10 years of Microsoft Data Center Executives

Microsoft’s latest VP of Data Centers (Global Foundation Services) now called the Cloud Infrastructure and Operations is Suresh Kumar.  There have been a lot of changes in the past 10 years of Microsoft’s data center group. The following is an accumulation of looking at Linkedin Profiles.

Currently Suresh Kumar is VP of Cloud Infrastructure and Operations with Christian Belady General Manager of Data Centers.

Dayne Sampson was VP of Global Foundation Services (GFS) from 2009 - 2014 with Christian Belady and Kevin Timmons as GMs of data centers.

Debra Chrapty was VP of GFS (until 2009) with Arne Josefsberg who brought in Mike Manos from Disney Interactive in 2005 to run data centers and this was the beginning of Microsoft’s transition to building data centers.

Before 2005 data centers also existed part of Microsoft IT and that was run by John Coster.

I have talked to some of the above people, but the only one I worked with is Mike Manos.

Mike and I overlapped by a year at Microsoft, and we didn't worked together when employees.  But, we did work together after I left the company and we had many interesting conversations.  The most memorable one was in Mar 2009 in his office when Mike said he was thinking of leaving Microsoft, and he wanted to know what I thought of leaving.  Mike had been at Microsoft for 4 years.  I had been at the company 14 years.  Mike explained the situation, and I was 100% supportive of Mike’s decision to leave Microsoft, and I knew with almost the same 100% certainty that Mike would eventually be a senior executive at the CIO/CTO level.  What I didn’t expect is how quickly Mike achieved CTO status.  Which reminds me of one of the points I shared with Mike is where would he be after 5 more years at Microsoft?  He would be a senior general manager with a slim chance of being a VP.  It may seem obvious that Mike would be VP of data centers/cloud vs. Dayne Sampson, but Dayne had internal support from other senior executives as Microsoft replaced Debra Chrapty.  One supporter of Mike was Satya Nadella, so it is possible if Mike was still at Microsoft he would be the VP of Cloud Infrastructure and Operations, but not a certainty.

Since I had posted comparing Suresh to Google’s Joe Kava using LinkedIn.  I was curious what happens if you compare Suresh to Mike using LinkedIn.  Here is a picture with Mike and Joe at 7x24 Exchange. Don’t think I have ever seen Suresh at a data center event.  Will to be fair you hardly ever see an Amazon.com employee at a data center event. :-)

What became clear in the LinkedIn data is that Mike has a higher peer review, and is probably one of the best VPs Microsoft could have had to run Cloud Infrastructure and Operations in the opinion of his LinkedIn connections.

Both Mike and Suresh have 500+ connections, and I think Mike’s actual connections may be a bit bigger.  Why?  Because data like Mike’s #1 skill is cloud computing 241, #2 data centers 225, and #3 IT Operations 136.  Suresh’s #1 skill is e-commerce 28 and his Cloud Computing # is 11.   Whoa.  Mike Manos Cloud Computing skill # is 241 and Suresh’s 11.  A 22x difference.  Data Centers for Mike is 225 and Suresh is 0. 

Mike did a short stint at Nokia and if Stephen Elop backed Mike Manos, then Mike could have come back to Microsoft through the Nokia acquisition.  We’ve all witnessed boomerang executives.

Those executives who know how to operate data centers are rare.  Those who know how to run Cloud Infrastructure seem more plentiful.  But, I somehow don’t feel comfortable taking direction from a Cloud Executive who doesn’t understand the way data centers operate.

Here are Mike’s top skills

Suresh’s top skills

Comparing Microsoft's VP of Cloud Infrastructure to Google's VP of Data Centers via LinkedIn Profiles

Microsoft has put a new VP in charge of its Cloud Infrastructure group retiring the role of VP of Global Foundation Services.  GFS’s logo looked like this.

Global Foundation Services (GFS) is the engine that powers Microsoft's cloud services. Learn more.

When I Google Search “Microsoft Global Foundation Services” what shows is Microsoft Cloud Platform with little trace of Global Foundation Services and the words Global Foundation Services (GFS) are gone.

So the changes have started in Microsoft’s data center group.  What changes are there in the future?

One way to look at what the future will be like is to compare the new Microsoft VP's public profile vs. a competitor.  I could pick Amazon as competitor, but Google is bigger in terms of a data center presence.  So let’s look at Microsoft’s Suresh Kumar, VP of Cloud Infrastructure and Operations vs. Google’s Joe Kava, VP of Data Centers.  The below is from their LinkedIn profiles as of Oct 21, 8:30p.  I am referencing the date and time of this post as things may change as profile get modified.  2 days ago Sumar’s picture was this.

Suresh Kumar, via LinkedIn

Now on LinkedIn Suresh’s photo is below.

Both Suresh and Joe have 500+ connections.

On Suresh’s profile his top skill at 27 in e-commerce.  Joe’s top skill at 117 is Strategy.

Joe has 66 for Data Centers.  Suresh has 0.

Here is Suresh’s top 10 skills.

Here is Joe’s top 10 skills.

The one area where Suresh and Joe are close is 11 and 14 for Cloud Computing.  

Suresh

Joe

When you look at the above numbers who would you choose to build your Cloud/Data Center Infrastructure?  This has been an interesting way to look at two different executives using LinkedIn profiles.  With fresh eyes I went and looked at my skills listed on my LinkedIn profile.  You may want to as well and think about how your skills are listed.

Oh the other area Suresh and Joe are equal is it looks like both of them now have photos that their corporate PR groups say is OK to have on a public facing site.

Joe Kava, via LinkedIn

One Good thing about a Break up, Fighting Change is Not Accepted

HP hit the news with its breakup following eBay/Paypal, and there are even rumors of Cisco.

With HP and eBay breakups already underway, could Cisco be next?

by Barb Darrow

4 HOURS AGO

1 Comment

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photo: NASA Goddard Photo and Video

SUMMARY:

In its present state, Cisco is too big and slow to compete in a downsizing world of IT vendors, according to RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Sue.

...

Given that Hewlett-Packard is already bifurcating itself into an enterprise company and a PC-and-printer vendor, eBay is breaking out PayPal as a separate entity, and Elliott Management is pushing EMC to spin out VMware, it’s clear that big companies are under tremendous pressure to “maximize shareholder value” by breaking themselves apart.

The main focus on what most people write is how much better it is financially to split the companies up.  So is that the only reason to split, because financially it is a better deal?

One thing a split does is there are going to be massive changes in the organizations.  Who is responsible for what.  How big do teams need to be.  If economies of scale worked perfectly, then it should be less efficient to be split.  Too many times the way things are done is people protecting their territory.  When your territory is split in pieces you can’t say no don’t split my group up.  You will split and be a participant or we will add you to the list of people who should be part of the layoffs.  Oh, yeh, I am totally supportive of the split.  Count me, and keep my job.

A conversation I wish I could have, Bill Loeffler a Microsoft Cloud Architect passed away Sept 2014

A friend forwarded the news that Bill Loeffler passed away from melanoma this month at the age of 54.

The friend asked if I knew Bill, and yes I had many conversations on the concept of Infrastructure Patterns for IT in my Microsoft days.  Bill and I connected on LinkedIn 5 years ago, but he was based in NYC, so it didn’t seem convenient to chat about his work and mine.  

Bill has posted some good content on building a Cloud Infrastructure.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/5711.private-cloud-infrastructure-as-a-service-self-service.aspx

Private Cloud Infrastructure as a Service Self Service

Self Service capability is a characteristic of private cloud computing and must be present in any implementation. The intent is to permit users to approach a self-service capability and be presented with options available for provisioning in an organization. The capability may be basic provisioning of a virtual machine with a pre-defined configuration or may be more advanced allowing configuration options to the base configuration and leading up to a platform capability or service.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/4633.what-is-infrastructure-as-a-service.aspx 

What is Infrastructure as a Service?

In defining Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), we need to drill into specific characteristics that a cloud platform provider must provide to be considered Infrastructure as a Service. This has been no easy task as nearly every cloud platform provider has recently promoted features and services designed to address the IaaS and cloud computing market. Fortunately, as the technology has evolved, a definition of cloud computing has emerged from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.

I looked up some of our shared connections on LinkedIn and I should set some time aside to chat about Bill.

BFFs, having fun and enjoying life

Kids regularly use the term BFF.

"Best friends forever" or "BFF" is a phrase that describes a close friendship typical of teenage girls and young women.^[1][2] Such friendships are characterized by intimacy, trust and a sense of permanence.^[3] The contacts between the close friends tend to be frequent and be based upon shared experiences such as attendance at the same school.^[3]

My daughter had fun with her BFF after school last week “Dad we want to go skurfing. “  It’s hard to say no.  OK, let me finish my video call with a client.  Luckily I was about 30 seconds from finishing the call.

Water Skurfing is a form of water skiing that uses a surfboard or similar board instead of skis. The skurfer is towed behind a motorboat at planing speed with a tow rope similar to that of Knee Boarding andwakeboarding. It shares an advantage with kneeboarding in that the motorboat does not require as much speed as it does for water skiing.

What does it mean to have a BFF.  Well one interesting test is the two friends figuring out how to both get up on surfboard.  How do we start and get up?  i am front. No you.  Ready? Yes. No. OK.  Watching the two of them stay up for at least a minute demonstrated their friendship.