Sessions and Speakers are subject to change without notice
Srini Acharya, Microsoft Srini Acharya is a Senior Program Manager in the Relational Engine development group at Microsoft SQL Server. Srini has more than 15 years of experience in various aspects of core database engine development, commerce application platforms, and Business Intelligence area. Prior to Microsoft, Srini worked at DEC, Gupta, Cognos and Asera Corporation focusing primarily on core database engine technologies and related applications.
Sunil Agarwal, Microsoft Sunil Agarwal is a Program Manager in the SQL Server Storage Engine Group at Microsoft. He is responsible for concurrency, indexes, tempdb, LOBS, supportability, and bulk import/export. Prior to joining Microsoft, Sunil worked at DEC, Sybase, BMC Software and DigitalThink, focusing primarily on core database engine technologies and related applications.
Todd Anglin, Telerik Todd Anglin is an active .NET community member, President of the North Houston .NET User Group, an O’Reilly author, and Telerik''s Chief Evangelist. At Telerik, Todd is responsible for building Telerik''s global community of developers and helping ensure Telerik''s products serve the needs of .NET developers around the world. In the general .NET community, Todd is an active author and speaker, focusing primarily on ASP.NET and Silverlight. Before joining Telerik, Todd worked as a developer in a Fortune 200 financial services company supporting applications on a wide range of platforms and technologies. He also an avid entrepreneur with previous experience running a small .NET software studio.
Gopal Ashok, Microsoft Gopal Ashok is a Program Manager in the SQL Server Replication team. He has been with Microsoft since 1999 and has been with the support organization working as an Escalation Engineer before moving to the SQL product team in January of 2006. Gopal has been working with replication technologies since SQL Server 7.0 and over the last year and half has been involved in delivering key features for SQL Server 2008, one of which is Change Data Capture.
Itzik Ben-Gan, Solid Quality Mentors Itzik Ben-Gan is a Mentor and Founder of Solid Quality Learning. A SQL Server Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) since 1999, Itzik has delivered numerous training events around the world focused on T-SQL Querying, Query Tuning and Programming. Itzik is the author of Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Querying (MSPress), Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Programming (MSPress), and a co-author of Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000 (APress). He has written many articles for SQL Server Magazine as well as articles and whitepapers for MSDN.
Jason Carlson, Microsoft Jason Carlson is the Product Unit Manager for SQL Server Reporting Services. He joined Microsoft in 1996 as a Program Manager for Visual Source Safe and Repository. In 1997 the Repository team joined SQL Server and Jason moved to the development manager for Meta Data Services. In 2001 he built a team and started work on V1 of Reporting Services. Reporting Services shipped version 1 in 2004 and version 2 with SQL 2005. Before joining Microsoft Jason owned and operated an independent software development company developing solutions in the healthcare and telecom industries. He holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from the University of Washington. When not with his family and friends Jason spends time reminding himself just how imperfect he is by playing golf.
Goldie Chaudhuri, Microsoft Goldie Chaudhuri is a program manager for the SQL Server Engine Application Platform group at Microsoft. Goldie joined SQL Server in 2006 and previously worked on the Relational Engine group with a focus in programmability and globalization. Goldie is currently responsible for spatial and beyond relational technologies.
Ben Curry, Summit 7 Systems Ben Curry (CISSP, MVP, MCP, MCT) is an author and enterprise network architect specializing in knowledge management and collaboration technologies. Ben is a Managing Partner at Summit 7 Systems, a company focused on the next generation of Microsoft products. Prior to launching Summit 7 Systems, Ben was an owner/partner at Mindsharp, the world leader in technical education for SharePoint. Ben’s philosophy is that the best solutions are inspired by the best ideas, and he encourages his team to generate and share ideas on a continuous basis. His philosophy is also exemplified in his numerous published books, and in his willingness to share his ideas as an instructor, both in the IT world and in the underwater world — Ben is a certified scuba instructor with a passion for diving. Other passions for life include riding his Harley Davidson through his hometown of Huntsville, Alabama, coaching his daughter’s softball team, and of course, being a husband to his wife, Kimberly, and a proud father of his children, Madison and Bryce.
DELL Computer
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Kathleen Dollard, AppVenture Kathleen has been developing business applications for over 20 years, programming in Visual Basic for almost ten years, and working with .NET since the early betas. As an independent consultant, she has had the opportunity to work in a variety of domains, including the finance and justice sectors. Kathleen has worked extensively with application code generation and is the author of Code Generation in Microsoft .NET (from Apress). She has published numerous articles on a range of .NET technologies including XSLT, debugging, ADO.NET, and code generation. Kathleen is also a long time Microsoft MVP, president of the Northern Colorado .NET SIG, and is an active member of the Denver Visual Studio User Group.
Gert Drapers, SQLDEV.net Gert Drapers is a Software Architect in the SQL Server Development group at Microsoft. As a member of the SQL Server Customer Advisory Team, he is involved in providing architecture design guidance and performance tuning for the largest and most challenging SQL Server deployments in the world. Gert brings extensive experience in the areas of application development, database management, data loading, and performance tuning of VLDB environments. Prior to his current position, Gert was working as Software Architect in the .NET Developer Division, responsible for the design and development of the next generation transaction manager and programming model. He started working on SQL Server in 1988 while working for Ashton-Tate. He joined Microsoft in 1991 where he held various development positions within the Developer Relation Group and Microsoft Consulting Services before joining the SQL Server development team in 1996. Gert worked on both SQL Server 7.0 and 2000; first as Software Design Engineer in the SQL Server Storage Engine and later as the Product Unit Manager of the SQL Server Management Tools team and as Architect of SQL Server DTS.
Dino Esposito, IDesign, Inc. An IDesign software architect and prolific author, Dino Esposito writes the Cutting Edge column for MSDN Magazine. Dino is also the author of two popular architecture books for Microsoft Press. They are "Microsoft .NET: Architecting Applications for the Enterprise" (2008) and "ASP.NET and AJAX: Architecting Web Applications" (2009). Get in touch at http://weblogs.asp.net/despos.
Kevin Farlee, Microsoft Kevin Farlee has over 25 years in the industry, in both database as well as storage management software. In his current role as a Storage Engine Program Manager on the SQL team, he brings these threads together. Current projects include SQL backup/restore/snapshots, and Unstructured data storage techniques in SQL Server.
Scott Guthrie, Microsoft Scott Guthrie is corporate vice president of Microsoft’s .NET Developer Division, where he runs the development teams responsible for delivering Microsoft Visual Studio developer tools and Microsoft .NET Framework technologies for building client and Web applications. A founding member of the .NET project, Guthrie has played a key role in the design and development of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework since 1999. Guthrie is also responsible for Microsoft’s web server platform and development tools teams. He has also more recently driven the development of Silverlight – a cross browser, cross platform plug-in for delivering next generation media experiences and rich internet applications for the web.
Today, Guthrie directly manages the development teams that build the Common Language Runtime (CLR), ASP.NET, Silverlight, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), IIS, Commerce Server and the Visual Studio Tools for Web, Client and Silverlight development.
Guthrie graduated with a degree in computer science from Duke University.
Eric Hanson, Microsoft Eric Hanson is the Lead Program Manager for Query Processing in the SQL Server Relational Engine team. He is the owner of the data warehouse scalability scenario for the next SQL Server release. He has been involved with database research and product development since 1983 when he entered graduate school at UC Berkeley, where he worked on University INGRES. He was a professor in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering department at the University of Florida from 1992-2001, where he conducted research on active databases. He formed a software company related to his research at the University of Florida, where he worked until 2002, before joining Microsoft’s SQL Server team.
Michael Herman, Parallelspace Corporation Michael Herman is the Founder and CTO of Parallelspace Corporation, an enterprise software solutions, services and training provider for the Microsoft SharePoint, Live Communications Server and Groove Networks business collaboration platforms. Previously, Michael worked as a senior consultant for Microsoft Consulting Services and as a member of the SharePoint Portal Server product group. Michael has Bachelor of Mathematics and Masters of Mathematics degrees in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo.
D. Britton Johnston, Microsoft As product unit manager for Data Programmability Tools at Microsoft Corp., Britt Johnston is responsible for building and delivering data developer-focused tools for the SQL Server and Visual Studio product lines. Johnston’s product unit was created in fall 2007 with a mission to deliver data-focused developer tools spanning client, server and cloud to make the Microsoft Data Platform accessible and productive. Johnston’s team specifically delivers core tool experiences for Extensible Markup Language (XML) and Entity Data Model (EDM) technologies through extensible tool platforms. Individual tools the team builds include Microsoft’s XML Editor, which includes XML Schema Definition (XSD) support, an Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) Debugger, an XSD Designer for understanding and creating XML schemas, and the Entity Designer for building EDM models that work with the .NET Entity Framework. Through Data Programmability Tools, Johnston has created a center of excellence for designing, architecting, building and delivering data programming tools as a critical component of the Microsoft data platform vision. Before joining Microsoft in March 2005, Johnston was the chief technology officer at Progress Software Corp. and was general manager of the PeerDirect Distributed Enterprise product line that pioneered Occasionally Connected Computing (OCC) through the use of database replication in peer-to-peer networks. Johnston co-founded NuSphere Corp., an early entrant in the open source database marketplace with MySQL and PHP, creating the first commercially supported LAMP stack for Windows in the late ’90s. Johnston was director of database development at Progress Software in the ’90s, where he redesigned the storage engine for the Progress RDBMS to remove size and scale limitations and was able to demonstrate linear scalability for commercial workloads on commodity SMP hardware. The Progress RDBMS was recognized as the No. 1 embedded application database and No. 5 overall database, and approached $500 million in revenue. In the 1980s after graduating from the University of Connecticut with a bachelor of science in computer engineering, Johnston worked on the Rdb/VMS database at Digital Equipment Corp. where he helped deliver Rdb’s cluster technology, the first shared-disk cluster database product to be widely deployed. At Digital he also managed the SQL engine development effort for the RdbStar project that pioneered portable database and distributed query technology. Johnston designed Digital Standard Relational Interface (DSRI) V2 as a formal database instruction set and designed SQL Module Language, which served as the foundation for SQL/PSM in ANSI/ISO SQL-92.
Andrew Kelly, Solid Quality Mentors Andrew J. Kelly is a Mentor and Partner with Solid Quality Mentors™ based out of Myrtle Beach SC. He has over 20 years experience with relational databases and application development on both Unix and Windows platforms. He has been a SQL Server MVP since 2001. In addition to general SQL Server training and mentoring he specializes in Performance, Scalability and Maintainability of large scale SQL Servers.
Don Kiely, Senior Technology Consultant Don Kiely, MCSD, is a senior technology consultant, building custom applications as well as providing business and technology consulting services. His development work involves tools such as SQL Server, Visual Basic, C#, ASP.NET, and Microsoft Office. He writes regularly for several trade journals, including Visual Studio Magazine and Advisor Media, Inc., is a top poster and moderator on the www.asp.net community forums, and trains developers in .NET technologies. When he isn’t living and breathing technology, he is exploring the Alaska wilderness with his dogs Mardy and Izzi, hiking, whitewater kayaking, skiing, and searching for the perfect sun dog. You can reach Don at donkiely@computer.org.
Julie Lerman, The Data Farm Julie Lerman is a Microsoft MVP, .NET mentor and consultant who lives in the hills of Vermont. You can find Julie presenting on data access and other Microsoft .NET topics at user groups and conferences around the world. Julie blogs at thedatafarm.com/blog, is the author of the highly acclaimed "Programming Entity Framework (with a second edition coming soon) and authors the MSDN Magazine "Data Points" column. Follow Julie on twitter at julielerman.
Jeremy Lowell, Firmus Consulting, LLC Jeremy has been engaged in SQL Server development and administration for over 10 years. In that time, he has worked with many successful corporations including MCI, Wells Fargo, Lucent, Oxford International, IP Commerce, Regis University, Notion ONE, and others. Jeremy has served as a participating member on a joint FSTC and OMG project (I2PADS), which focus on industry collaboration, initiatives and standards in the Financial Services space. Having recently started his own database consulting practice, Jeremy’s philosophy is to enable clients to focus on what they do best by allowing us to do what we do best. Additional details of services and offerings can be found his website www.TheDatabaseConsultant.com.
Juval Lowy, IDesign, Inc. Juval Lowy is a software architect and the principal of IDesign (www.idesign.net), specializing in .NET 3.0 architecture consulting and advanced .NET 3.0 training. Juval is Microsoft’s Regional Director for the Silicon Valley, working with Microsoft on helping the industry adopt .NET 3.5. His latest book is Programming WCF Services 2nd Edition (O’Reilly 2008). Juval participates in the Microsoft internal design reviews for future versions of .NET and related technologies. Juval published numerous articles regarding almost every aspect of .NET development, and is a frequent presenter at development conferences. Microsoft recognized Juval as a Software Legend as one of the world’s top .NET experts and industry leaders.
Ted Malone, Configuresoft, Inc. Ted Malone is currently Product Strategy Architect for Configuresoft, Inc., a Microsoft Gold Certified ISV Partner. At Configuresoft, Ted is responsible for incorporating leading edge technology into the company’s flagship product line, Enterprise Configuration Manager. Ted is also responsible for the Configuration Intelligence Analytics product, which uses the entire business intelligence stack (SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft Office Performance Point Server 2007) from Microsoft to deliver leading-edge business intelligence for Information Technology managers and executives. Ted has been working with SQL Server Technologies since version 1.0 (Yes, there really was a SQL Server 1.0) and has worked as an Administrator, Developer, Trainer and Architect.
Brad McGehee, Red Gate Software Brad is the Director of DBA Education for Red Gate Software, and is an accomplished Microsoft SQL Server MVP with over 15 years SQL Server experience. He is a frequent speaker at SQL PASS, European PASS, SQL Server Connections, SQLTeach, devLINK, SQLBits, SQL Saturdays, TechFests, Code Camps, and SQL Server user groups. Brad is the author or co-author of more than 15 technical books and over 250 published articles. His most recent books include How to Become an Exceptional DBA (2nd Edition), Mastering SQL Server Profiler, and Brad’s Sure Guide to SQL Server Maintenance Plans. He blogs at http://www.bradmcgehee.com.
Dustin Miller, SharePoint Experts Dustin Miller is the President and owner of SharePoint Experts (www.sharepointexperts.com), a leading provider of SharePoint Products and Technologies Training. He authored the first course devoted to SharePoint development and customization, the SharePoint Bootcamp (www.sharepointbootcamp.com), and also maintains two popular SharePoint Community sites, SharePoint University (www.sharepointu.com) and SharePoint Blogs (www.sharepointblogs.com). He lives in the Chicago suburbs with his wife Julie, his son Graham, and his White German Shepherd dog, Stella.
Andre Mintz, Microsoft As Director of Trustworthy Computing & Chief Security Strategist of the Trusted Advisor Community, Mr. Mintz has a daily focus on improving the security image, perception and experience of Microsoft and its products and services. Working within the Communications & Marketing Group of the TwC Group, Mr. Mintz is the Director of the Trustworthy Computing Strategic Outreach team (TCSO), which serves as the central conduit of security & privacy executive communications and engagement, providing a representative voice to stakeholders and constituents around the globe. TCSO is the primary advocate for and to the business & technical decision makers both internal and external to Microsoft. The group informs tactical and strategic direction in the form of prioritized guidance. The TCSO team is comprised of; Global Evangelism, Executive Engagement, Industry Associations & Sponsorships, Partner Programs, and Strategic Initiatives. This focused approach to outreach affords a uniquely well positioned engagement model of “customer touch”, on a global basis. Microsoft business groups, product & services teams and executives charged with defining Microsoft’s Security Strategy and roadmap are an example of the internal stakeholders with which the TCSO team engages, and provide high value business intelligence. Mr. Mintz also serves and Chief Strategist of Microsoft’s exclusive, Chief Security Officer (CSO) Councils, of which he was a member prior to joining Microsoft in December 2004. With close to two decades of experience in the IT arena, Mr. Mintz brings a wealth of technical knowledge through executive level management, strategy & design history to the team.
Stacia Misner, Data Inspirations Stacia Misner is a consultant, educator, author, mentor, and principal of Data Inspirations. Her career spans 23 years with a focus on improving business practices through technology. Since 2000, she has been providing consulting and education services for Microsoft’s business intelligence technologies. In addition, she has authored or co-authored six books, all published by Microsoft Press, covering different components of the Microsoft SQL Server database and business intelligence platform. Stacia has presented at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS), Microsoft’s TechEd, SQL Server Magazine Connections, and various Microsoft events.
Rick Negrin, Microsoft Rick Negrin is a Lead Program Manager in the SQL Server Data Services group at Microsoft. He is responsible for the development experience over SQL Server Data Services. Formerly he worked in the Server Storage Engine Group as a PM lead responsible for Sql Service Broker, SQL Express, and SQL OS. Prior to working at Microsoft, Rick worked at Viair as a developer of a PIM synchronization application for wireless devices. Prior to that he worked at Bsqaure on developer tools for Windows CE.
Herain Oberoi, Microsoft Herain is a Group Product Manager for Microsoft’s SQL Server Business Group and is responsible for core product management of the Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing technologies for SQL Server. In his prior roles Herain has also been responsible for product planning of SQL Server Business Intelligence and was responsible for product marketing for SQL Server Reporting Services. Herain also has broad experience in marketing developer productivity technologies both at Microsoft and BEA Systems where he played a key role in launching BEA’s WebLogic Platform 8.1 and was the Product Marketing Manager for BEA’s Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and Enterprise Information Integration (EII) products. Herain has a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
Paul Randal, SQLskills.com Paul Randal and Kimberly Tripp are a husband-and-wife team who own and run SQLskills.com, a world-renowned SQL Server consulting and training company. They are both SQL Server MVPs and Microsoft Regional Directors, with over 30 years of combined experience on SQL Server.
Paul worked on the SQL Server team for nine years in development and management roles, writing many of the DBCC commands, and ultimately with responsibility for core Storage Engine for SQL Server 2008. Paul writes extensively on his blog (SQLskills.com/blogs/Paul) and for TechNet Magazine, for which he is also a Contributing Editor.
Paul and Kimberly have written Microsoft whitepapers and books for SQL Server 2000, 2005 and 2008, and are regular, top-rated presenters worldwide on database maintenance, high availability, disaster recovery, performance tuning, and SQL Server internals. Together they teach the SQL MCM certification and throughout Microsoft.
In their spare time they like to find frogfish in remote corners of the world.
Thomas Rizzo, Microsoft Tom Rizzo has worked at Microsoft for the past ten years in a variety of roles including in the Microsoft field sales force as a systems engineer, a variety of roles in Microsoft’s server products including Exchange Server, SharePoint, and BizTalk Server and most recently SQL Server. Tom is also the author of a series of Microsoft Press books including Programming Microsoft Outlook and Exchange, 3rd Edition (October 2003). You can reach Tom either via e-mail at thomriz@microsoft.com.
Matthew Roche, Integral Thought & Memory Microsoft SQL Server MVP Matthew Roche is the founder and Chief Software Architect of Integral Thought & Memory, a BI-focused consultancy. Matthew has worked with Microsoft SQL Server since the mid 90s, starting with SQL Server 6.0 and 6.5, and has been falling deeper and deeper in love with SQL Server with each passing year. As a Microsoft Certified Trainer, Matthew has taught hundreds of database administrators and database developers how to better utilize SQL Server’s capabilities. As a software developer and architect, Matthew has built dozens of applications that use the SQL Server platform. Matthew has been using SQL Server 2005 since its early beta days and has been working with SQL Server 2008 since early 2007. Matthew’s current focus is on the SQL Server Business Intelligence stack, specifically SQL Server Integration Services. Today, when not delivering training, presenting on BI topics at conferences, or listening to the world’s loudest heavy metal, Matthew is hard at work helping IT&M’s clients design and build enterprise business intelligence solutions using SQL Server 2005 and 2008.
Chris Shaw, SQL on Call Chris is an industry-recognized leader in the database field. Chris has also worked with Yellow Pages Inc, Ford Fairlane Motor Credit, Wells Fargo, AT&T Wireless, and Pulte Mortgage. Chris has published a number of articles for different magazines including SQL Server Update, SQL Server Magazine and SQL Standard Magazine. He is a member of Rocky Mountain Microsoft Community Insiders group and is the founder of the Colorado Springs SQL Server Users Group. Chris contributed to the SQL Server 2005 Bible. He is the SSWUG track SQL Connections chair and is a speaker at both the spring and fall conference. He is also a speaker for the SSWUG video conference. Chris is currently writing a weekly column on Database Team Management and has a weekly webcasting show called the "SQL On Call" show.
Julie Strauss, Microsoft Julie is a Program Manager in the Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services team. Julie has been with Microsoft since 1999 and has been working with Business Intelligence in various positions over the past 9 years covering roles from support engineer to product planning and product marketing and management. Prior to taking on her current position in the product team, Julie was the product manager for SQL Server Analysis Services as well as SQL Server Reporting Services.
Kimberly L. Tripp, SQLskills.com Kimberly Tripp and Paul Randal are a husband-and-wife team who own and run SQLskills.com, a world-renowned SQL Server consulting and training company. They are both SQL Server MVPs and Microsoft Regional Directors, with over 30 years of combined experience on SQL Server.
Kimberly worked on the SQL Server team in the early 1990s as a tester and writer before leaving to found SQLskills and embrace her passion for teaching and consulting. Kimberly has been a staple at worldwide conferences since she first presented at TechEd in 1996, and she blogs at SQLskills.com/blogs/Kimberly.
Kimberly and Paul have written Microsoft whitepapers and books for SQL Server 2000, 2005 and 2008, and are regular, top-rated presenters worldwide on database maintenance, high availability, disaster recovery, performance tuning, and SQL Server internals. Together they teach the SQL MCM certification and throughout Microsoft.
In their spare time they like to find frogfish in remote corners of the world.
William R. Vaughn, Beta V Corporation William (Bill) Vaughn is an industry-recognized author, mentor and subject-matter expert on Visual Studio, SQL Server, Reporting Services and data access interfaces. He’s worked in the computer industry for over thirty years—working with mainframe, minicomputer and personal computer systems as a developer, manager, architect, trainer, marketer, support specialist, writer and publisher. In 2000, after 14 years at Microsoft, Bill stepped away to work on his books, mentoring and independent training seminars. He’s written seven editions of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Visual Basic and SQL Server and three editions of ADO.NET and ADO Examples and Best Practices for Visual Basic (and C#) Programmers. He and Peter Blackburn also wrote the best-selling and critically acclaimed Hitchhiker’s Guide to SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services. Bill is a top-rated speaker and frequents conferences all over the world including VSLive, Visual Studio/SQL Connections, DevTeach and VBug. He’s also written a wealth of articles for magazines such as SQL Server Magazine, Visual Basic Programmer’s Journal, .NET Magazine and many others as well as a bi-weekly editorial on developer issues for Processor magazine. Bill spends considerable time answering questions on the data-centric public newsgroups and speaking at user group meetings in Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and at his speaking venues all over the world. Bill was added to the INETA speaker’s list this fall. He’s available for consulting, mentoring or custom training. See www.betav.com or www.betav.comblogbillva.
Dan Wahlin, Wahlin Consulting Dan Wahlin (Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for ASP.NET and XML Web Services) is the president of Wahlin Consulting which specializes in .NET and SharePoint consulting and training solutions. Dan founded the XML for ASP.NET Developers Web site (http://www.xmlforasp.net), which focuses on using ASP.NET, XML, AJAX, Silverlight and Web Services in Microsoft’s .NET platform. He’s also on the INETA Speaker’s Bureau, speaks at conferences and user groups around the world and is recognized as a leading authority on .NET technologies. Dan has written several books on .NET including Professional Silverlight 2 Development, Professional ASP.NET 3.5 AJAX, ASP.NET 2.0 MVP Hacks and Tips, and XML for ASP.NET Developers. Dan’s blog is located at http://weblogs.asp.net/dwahlin.
Ronald Yenko, 1Staff Training and Development Ron Yenko is Director of Information Technology and Level III Technical Trainer at 1Staff Training and Development in Omaha, NE. For over 18 years he has been involved with various Microsoft technologies including providing enterprise database architecture solutions using Microsoft SQL Server (from 6.5 through 2008) in the retail, law enforcement, government and financial industries. In recent years, he has specialized in enterprise architecture with focus on business continuity/disaster recovery and performance tuning. He holds various Microsoft certifications including Microsoft Certified Trainer and MCITP/MCTS in SQL Server 2008 Administration.
Srini Acharya is a Senior Program Manager in the Relational Engine development group at Microsoft SQL Server. Srini has more than 15 years of experience in various aspects of core database engine development, commerce application platforms, and Business Intelligence area. Prior to Microsoft, Srini worked at DEC, Gupta, Cognos and Asera Corporation focusing primarily on core database engine technologies and related applications.
Sunil Agarwal is a Program Manager in the SQL Server Storage Engine Group at Microsoft. He is responsible for concurrency, indexes, tempdb, LOBS, supportability, and bulk import/export. Prior to joining Microsoft, Sunil worked at DEC, Sybase, BMC Software and DigitalThink, focusing primarily on core database engine technologies and related applications.
Todd Anglin is an active .NET community member, President of the North Houston .NET User Group, an O’Reilly author, and Telerik''s Chief Evangelist. At Telerik, Todd is responsible for building Telerik''s global community of developers and helping ensure Telerik''s products serve the needs of .NET developers around the world. In the general .NET community, Todd is an active author and speaker, focusing primarily on ASP.NET and Silverlight. Before joining Telerik, Todd worked as a developer in a Fortune 200 financial services company supporting applications on a wide range of platforms and technologies. He also an avid entrepreneur with previous experience running a small .NET software studio.
Gopal Ashok is a Program Manager in the SQL Server Replication team. He has been with Microsoft since 1999 and has been with the support organization working as an Escalation Engineer before moving to the SQL product team in January of 2006. Gopal has been working with replication technologies since SQL Server 7.0 and over the last year and half has been involved in delivering key features for SQL Server 2008, one of which is Change Data Capture.
Itzik Ben-Gan is a Mentor and Founder of Solid Quality Learning. A SQL Server Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) since 1999, Itzik has delivered numerous training events around the world focused on T-SQL Querying, Query Tuning and Programming. Itzik is the author of Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Querying (MSPress), Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005: T-SQL Programming (MSPress), and a co-author of Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000 (APress). He has written many articles for SQL Server Magazine as well as articles and whitepapers for MSDN.
Jason Carlson is the Product Unit Manager for SQL Server Reporting Services. He joined Microsoft in 1996 as a Program Manager for Visual Source Safe and Repository. In 1997 the Repository team joined SQL Server and Jason moved to the development manager for Meta Data Services. In 2001 he built a team and started work on V1 of Reporting Services. Reporting Services shipped version 1 in 2004 and version 2 with SQL 2005. Before joining Microsoft Jason owned and operated an independent software development company developing solutions in the healthcare and telecom industries. He holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science from the University of Washington. When not with his family and friends Jason spends time reminding himself just how imperfect he is by playing golf.
Goldie Chaudhuri is a program manager for the SQL Server Engine Application Platform group at Microsoft. Goldie joined SQL Server in 2006 and previously worked on the Relational Engine group with a focus in programmability and globalization. Goldie is currently responsible for spatial and beyond relational technologies.
Ben Curry (CISSP, MVP, MCP, MCT) is an author and enterprise network architect specializing in knowledge management and collaboration technologies. Ben is a Managing Partner at Summit 7 Systems, a company focused on the next generation of Microsoft products. Prior to launching Summit 7 Systems, Ben was an owner/partner at Mindsharp, the world leader in technical education for SharePoint. Ben’s philosophy is that the best solutions are inspired by the best ideas, and he encourages his team to generate and share ideas on a continuous basis. His philosophy is also exemplified in his numerous published books, and in his willingness to share his ideas as an instructor, both in the IT world and in the underwater world — Ben is a certified scuba instructor with a passion for diving. Other passions for life include riding his Harley Davidson through his hometown of Huntsville, Alabama, coaching his daughter’s softball team, and of course, being a husband to his wife, Kimberly, and a proud father of his children, Madison and Bryce.
Kathleen has been developing business applications for over 20 years, programming in Visual Basic for almost ten years, and working with .NET since the early betas. As an independent consultant, she has had the opportunity to work in a variety of domains, including the finance and justice sectors. Kathleen has worked extensively with application code generation and is the author of Code Generation in Microsoft .NET (from Apress). She has published numerous articles on a range of .NET technologies including XSLT, debugging, ADO.NET, and code generation. Kathleen is also a long time Microsoft MVP, president of the Northern Colorado .NET SIG, and is an active member of the Denver Visual Studio User Group.
Gert Drapers is a Software Architect in the SQL Server Development group at Microsoft. As a member of the SQL Server Customer Advisory Team, he is involved in providing architecture design guidance and performance tuning for the largest and most challenging SQL Server deployments in the world. Gert brings extensive experience in the areas of application development, database management, data loading, and performance tuning of VLDB environments. Prior to his current position, Gert was working as Software Architect in the .NET Developer Division, responsible for the design and development of the next generation transaction manager and programming model. He started working on SQL Server in 1988 while working for Ashton-Tate. He joined Microsoft in 1991 where he held various development positions within the Developer Relation Group and Microsoft Consulting Services before joining the SQL Server development team in 1996. Gert worked on both SQL Server 7.0 and 2000; first as Software Design Engineer in the SQL Server Storage Engine and later as the Product Unit Manager of the SQL Server Management Tools team and as Architect of SQL Server DTS.
An IDesign software architect and prolific author, Dino Esposito writes the Cutting Edge column for MSDN Magazine. Dino is also the author of two popular architecture books for Microsoft Press. They are "Microsoft .NET: Architecting Applications for the Enterprise" (2008) and "ASP.NET and AJAX: Architecting Web Applications" (2009). Get in touch at 
Kevin Farlee has over 25 years in the industry, in both database as well as storage management software. In his current role as a Storage Engine Program Manager on the SQL team, he brings these threads together. Current projects include SQL backup/restore/snapshots, and Unstructured data storage techniques in SQL Server.
Scott Guthrie is corporate vice president of Microsoft’s .NET Developer Division, where he runs the development teams responsible for delivering Microsoft Visual Studio developer tools and Microsoft .NET Framework technologies for building client and Web applications. A founding member of the .NET project, Guthrie has played a key role in the design and development of Visual Studio and the .NET Framework since 1999. Guthrie is also responsible for Microsoft’s web server platform and development tools teams. He has also more recently driven the development of Silverlight – a cross browser, cross platform plug-in for delivering next generation media experiences and rich internet applications for the web. 
Eric Hanson is the Lead Program Manager for Query Processing in the SQL Server Relational Engine team. He is the owner of the data warehouse scalability scenario for the next SQL Server release. He has been involved with database research and product development since 1983 when he entered graduate school at UC Berkeley, where he worked on University INGRES. He was a professor in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering department at the University of Florida from 1992-2001, where he conducted research on active databases. He formed a software company related to his research at the University of Florida, where he worked until 2002, before joining Microsoft’s SQL Server team.
Michael Herman is the Founder and CTO of Parallelspace Corporation, an enterprise software solutions, services and training provider for the Microsoft SharePoint, Live Communications Server and Groove Networks business collaboration platforms. Previously, Michael worked as a senior consultant for Microsoft Consulting Services and as a member of the SharePoint Portal Server product group. Michael has Bachelor of Mathematics and Masters of Mathematics degrees in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo.
As product unit manager for Data Programmability Tools at Microsoft Corp., Britt Johnston is responsible for building and delivering data developer-focused tools for the SQL Server and Visual Studio product lines. Johnston’s product unit was created in fall 2007 with a mission to deliver data-focused developer tools spanning client, server and cloud to make the Microsoft Data Platform accessible and productive. Johnston’s team specifically delivers core tool experiences for Extensible Markup Language (XML) and Entity Data Model (EDM) technologies through extensible tool platforms. Individual tools the team builds include Microsoft’s XML Editor, which includes XML Schema Definition (XSD) support, an Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) Debugger, an XSD Designer for understanding and creating XML schemas, and the Entity Designer for building EDM models that work with the .NET Entity Framework. Through Data Programmability Tools, Johnston has created a center of excellence for designing, architecting, building and delivering data programming tools as a critical component of the Microsoft data platform vision.
Andrew J. Kelly is a Mentor and Partner with Solid Quality Mentors™ based out of Myrtle Beach SC. He has over 20 years experience with relational databases and application development on both Unix and Windows platforms. He has been a SQL Server MVP since 2001. In addition to general SQL Server training and mentoring he specializes in Performance, Scalability and Maintainability of large scale SQL Servers.
Don Kiely, MCSD, is a senior technology consultant, building custom applications as well as providing business and technology consulting services. His development work involves tools such as SQL Server, Visual Basic, C#, ASP.NET, and Microsoft Office. He writes regularly for several trade journals, including Visual Studio Magazine and Advisor Media, Inc., is a top poster and moderator on the www.asp.net community forums, and trains developers in .NET technologies. When he isn’t living and breathing technology, he is exploring the Alaska wilderness with his dogs Mardy and Izzi, hiking, whitewater kayaking, skiing, and searching for the perfect sun dog. You can reach Don at donkiely@computer.org.
Julie Lerman is a Microsoft MVP, .NET mentor and consultant who lives in the hills of Vermont. You can find Julie presenting on data access and other Microsoft .NET topics at user groups and conferences around the world. Julie blogs at 
Jeremy has been engaged in SQL Server development and administration for over 10 years. In that time, he has worked with many successful corporations including MCI, Wells Fargo, Lucent, Oxford International, IP Commerce, Regis University, Notion ONE, and others. Jeremy has served as a participating member on a joint FSTC and OMG project (I2PADS), which focus on industry collaboration, initiatives and standards in the Financial Services space. Having recently started his own database consulting practice, Jeremy’s philosophy is to enable clients to focus on what they do best by allowing us to do what we do best. Additional details of services and offerings can be found his website 
Juval Lowy is a software architect and the principal of IDesign (
Ted Malone is currently Product Strategy Architect for Configuresoft, Inc., a Microsoft Gold Certified ISV Partner. At Configuresoft, Ted is responsible for incorporating leading edge technology into the company’s flagship product line, Enterprise Configuration Manager. Ted is also responsible for the Configuration Intelligence Analytics product, which uses the entire business intelligence stack (SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Microsoft Office Performance Point Server 2007) from Microsoft to deliver leading-edge business intelligence for Information Technology managers and executives. Ted has been working with SQL Server Technologies since version 1.0 (Yes, there really was a SQL Server 1.0) and has worked as an Administrator, Developer, Trainer and Architect.
Brad is the Director of DBA Education for Red Gate Software, and is an accomplished Microsoft SQL Server MVP with over 15 years SQL Server experience. He is a frequent speaker at SQL PASS, European PASS, SQL Server Connections, SQLTeach, devLINK, SQLBits, SQL Saturdays, TechFests, Code Camps, and SQL Server user groups. Brad is the author or co-author of more than 15 technical books and over 250 published articles. His most recent books include How to Become an Exceptional DBA (2nd Edition), Mastering SQL Server Profiler, and Brad’s Sure Guide to SQL Server Maintenance Plans. He blogs at 
Dustin Miller is the President and owner of SharePoint Experts (
As Director of Trustworthy Computing & Chief Security Strategist of the Trusted Advisor Community, Mr. Mintz has a daily focus on improving the security image, perception and experience of Microsoft and its products and services. Working within the Communications & Marketing Group of the TwC Group, Mr. Mintz is the Director of the Trustworthy Computing Strategic Outreach team (TCSO), which serves as the central conduit of security & privacy executive communications and engagement, providing a representative voice to stakeholders and constituents around the globe. TCSO is the primary advocate for and to the business & technical decision makers both internal and external to Microsoft. The group informs tactical and strategic direction in the form of prioritized guidance. The TCSO team is comprised of; Global Evangelism, Executive Engagement, Industry Associations & Sponsorships, Partner Programs, and Strategic Initiatives. This focused approach to outreach affords a uniquely well positioned engagement model of “customer touch”, on a global basis. Microsoft business groups, product & services teams and executives charged with defining Microsoft’s Security Strategy and roadmap are an example of the internal stakeholders with which the TCSO team engages, and provide high value business intelligence. Mr. Mintz also serves and Chief Strategist of Microsoft’s exclusive, Chief Security Officer (CSO) Councils, of which he was a member prior to joining Microsoft in December 2004. With close to two decades of experience in the IT arena, Mr. Mintz brings a wealth of technical knowledge through executive level management, strategy & design history to the team.
Stacia Misner is a consultant, educator, author, mentor, and principal of Data Inspirations. Her career spans 23 years with a focus on improving business practices through technology. Since 2000, she has been providing consulting and education services for Microsoft’s business intelligence technologies. In addition, she has authored or co-authored six books, all published by Microsoft Press, covering different components of the Microsoft SQL Server database and business intelligence platform. Stacia has presented at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS), Microsoft’s TechEd, SQL Server Magazine Connections, and various Microsoft events.
Rick Negrin is a Lead Program Manager in the SQL Server Data Services group at Microsoft. He is responsible for the development experience over SQL Server Data Services. Formerly he worked in the Server Storage Engine Group as a PM lead responsible for Sql Service Broker, SQL Express, and SQL OS. Prior to working at Microsoft, Rick worked at Viair as a developer of a PIM synchronization application for wireless devices. Prior to that he worked at Bsqaure on developer tools for Windows CE.
Herain is a Group Product Manager for Microsoft’s SQL Server Business Group and is responsible for core product management of the Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing technologies for SQL Server. In his prior roles Herain has also been responsible for product planning of SQL Server Business Intelligence and was responsible for product marketing for SQL Server Reporting Services. Herain also has broad experience in marketing developer productivity technologies both at Microsoft and BEA Systems where he played a key role in launching BEA’s WebLogic Platform 8.1 and was the Product Marketing Manager for BEA’s Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and Enterprise Information Integration (EII) products. Herain has a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
Paul Randal and Kimberly Tripp are a husband-and-wife team who own and run SQLskills.com, a world-renowned SQL Server consulting and training company. They are both SQL Server MVPs and Microsoft Regional Directors, with over 30 years of combined experience on SQL Server. 
Tom Rizzo has worked at Microsoft for the past ten years in a variety of roles including in the Microsoft field sales force as a systems engineer, a variety of roles in Microsoft’s server products including Exchange Server, SharePoint, and BizTalk Server and most recently SQL Server. Tom is also the author of a series of Microsoft Press books including Programming Microsoft Outlook and Exchange, 3rd Edition (October 2003). You can reach Tom either via e-mail at thomriz@microsoft.com.
Microsoft SQL Server MVP Matthew Roche is the founder and Chief Software Architect of Integral Thought & Memory, a BI-focused consultancy. Matthew has worked with Microsoft SQL Server since the mid 90s, starting with SQL Server 6.0 and 6.5, and has been falling deeper and deeper in love with SQL Server with each passing year. As a Microsoft Certified Trainer, Matthew has taught hundreds of database administrators and database developers how to better utilize SQL Server’s capabilities. As a software developer and architect, Matthew has built dozens of applications that use the SQL Server platform. Matthew has been using SQL Server 2005 since its early beta days and has been working with SQL Server 2008 since early 2007. Matthew’s current focus is on the SQL Server Business Intelligence stack, specifically SQL Server Integration Services. Today, when not delivering training, presenting on BI topics at conferences, or listening to the world’s loudest heavy metal, Matthew is hard at work helping IT&M’s clients design and build enterprise business intelligence solutions using SQL Server 2005 and 2008.
Chris is an industry-recognized leader in the database field. Chris has also worked with Yellow Pages Inc, Ford Fairlane Motor Credit, Wells Fargo, AT&T Wireless, and Pulte Mortgage. Chris has published a number of articles for different magazines including SQL Server Update, SQL Server Magazine and SQL Standard Magazine. He is a member of Rocky Mountain Microsoft Community Insiders group and is the founder of the Colorado Springs SQL Server Users Group. Chris contributed to the SQL Server 2005 Bible. He is the SSWUG track SQL Connections chair and is a speaker at both the spring and fall conference. He is also a speaker for the SSWUG video conference. Chris is currently writing a weekly column on Database Team Management and has a weekly webcasting show called the "SQL On Call" show.
Julie is a Program Manager in the Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services team. Julie has been with Microsoft since 1999 and has been working with Business Intelligence in various positions over the past 9 years covering roles from support engineer to product planning and product marketing and management. Prior to taking on her current position in the product team, Julie was the product manager for SQL Server Analysis Services as well as SQL Server Reporting Services.
Kimberly Tripp and Paul Randal are a husband-and-wife team who own and run SQLskills.com, a world-renowned SQL Server consulting and training company. They are both SQL Server MVPs and Microsoft Regional Directors, with over 30 years of combined experience on SQL Server. 
William (Bill) Vaughn is an industry-recognized author, mentor and subject-matter expert on Visual Studio, SQL Server, Reporting Services and data access interfaces. He’s worked in the computer industry for over thirty years—working with mainframe, minicomputer and personal computer systems as a developer, manager, architect, trainer, marketer, support specialist, writer and publisher. In 2000, after 14 years at Microsoft, Bill stepped away to work on his books, mentoring and independent training seminars. He’s written seven editions of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Visual Basic and SQL Server and three editions of ADO.NET and ADO Examples and Best Practices for Visual Basic (and C#) Programmers. He and Peter Blackburn also wrote the best-selling and critically acclaimed Hitchhiker’s Guide to SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services. Bill is a top-rated speaker and frequents conferences all over the world including VSLive, Visual Studio/SQL Connections, DevTeach and VBug. He’s also written a wealth of articles for magazines such as SQL Server Magazine, Visual Basic Programmer’s Journal, .NET Magazine and many others as well as a bi-weekly editorial on developer issues for Processor magazine. Bill spends considerable time answering questions on the data-centric public newsgroups and speaking at user group meetings in Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and at his speaking venues all over the world. Bill was added to the INETA speaker’s list this fall. He’s available for consulting, mentoring or custom training. See 
Dan Wahlin (Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for ASP.NET and XML Web Services) is the president of Wahlin Consulting which specializes in .NET and SharePoint consulting and training solutions. Dan founded the XML for ASP.NET Developers Web site (
Ron Yenko is Director of Information Technology and Level III Technical Trainer at 1Staff Training and Development in Omaha, NE. For over 18 years he has been involved with various Microsoft technologies including providing enterprise database architecture solutions using Microsoft SQL Server (from 6.5 through 2008) in the retail, law enforcement, government and financial industries. In recent years, he has specialized in enterprise architecture with focus on business continuity/disaster recovery and performance tuning. He holds various Microsoft certifications including Microsoft Certified Trainer and MCITP/MCTS in SQL Server 2008 Administration.