys of AT&T Bell Labs. Another interesting experience as a programmer was that I developed the early version of RPC library for Kana-Kanji translator for Sun OS.
Please highlight past or current special projects that you have worked on at Sun.
+ Sun Japan SE's initiative-4 project which leads training, knowledge sharing and skill assessment for SEs.
+ Liberty Alliance Project. I am APAC lead.
+ NiCT (The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology) project where SAML/Liberty technology is deployed.
+ Business Governance "Big Bets" -- Sun's product and services with a framework for internal control and security.
+ CEpedia & IC team (Sun's internal wiki & Web 2.0 main technical repositories and search engines) in Sun's Global Systems Engineering organization.
Name 1 - 2 people (internal or external to Sun) that you would like to have lunch with.
+ Internal: Jonathan Schwartz
+ External: Bill Gates
Favorite blogs or websites?
+ Tim Bray
+ Pat Patterson
+ Tatsuo.Kudo
Do you have a blog?
Takashi Shitamichi's Weblog
Thursday Dec 07, 2006
Rik De Deyn is a key member of Sun's Global Financial Services group. In this role he meets with Banks around the globe and has the opportunity to facilitate the sharing of technology ideas and solutions.
We recently caught up with Rik to see what else he's up to in between scuba dives...
How long have you been employed with Sun?
I've been employed at SeeBeyond since May 2000, and am now an employee at Sun since the SeeBeyond acquisition.
Where are you located?
I am located in Belgium.
What is your current job role?
I am part of the Global Financial Services group, and in there I am a Sales Architect.
Please tell us about cool projects you're working on or have worked on in the past at Sun.
+ I provide technical support for the relationship we are building with SWIFT. In this role I help expedite the SWIFT certification on Sun.
+ I run the program for one of our Financial Services solutions called the "Transaction Control Monitor".
+ I am involved in several new financial programs around solutions for Payments and MiFID.
+ In the past I have pioneered the early versions of the integration demo labs that now have been rolled out in several European and American locations by the UK technical sales teams.
Name 1 - 2 people that you would like to have lunch with.
Any sales person that brings a multi-billion dollar deal with a bank to the table, where a little more technical sales help will make the deal.
Favorite blog or website?
+ Favorite fun website: The Onion
+ Favorite business blog:
Pragmatic Marketing
Monday Nov 20, 2006
Robert Holt was a critical member of the CEC 2006 planning committee, and
we had the pleasure of meeting him while we covered the conference during our very first week on the job!!
We recently caught up with Robert to see what else he's up to...
...when he's not engaging in extreme sports. (Before you jump to any conclusions, we did NOT take this photo of Robert in New Zealand. We can't
bungy jump in heels!!)
How long have you been employed with Sun?
17.5 years
Where are you located?
Home mostly - local group/office is Menlo Park and I try to visit them once a week.
What is your current job role?
Enterprise Architect
Please tell us about cool projects you're working on or have worked on in the past at Sun.
+ Our upcoming Global Sales and Services / Partner web 2.0 web property (CEpedia)
+ The Dynamic Infrastructure project - true provisioning, deployment and management of horizontally scaling systems.
Name 2 people that you would like to have lunch with.
+ Douglas Adams - but he's dead. I had the pleasure to meet him once. I think he would be cool to chat with - I always loved his abstract sense of humor.
+ Barack Obama- I just finished his new book - he's really smart and down to earth - I hope he has a huge influence on the US.
Favorite blog or website?
My 2 favourite websites:
Being ex-English wry satire is always a huge draw so - Radar is one site. As a true "techy", gadgets have always been (and will always be) to me like crack cocaine is to a junkie, so - Gizmodo is another.
Friday Nov 10, 2006
Congratulations to Conrad Geiger who was recently awarded the honor of US Education Area Engagement Architect of the Quarter!
Conrad took time out of his extremely busy schedule at Sun...
...to let us interview him!
How long have you been employed with Sun?
It will be 20 years in February 2007 (excluding a 5 year break at which time I worked at NeXT)
Where are you located?
Austin, Texas USA
What is your current job role?
US Education Area Senior Systems Engineer and Architect
Please tell us about cool projects you're working on or have worked on in the past at Sun.
+ Managing several relationships within the High Performance Computing Group at The University of Texas at Austin - Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) for the past 3 years. TACC joined with Sun to deploy a Very High-Performance Supercomputer system to support very large science and engineering computing requirements. In its final configuration in 2007, the supercomputer will have a peak performance in excess of 400 trillion floating point operations per second (teraflops), making it one of the most
powerful supercomputer systems in the world. Performance will be 50% greater than today's largest system!
+ Founder of Sun HPC Aces in 1998. There are currently 300 Sun internal worldwide members as of today. Sun employees can send me an email if they are interested in becoming a member.
+ Board member of the Sun Technical Ambassador program which is closely aligned with the Sun HPC Aces.
+ Key driver of the joint annual HPC Consortium and Sun HPC Aces meeting agenda and attendance (Tampa, November) for the Global Edu organization along with Sun HPC staff and Aces: Philippe Trautmann, Rich Brueckner, Peggy Taylor, Ruud van der Pas and Simon See.
+ In addition to my HPC focus, for customers, I also facilitate CEP Workout events around Sun's entry points such as identity management and enterprise consolidation where customers openly discuss their business objectives and priorities.
+ Another responsibility I enjoy is presenting Sun's strategic direction and new product introductions at customer marketing events within the education community as well as to customers, prospects and partners in other industries.
Name 2 people that you would like to have lunch with.
+ Ichiro Suzuki, right fielder for the Seattle Mariners, my son's favorite baseball team!
+ Bill Joy, one of Sun's original co-founders.
Favorite blog or website?
My 2 favorite blogs:
+ Marc Hamilton, Sr. Director of Systems Practice Solutions
+ Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's President and CEO
Thursday Nov 02, 2006
Welcome to our first Sun STARS entry. We look forward to
introducing you to many outstanding Sun Customer Engineers from
around the world!
Introducing... Tracy Shintaku
How long have you been employed at Sun?
9 years. 26 total in the industry.
Where are you located?
Santa Clara, CA
What is your job role?
Customer Engineer
Please tell us about cool projects you're working on or have worked on in the past at Sun.
+ Consulting Architect to KPMG, PeopleSoft and others
+ Engagement Manager for SunPS in several industries with focuses on entertainment, pharmacy benefits administration, manufacturing, insurance and mostly for Internet Service Providers (eBay in this category)
+ Assembled and led teams to help clients adopt Sun technologies
+ Shared Infrastructure disciplines and technologies
+ Large scale porting efforts (Linux to Solaris, Windows to Solaris)
+ Benchmarks and Bake-offs
+ San Design < --represents a large business for Sun
+ Application Design issues <- HUGE production issue that required Coordination and Drive into Oracle and across customer's software engineering and operations to bring together and drive resolution. Long term fix included.
+ Application changes
+ Oracle shared server technique
+ Solaris 10 upgrade project
+ Name a few people (internal or external to Sun) that you would like to have lunch with.
Sun:
+ Hal Stern, Fraser Gardiner,Jonathan Schwartz, Greg Papadopoulos,
Richard McDougall (and all their wives.. SAINTS I bet)
+ Like to meet
Dan Berg
+ Like to get to know
Michelle Dennedy, and
Glenn Brunette
Outside of Sun (people I know):
+ Adrian Cockcroft
+ Michael Barrett
Outside of Sun (People I don't know):
+ Larry Ellison
+ Mark Hurd (No Carly didn't make the list)
+ Favorite blog or website?
My favorite Website is Google!
Find anything anytime anywhere.... so synergistic with Sun!
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