On Friday January 29th, Cisco welcomed this year’s honorees for the Cisco Champions 2016 program. While the complete list of award winners has not yet been published, I’m proud to be able to say I’ve been chosen a Champion for the second year. And yes, even prouder to see other NetApp/Solidfire employees and “extended family” on the list:
- Chris Reno (@thechrisreno), National Pre-Sales Engineer at ePlus, Inc
- Dave Cain (@thedavecain), TME for Converged Infrastructures at NetApp
- Dave Morera (@GreatWhiteTec and greatwhitetec.com), Senior Solutions Architect at H.A. Storage Systems and NetApp A-Team member
- David Klem (@davidklem and davidklem.com), Principal Architect for Converged Infrastructures at NetApp
- Ed Morgan (@mo6020 and edmorgan.info), FlexPod Architect at ANS Group and NetApp A-Team member
- Henry Vail, Senior Architect for Converged Infrastructures at NetApp
- Jarett Kulm (@JK47theweapon and jk-47.com), Principal Technologist at HA Storage Systems and NetApp A-Team member
- Jeramiah Dooley (@jdooley_clt and blog.vmforsp.com), Systems Engineer for Solidfire at NetApp
- Jesse Anderson (@sockeyes51 and storagedeconstructed.com), Network/Storage Administrator at Accenture and NetApp A-Team member
- Justin Parisi (@NFSDudeAbides and whyistheinternetbroken.wordpress.com), NFS TME at NetApp
- Michael Cade (@MichaelCade1 and vzilla.co.uk), Systems Engineer at Veeam and NetApp A-Team member
- Pete Ybarra (@CertiPete), Field Technical Consultant at Avnet and NetApp A-Team member
-
Shawn Lieu (@ShawnLieu), Solutions Architect at Veeam and NetApp A-Team member
If there’s anyone that I’ve missed in the above list, please let me know and I’ll be happy to update & make sure that you’re included.
While a much younger program than the VMware vExpert one, the team at Cisco have done a fantastic job of ramping up quickly and truly building a thriving and interactive community. All the success of the program is due to the hard work, passion, and openness of the both program’s current leaders, Lauren Friedman (@Lauren) and Brandon Prebynski (@Prebynski), and its former stewards, Amy Lewis (@CommsNinja – now Director of Marketing for Solidfire at NetApp) and Rachel Bakker (@RBakker).
Data Center Digressions 