Welcome to the SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT) bio page! The SQLCAT team manages all customer activity out of the SQL Server engineering organization in Redmond, WA. The goal of the team is simple: Engage with the most interesting SQL Server customer projects across the world (Interesting is usually defined by large scale, complex and challenging) and learn how the product behaves. We then use these learnings to improve the product as well as share with the community so everyone can build any application, regardless of size and complexity, successfully on the Microsoft SQL Server platform.
Lindsey Allen
SQL Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT)
After several years managing IT development team building in-house sales force automation system, Lindsey Allen joined Microsoft Consulting Services the summer of 1995. Lindsey has been with Microsoft for more than 15 years. Lindsey specializes on system architecture and database design and has worked with many Fortune 500 enterprise customers across various industrial segments. She transitioned to SQL Server Product Unit SQLCAT team in the summer of 2005. Lindsey is currently managing SQLCAT SQL Engine team including customer lab. She gained strong database performance optimization expertises by working with the challenging mission critical customer workloads and enterprise-grade host and storage hardware. Lindsey has a Master of Engineering Science Degree from University of Western Ontario specializing on Finite Element Analysis.
Mark Souza
SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT) Founder
Mark Souza is a Director in the Microsoft SQL Server development organization. He heads up all customer and ISV programs for the Microsoft SQL Server unit. These teams specialize in implementing the most challenging customer database applications worldwide. His experience focuses on the issues related to the distribution, modeling, design, and performance of data with a distributed computing application. Mr. Souza uses this customer experience to drive high quality SQL Server product planning back in Redmond. Mr. Souza's twenty seven years in the Information Technology business has consisted of database administration, end-user tool management, systems engineering database specialist/lead, client/server architect, Microsoft regional data technology specialist and SQL Server development customer advisory team. Mr. Souza has a Masters Degree in MIS from Marist College and an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from SUNY Potsdam. He enjoys spending quality time with his wife Lisa of 23 years and three beautiful children (Andrew 15, Megan 13 and Jennifer 11). He also enjoys flying airplanes, reading, running, sports and attending broadway shows in his spare time.
Denny Lee
SQLCAT BI
Denny Lee is a Senior Program Manager based out of Redmond, WA in the SQL Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT) - DW/BI Group. He has more than 13 years experience as a developer and consultant implementing software solutions to complex OLTP and data warehousing problems. His industry experience includes accounting, human resources, automotive, retail, web analytics, telecommunications, and healthcare. He had helped create the first OLAP Services reporting application in production at Microsoft and is a co-author of "Professional Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint", “Professional Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services 2008 with MDX”, “Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Data Warehousing with Analysis Services” and “Transforming Healthcare through Information [Ed. Joan Ash] (2009)”. In addition to contributing to the SQLCAT Blog, SQL Server Best Practices, and SQLCAT.com, you can also review Denny's Blog at http://dennyglee.com/. Denny specializes in developing solutions for Enterprise Data Warehousing, Analysis Services, and Data Mining; he also has focuses in the areas of Privacy and Healthcare.
Carl Rabeler
SQLCAT BI
Carl Rabeler has been working with Microsoft SQL Server and Business Intelligence for over 10 years as a consultant, mentor, writer, speaker and trainer before finally joining Microsoft in early 2006. Carl has written several SQL Server and Business Intelligence books and numerous technical white papers, has presented at many SQL Server and BI conferences, and has provided mentoring and consulting services for numerous companies around the world. Carl enjoys sailing, mountain climbing, bicycling, diving, traveling, and live music.
Kevin Cox
SQLCAT
Kevin Cox has been specializing in database projects for most of 35+ year career. He started with SQL Server with the first version of Sybase 1.0 in 1987. Kevin has a MBA degree and a Bachelors degree in Computer Science. He is a frequent lecturer and author on database oriented topics. Outside of work, Kevin is an avid runner.
Nicholas Dritsas
SQLCAT BI
Nicholas Dritsas has been working with SQL Server and Business Intelligence for the past 10+ years as part of Microsoft Consulting Services and SQL Server Product Group. In his time at MCS, he acted as a Lead Architect to a number of Fortune 500 SQL Server and BI implementations, including Hilton Hotels, Nestle USA and Walt Disney. Since last year, he joined the SQL Server’s Customer Advisory Team working with the largest and most complex SQL Server and BI projects in Asia. Nicholas has presented numerous times in internal and external events and conferences around BI subjects and best practices.
Prem Mehra
SQLCAT
Mr. Mehra is a Program Manager with Microsoft Corporation in the SQL Server Development Organization. His expertise is in developing architectural solutions, which exploit technologies such as relational database, transaction and message servers, and connectivity products. Prior to joining Microsoft Corporation, Mr. Mehra was an Associate Partner at Andersen Consulting and a Senior Consultant at IBM. He has more than thirty-seven years of experience in the IT industry and has helped in implementing leading edge applications at many of the top Fortune one hundred companies. Mr. Mehra has spoken on several IT topics in seminars and conferences across the world as keynote speaker and as an instructor. He holds Master of Electrical Engineering degree from University of Toronto. He is the co-author of book, "Netcentric Computing", published by Auerbach.
Thomas Kejser
SQLCAT
Thomas has been working with SQL Server since version 6.5 and performance tuned cubes since OLAP Server 7.0. He has worked on some of the largest cubes in the world. Performing fast loading of warehousing and removing every bottleneck is one of Thomas specialties. He holds a master degree in computer science and has 10+ years of experience with developer coaching and scalable architectures on both OLTP and OLAP systems.
Sanjay Mishra
SQL Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT)
Sanjay Mishra works as Senior Program Manager in the SQLCAT team in the SQL Server product development organization. In this role, he helps customers successfully deploy the most challenging SQL Server database applications, and uses the lessons learned to drive product improvements. He pioneered the SQL Server Best Practices program though which his team imparts deep technical knowledge to the SQL Server community worldwide. The Best Practices program has become a huge success (visit www.sqlcat.com) among the Microsoft field engineers, consultants, MVPs, partners and customers. Sanjay is a huge proponent of a strong and active SQL Server community, and is a frequent speaker in events such as PASS Summit and Tech-Ed.
Michael Thomassy
SQLCAT
Michael Thomassy is a Program Manager in the Microsoft SQL Server development organization. Since joining Microsoft in 1995, Michael has been an Architect in Microsoft Consulting Services and Microsoft Technology Centers leading many large scale SQL Server implementations with dozens of Fortune 500 companies. In 2006, Michael joined the SQL Server Customer Advisory Team designing the largest and most complex SQL Server implementations specializing in OLTP and HA. Michael has a Bachelors degree in Computer Engineering from Auburn University.
Mike Ruthruff
SQLCAT
Mike Ruthruff is a Program Manager on the SQL Server Customer Advisory Team. Mike joined Microsoft in 1997 first supporting data access technologies and then moving to focus on distributed applications. He joined the SQL Server product group in 2001 and shortly after joined the customer team. Mike has been working with SQL Server for over 10 years and specializes in the area of performance and scalability. Mike is a frequent speaker on topics related to SQL Server and author of numerous papers. Outside of work he enjoys spending time with his two daughters, playing guitar, live music and likes to take full advantage of the handful of sunny days in the Pacific Northwest.
Mike Weiner
SQL Customer Advisor Team - Engine focus
Mike Weiner is a Program Manager working with Microsoft's high-end hardware partners and focusing on the core SQL Server Engine. Mike has worked with SQL Server since SQL Server 6.5 when he was in a support role with Microsoft Customer Support Services (CSS). Before joining the CAT team he spent a number of years as a Dedicated Support Engineer at Microsoft working primarily in the large enterprise space and onsite with many financial services institutions. The focus on many of the projects was around high throughput, low latency transactional systems. VLDB managment and stringent high availability requirements were also critical implementation details within the engagements. All combined he has over 12 years of experience working with enterprise customers on their SQL Server environments, both in troubleshooting and architecting. Finally, he also holds SQL Server certifications as a MCM and MCA. In his free time Mike is an avid sports fan and can usually be found ouside of work on the soccer pitch or watching some type of sports on TV. Connect with me on Twitter @MikeW_SQLCAT
Stuart Ozer
SQLCAT
Stuart Ozer is a Group Program Manager in the SQL Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT) -- part of the SQL Server Product Group. Stuart focuses on gathering learnings and best practices from large-scale customer experiences with the newest technologies being introduced by the SQL team. He is also directly involved in the architecture and deployment of several new showcase applications on SQL Server being developed by customers internationally. Over the years, Stuart has specialized in the design and implementation of enterprise scale data warehouse solutions including relational database, ETL and OLAP components. Stuart works closely with the engineering teams that are planning enhanced Data Warehousing capabilities in future versions of the product.
Stuart has been at Microsoft for 11 years. He recently returned to the SQL Product Group from a 2-year stint inside of Microsoft Research where he collaborated with biologists in inventing a series of database-centric techniques for use in biological sequence analysis applications. Prior to his work with the SQL product group, he directed the development of the multi-terabyte data warehouse for WebTV / Ultimate TV at Microsoft. In the early 1990s, Stuart co-founded and managed Infodynamics -- a San Francisco Bay Area data warehouse consulting firm focusing on enterprise-scale data integration and decision support solutions. His 25 years of industry experience include earlier product management and field consulting positions at Compaq, IBM and Metaphor. Stuart is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and travels worldwide.
Ewan Fairweather
SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT) – Engine focus
Ewan Fairweather has worked for Microsoft for six years. He currently works as a program manager in the Business Platform Division on the Customer Advisory Team (CAT) working on large scale Integration and OLTP SQL applications. Prior to this, Ewan spent three years working for Microsoft U.K. in the Premier Field Engineering team where he worked with enterprise customers, helping them to maintain and optimize their BizTalk applications. This included working in a dedicated capacity on some of the world's largest BizTalk deployments, predominantly within financial services. Ewan coauthored the successful Professional BizTalk Server 2006 (Wrox, 2007) and has written many white papers for Microsoft including the "Microsoft BizTalk Server Performance Optimization Guide," which is available on the Microsoft Developers Network (MSDN) Web site. Prior to joining Microsoft, Ewan worked as a Cisco Certified Academy Instructor (CCAI) for a regional training organization, delivering advanced routing and networking courses. Ewan holds a bachelor's degree in Computing with Management from the University of Leeds. Outside of work, Ewan has recently found a fond interest for Jiu Jitsu. Ewan maintains his blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/ewanf
Located in EMEA, on the UK Campus
Murshed Zaman
SQL Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT) - DW/BI Focus
Murshed Zaman is a SQL CAT Program Manager working with PDW product unit. Murshed’s overall data warehousing experience spans more than 10 years specializing in telecommunications, retail, web analytics and supply chain management. He has worked with Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) systems for over 4 years. In PDW, his main focus areas are design architecture, Distributed-SQL plans, and failover. Murshed has helped create the early documentation around SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse and has been a technical reviewer of many documents on this site. In his free time Murshed likes to mountain bike, hike and play soccer.
Located in Aliso Viejo, CA
John Hoang
SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT)
John P Hoang is a Program Manager based out of Aliso Viejo, CA on the SQL Server Customer Advisory Team – DW/BI Group. He has over 20 years of experience working in various roles ranging from Developer, Business Analyst, Project Manager implementing software solutions to manufacturing, retail and healthcare. He currently specializes in the SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse. In his free time, John enjoys bike riding, tennis and pay attention to his two kids.
Kun Cheng
SQL Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT)
Kun Cheng is currently a Program Manager of Microsoft based in Redmond, WA working in the SQLCAT (Customer Advisory Team) focusing on ISV application performance and scalability. He has more than 10 years of experience as a developer and consultant helping large SQL Server implementations. His industry experience includes telecommunications, IT and financial services. Kun specializes in developing high performing solutions for Enterprise OLTP systems; he also has interest in the areas of search and software supportability.
Ed Katibah
SQL Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT)
Ed Katibah is a program manager on the Microsoft SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT). Ed began his professional career over 34 years ago while working as an academic researcher at the University of California, Berkeley on remote sensing issues and early geographic information system concepts. Ed has extensive experience in the spatial industry with jobs ranging from research, software development, consulting, application programming and large scale spatial database production systems. Since 1996, Ed has worked exclusively on spatially-enabled database systems for Informix, IBM and now Microsoft.
Jimmy May
SQL Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT): Engine/Customer Lab
Jimmy May is a Sr. Program Manager for the SQL Server Customer Advisory Team. He is the manager of the SQL Server Customer Lab where customers from around the world bring the biggest, fastest, & most interesting SQL Server apps for tuning. He is a founder of both the Indiana Windows User Group (http://www.iwug.net) and Indianapolis Professional Association for SQL Server (http://www.indypass.org). Jimmy recently moved to Redmond from Indianapolis, Indiana with his lovely bride, Phyllis, and Fannie May the Wonder Dog. Subscribe to and read his SQL Server performance and personal productivity blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/jimmymay. Contact him at jimmymay@microsoft.com or aspiringgeek@live.com. Jimmy is also part of the rich & robust SQL Server community on Twitter: www.twitter.com/aspiringgeek.
Work location: Redmond, WA
Yorihito Tada
SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT)
Yorihito Tada has been working with SQL Server and Business Intelligence since SQL Server 7.0 pre-release. He worked in Microsoft Consulting Service and transitioned to SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT). Based in Tokyo, Japan for all Japanese customers and partners.
Chuck Heinzelman
SQL Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT)
Chuck Heinzelman is a Senior Program Manager with the SQLCAT team focusing on the ISV market. He holds a BS degree in Management Computer Systems from the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater has done MBA studies at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. He has been working with SQL Server since 1998 and has been active in the SQL Server community for over 10 years. He also has experience developing Windows and Web applications using Visual Basic and C#. His primary areas of focus with SQL Server have been multi-server management, high availability, disaster recovery, and OLTP development. When not working he enjoys remodeling old houses and spending time with his family.
Steve Howard
SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT)
Steve Howard is a Senior Program Manager working with the Tier 1 ISV partners. He has worked with SQL Server since version 6.5 and has worked with relational databases since 1988. Steve comes to SQLCAT from the Premier Field Engineering team where he worked for 5 years providing support for critical production databases and ETL processes. Steve was also heavily involved in development of curriculum on performance tuning and optimization of SQL Server, and programming for optimal SQL Server performance. He has also worked developing material on SSIS performance and high availability. In his free time, Steve enjoys running, hiking, biking, or going to ball games with family.
Alexei Khalyako
SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT)
Alexei has been with Microsoft since 10+ years. He has started with SQL Server collecting globalization requirements from European countries during the version SQL Server 2005 development. Since about 2 years a member of European part of the SQL Customer Advisory team. He is focusing on large scale Data Warehouses, has published articles on different database topics. Alexei has graduated from Moscow Engineering Physics Institute
John Sirmon
SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT)
John Sirmon is a Senior Program Manager with the SQL Server Customer Advisory Team at Microsoft. He has worked for Microsoft since March 2001 and began working with Microsoft® SQL Server™ over 10 years ago when he began his professional career as a consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He has extensive development experience with Microsoft Visual Studio and all the components of the Microsoft BI Stack. His specialties include Analysis Services performance tuning, Reporting Services, SharePoint integration, troubleshooting Kerberos Authentication and PowerPivot for SharePoint. John has presented topics ranging from Reporting Services SharePoint Integration to Analysis Services at SQL Server PASS Summits and Microsoft TechReady conferences. He was the technical editor for Professional Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint and authored the Microsoft CSS course, SQL Server 2008 R2 PowerPivot for SharePoint. John holds a B.S. degree in Business Administration with a minor in MIS from the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. In his spare time he is the lead singer/guitarist of a local Rock Band in Charlotte, NC. John lives in Lake Wylie, SC with his wife, two sons and their two Bloodhounds.
Shaun Tinline-Jones
SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT)
Shaun Tinline-Jones is a Snr. Program Manager within the SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT) focused on Tier 1 ISV. He has being in the Database Consulting industry for ~15 years of which he has spent ~9 years within Microsoft Consulting Services (3yrs in South Africa, 5yrs here in Canada). Shaun has worked across the globe on several world class projects, contributing to the whitepaper “Planning for Consolidation with Microsoft SQL Server 2000” (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc966486.aspx) and article “Green IT in Practice: SQL Server Consolidation in Microsoft IT” in “The Architect Journal – January 2009” (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/dd393309.aspx).
Shaun primarily concentrates on SQL Server based solutions typically focused on database development, consolidation and upgrades. His most recent projects include leading a 20TB database SQL Server 2008 upgrade for London Drugs in Vancouver (http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?casestudyid=4000005066), taking on the co-architect role for MSIT’s initiative to consolidate SQL Server using Hyper-V(http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx? EventID=1032408655&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US) and implementing Filestream for a 30TB database on SQL Server 2008 (http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Microsoft-SQL-Server/London-Drugs/London-Drugs- boosts-customer-storage-capacity-with-SQL-Server-2008/4000005066)
You can find out more about Shaun and what he is currently doing at http://www.linkedin.com/in/shauntj
Gus Apostol
SQL Server Customer Advisory Team (SQLCAT)
I started my career at Microsoft back in early 1995. My first exposure to SQL Server was working on Relational Engine team during 6.0 and 7.0. After 7.0 I moved to the Storage Engine team through 7.5 and SQL Server 2000. I had the opportunity to work on the JET Storage Engine, which lead to working on SQL Server for Windows CE team over versions 1.0 and 2.0, and finally back to SQL Server Engine team through SQL Server 2005. Most recently I have been working on the SQL Server Performance Engineering team, focusing on performance and scalability for the Relational and Storage Engine team through the development of SQL Server 2008/R2, and SQL Server V-Next codenamed “Denali”. I am currently on SQL Server Customer Advisory Team, following my passion to continue evangelizing SQL Server and helping internal and external customers build on the SQL Server data platform.
Past Members
Past members of the SQLCAT team include: Eric Jacobsen, Tom Davidson, Gert Drapers, Craig Utley, Bren Newman, Prakash Sundaresan, Burzin Patel, Sharon Bjeletich, Richard Tkachuk, Paul Mestemaker, Lubor Kollar, Juergen Thomas, Peter Scharlock, Sunil Agarwal, Jesse Fountain and Howard Yin