This is a shout out to my fellow Hudson MA native and Microsoft-savvy friend who has been focused on clustering for just about as long as I’ve known him – which is about 7 or 8 years.
And even though he ran away from our cold New England winters to relocate his family to ‘Hotlanta’ Georgia, I still respect him and his knowledge of server clusters.
He’s been a Microsoft MVP for several years and he writes on a topic that most companies would drool about if they only knew about it… Geographically Dispersed Clusters: The Ultimate in Low RTO and Low RPO.
Although I’ve written briefly about EMC’s software that can flip a traditional server cluster into a geo-cluster in minutes, aka EMC Cluster Enablers, I am amazed on how little airplay this product gets on the web, in print, and in media in general … and glad to see at least John and I talking about the merits of a stretched cluster.
A few of my favorite blog posts of his can be seen below:
Add a Disk to a Windows 2008 Failover Cluster with Cluster.exe
Support for Multiple Subnets with Windows 2008 Clusters
How you can meet John:
Well, he used to travel all around the world installing the product and giving classes to customers, our field implementation teams, and technical consultants but now he works at our highest-level Windows support center (once we quickly determine you have a major cluster issue, you get to talk to him).
So the answer to the question is this: In order to meet John you have a break your clusters, which is something I wouldn’t exactly recommend. Another way is to become a Microsoft MVP and attend their annual conference and wear a bright “I Love Clustering” shirt.
He’d be sure to comment on that.
Thanks for the plug. FYI, I’ll likely be at TechEd this year working the Cluster TLC booth.