Pre-Conference Seminar Speaker Bios

Alberto Ferrari

Alberto Ferrari is a Business Intelligence consultant and mentor working for SQLBI.com. His main interests are in the methodological approach to the BI development lifecycle, complex data modeling for both Tabular and Multidimensional, performance tuning of the whole ETL pipeline and SQL code. His main activities are related to the design and the implementation of complex solutions based on Integration Services and Analysis Services for the bank, manufacturing and statistical areas.

He has been co-author of several books: Expert Cube Development with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services, PowerPivot for Excel 2010: Give Your Data Meaning and the new Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services: The BISM Tabular Model.

Alberto is certified as SSAS Maestro and is a regular speaker at international conferences like PASS Summit, SQLRally and SQLBits.

Danny Garber

Danny Garber is a Windows Azure Solution Architect within the Worldwide Windows Azure Center of Excellence (CoE) team at Microsoft Corporation and the US Windows Azure Technical Community lead. In his role, Danny is responsible for planning and execution of the Services Field Sales strategy for Windows Azure platform worldwide through Windows Azure discovery workshops, application assessments, architecture design sessions and technical POCs.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Garber was actively engaged in evangelizing and helping many enterprise customers to design and build solutions around Windows Azure, SOA, BizTalk Server and .NET.

In 2010, Mr. Garber authored the Pro Windows Server AppFabric book published by APress. Also, Mr.Garber has written several magazine articles and whitepapers. He authored the Cloud Services Maturity Model (CSMM) in 2008 that helped to assess the current state and build the SOA roadmap for number of large enterprise customers.

Mr. Garber often speaks at various conferences, including TechEd, TechReady, Cloud Summits, SOA & BP Partners Conference and at Microsoft EBC Briefings.

He joined Microsoft in July 2006 as an SOA and BizTalk Server Integration subject matter expert. Danny has over 21 years of IT experience, 14 of them in the role of software architect.

Danny is a Microsoft Certified Architect, an IBM Certified Architect, Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD) and Certified Technical Specialist (MCTS) in BizTalk Server.

He can be reached at dannyg@microsoft.com or via his blog at: http://blogs.msdn.com/dannyg/

Dennis Mulder

Dennis Mulder has been working with Microsoft technology since the start of his career in 1997. Nowadays he is a Solution Architect with Microsoft's Worldwide Windows Azure Center of Excellence (COE). He has 15 years of experience in helping large enterprises be successful on the Microsoft platform by architecting solutions in the areas of SOA, Web, ALM and Cloud. Dennis’ role within the COE is to help provide architecture guidance to customers, and work with Microsoft Services subsidiaries in EMEA with customer POCs and projects.

Dennis is an active speaker in the Dutch community and on Microsoft events like Devdays. Dennis is the president of the local dutch Iasa chapter—working on making the IT Architect a recognized profession—and CITA-P certified. Dennis is also the co-author of Pro WCF (Apress, 2007).

Denny Cherry

Denny Cherry is an independent consultant with over a decade of experience working with platforms such as Microsoft SQL Server, Hyper-V, vSphere and Enterprise Storage solutions. Denny’s areas of technical expertise include system architecture, performance tuning, security, replication and troubleshooting. Denny currently holds several of the Microsoft Certifications related to SQL Server for versions 2000 through 2008 including the Microsoft Certified Master as well as being a Microsoft MVP for several years. Denny has written several books and dozens of technical articles on SQL Server management and how SQL Server integrates with various other technologies.

Johan Arwidmark

Johan Arwidmark is the Chief Technical Architect with Knowledge Factory. He is a consultant, author and all-around geek specializing in Enterprise Windows Deployment Solutions.

Johan speaks at several conferences each year, including MMS and TechEd around the world. He is also actively involved in deployment communities like deploymentresearch.com and myitforum.com, and he has been awarded Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in Setup & Deployment.

Johan is known for an energetic and humorous style, tackling complex concepts using simple "Real World" scenarios and lots of live demos. His areas of expertise include: Enterprise Windows Deployment Tools and Solutions, MDT, WinPE, USMT, WDS, and Configuration Manager.

John Craddock

John Craddock has designed and implemented computing systems ranging from high-speed industrial controllers through to distributed IT systems with a focus on security and high-availability. John has been a key player in many IT projects for industry leaders including Microsoft, the UK Government and multi-nationals that require optimized IT systems. He developed technical training courses that have been published worldwide, co-authored a highly successful book on Microsoft Active Directory Internals, and presents regularly at major international conferences including, TechEd, ITForum and European summits. John is passionate about communicating tough technical content in an engaging and highly consumable format. He can be engaged as a consultant or booked for speaking engagements through XTSeminars. www.xtseminars.co.uk.

Kate Gregory

Kate Gregory is in her fourth decade of being paid to program. Her firm, Gregory Consulting Limited, is based in rural Ontario and helps clients adopt new technologies and adjust to the changing business environment. Current work makes heavy use of .NET and Visual C++ for both web and client development, especially for Windows 7 and 8. Managing, mentoring, technical writing, and technical speaking occupy much of her time, but she still writes code every week.

Kate is the author of over a dozen books and speaks at DevTeach, TechEd (USA, Europe, Africa), and TechDays, among others. Kate is a C++ MVP, a founding sponsor of the Toronto .NET Users Group, the founder of the East of Toronto .NET Users group, a member of the INETA speakers bureau, and a member of adjunct faculty at Trent University in Peterborough. Since January 2002 she has been Microsoft Regional Director for Toronto and since January 2004 she has been awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional designation for Visual C++. In June 2005 she won the Regional Director of the year award and in February 2011 she was designated Visual C++ MVP of the year for 2010. Kate develops courses on C++, Visual Studio, and Windows programming for Pluralsight and is writing a book on C++ AMP.

Kent Agerlund

Kent Agerlund is senior consultant, author, trainer specializing in Microsoft Configuration Manager Solutions at Coretech A/S.

Kent frequently speaks at conferences and is the main author of the “Mastering Configuration Manager 2012” training. He is also actively involved in management communities like TechNet forums, myitforum.com, and he has been awarded Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in Microsoft Configuration Manager. Kent is known for mixing “Real World” scenarios into his presentation with lots of live demos.

Kent co-founded the System Center User Group Denmark in 2009, and he is a Certified MCITP: Enterprise Administrator, MCSA+Messaging, MCT and Technology Specialist in Configuration Manager, MDOP and Windows 2008 R2 and much more.

Marco Russo

Marco Russo is a Business Intelligence consultant and mentor working for SQLBI.com. His main activities are related to data warehouse relational and multidimensional design, but he is also involved in the complete development lifecycle of a BI solution. He has particular competence and experience in sectors like financial services (including complex OLAP designs in banking area), manufacturing, gambling and commercial distribution.

Marco is also a book author and has participated in writing Expert Cube Development with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services, PowerPivot for Excel 2010: Give Your Data Meaning and the new Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services: The BISM Tabular Model.

Apart from his BI-related publications, he also wrote some books about .NET programming. He is also a speaker in international conferences like PASS Summit, SQLRally and SQLBits.

He achieved the unique SSAS Maestro certification and is also a Microsoft Certified Trainer with several Microsoft Certified Professional certifications.

Matt Long

Matt Long is an Architect with Microsoft's Worldwide Windows Azure Center of Excellence (COE), where he specializes in security. He has over a decade of experience in distributed computing and wire protocols and specifications. Matt's role within the COE is to help drive Windows Azure field readiness, provide architecture guidance to customers, and work with customer POCs. Matt has been a contributor and technical reviewer for several books on the subject of SOA and a consistent contributor to internal Microsoft IP with respect to distributed computing and security protocols.

Michael Niehaus

Michael Niehaus is a senior software development engineer in Microsoft’s Solution Accelerator Team. He is the lead developer for the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, a free collection of tools and guidance for deploying Windows and Microsoft Office faster and more efficiently. Prior to joining Microsoft in 2004, Michael spent his entire career in enterprise IT, focused on deploying and managing Microsoft software.

Mikael Nyström

Mikael Nyström is a Microsoft MVP and Senior Executive Consultant at TrueSec, with an extremely broad field of competence. He has worked with all kind of infrastructure tasks in all kind of environments. He is working deep within products such as System Center Operations Manager, System Center Configuration Manager, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, Active Directory, and Hyper-V. Mikael is a very popular instructor and is often used by Microsoft for partner trainings as well as to speak at major conferences such as TechEd and MMS. Lately, Mikael has been deeply engaged in the development of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 as member of the TAP team. He is now a part of the Windows 8 TAP.

Paul Stubbs

Paul Stubbs is a Microsoft Architect for Windows Azure, where he focuses on developing real-world cloud solutions. He also works with the development community around SharePoint, Office, and Silverlight. He has authored five books on solution development using Windows Azure, Microsoft Office, SharePoint and Silverlight, several articles for MSDN Magazine, and has also spoken at various Microsoft conferences worldwide. Paul has also worked as a Senior Program Manager with the Visual Studio team in Redmond, Washington. Read Paul’s blog at blogs.msdn.com/pstubbs.

Pete Schnettler

Pete Schnettler has been with Microsoft Services for six years as a Delivery Architect leading the design, development and delivering large enterprise level applications. Prior to joining MCS, Pete was one of the chief architects for a Fortune 500 Insurance company. Pete is an active member in the Microsoft Services Azure community and a member of Microsoft Services Azure Center of Excellence.

David Starr

David Starr is the Chief Craftsman for Scrum.org where he works to improve the professional of software development. He focuses on agile software development, the Visual Studio ALM platform, and patterns and practices in .NET. He enjoys helping software development teams improve and expressing human intent to computers. David Starr is a technical contributor at Pluralsight, a Microsoft Visual Studio ALM MVP, host of the Pluralcast podcast, and the founder of the blogging community ElegantCode.com. He has over 20 years of software development experience, most of them spent practicing adaptive engineering techniques like test-first development and reducing wait time between feedback cycles. He has held several titles including Director of Software Development, Chief Software Engineer, and Chief Software Architect.

Steve Fox

Steve Fox is a Director, Azure COE with the Microsoft Services group. He spends much of his time in the areas of Office, SharePoint and Windows Azure development, regularly working with customers on solution architecture and deployment and talking with customers and the community at conferences both nationally and internationally. Steve has co-authored numerous books and articles on development. When not working, he enjoys movies, playing hockey, writing, and reading.

Thomas LaRock

Thomas LaRock is a seasoned IT professional with over a decade of technical and management experience. Currently serving as a Senior DBA for Confio Software, Thomas holds a MS degree in Mathematics from WSU. Thomas serves on the Board of Directors as Vice President of Marketing for the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS), and is also a SQL Server MVP. Thomas can also be found blogging at http://thomaslarock.com and is the author of DBA Survivor: Become a Rock Star DBA (http://dbasurvivor.com).

Chris Van Wesep

Chris Van Wesep is responsible for marketing the Microsoft cloud and datacenter management products within the System Center portfolio. He has been with Microsoft Corporation for over 11 years serving in a variety of roles across the server businesses. Prior to this position, Chris worked as the marketing lead for Microsoft Windows Server in the United States subsidiary where he was responsible for all aspects of marketing and sales enablement for the product. He began his career at Microsoft Corporation as the worldwide Finance Manager for the Windows Server business, evaluating product and channel strategies as well as potential acquisitions and partnerships.

Chris holds a Bachelor of Science from Purdue University and an MBA from the University of Michigan. Originally from Michigan, Chris now lives in Seattle with his wife and two children.