Jeff Browning

Current

• Oracle Subject Matter Expert at EMC Corporation

Past

• Global SE at NetApp
• Senior Manager of Technical Marketing at NetApp
• Manager of Database Technical Marketing at NetApp

• Database Technical Marketing Engineer at NetApp
• Director of Partner and Training Services at 4D, Inc.
• Software Engineer at CTG, Inc.
• Senior Software Engineer at ATiP, Inc.

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4 more...

Education

• University of Houston Law Center
• Duke University

Recommended

18 people have recommended Jeff

Connections

361 connections

Industry

Information Technology and Services

Websites

• My Blog
• My Company

Jeff Browning’s Summary

I began my career as an attorney, practicing law in Texas for 11 years. During the PC revolution, I embraced the concept of personal automation, and was a leading advocate of the use of PC technology in the legal industry and government.

Eventually, I left legal practice and pursued high technology as my sole career choice, focusing initially on automating the American political process. For example, I wrote the first computer software for automating the production of the daily journal of a State legislative body. Later, I was responsible for creating software for the production of punch card ballots which were used in the general and primary elections of a State.

Gradually, I migrated to pure software engineering work, no longer related to the legal or political system. Eventually, I ended up in Alaska, where I worked in the energy industry on econometric modeling of the entire world economy, for the purpose of planning the capital investment of British Petroleum in the Alaska North Slope oil fields. I also wrote the front end for the software program used to maintain the North Slope oil fields.

From that experience, I was recruited by an ISV to manage their partner and training services program. I was then offered the opportunity to go to work for Network Appliance in 1997 as their first database technical marketing engineer. In that position, I was responsible for the early validation of the NFS protocol for use in storing Oracle databases. Subsequently, I managed the SAN portion of the NetApp database technical marketing organization, and then led a group of Global SEs who roamed the world selling NetApp technology to database customers.

In November of 2005, I left NetApp to join the EMC Commercial Solutions group where I work as the Oracle subject manager expert, and am responsible for overseeing the creation of the Oracle Solutions for Mid-Size Enterprises in the areas of both SAN and NAS.

Jeff Browning’s Specialties:

Technology skills:
• Oracle database (7, 8, 8i, 9i, 10g, 11g)
• High-End storage arrays (NetApp, EMC CLARiiON, EMC Celerra)
• UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems (Sun Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Linux)
• Virtualization using VMware ESX 3.5
• Scripting languages (Perl, bash shell)
• SQL programming (PL-SQL, transactSQL)
Business skills:
• Sales
• Technical marketing
• Software engineering
• Virtual team building

Jeff Browning’s Experience

• Oracle Subject Matter Expert

  EMC Corporation

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; EMC; Information Technology and Services industry)

  November 2005 — Present (3 years 9 months)

  I manage a comprehensive stack testing program consisting of Oracle RAC 10g for x86-64, Linux for x86-64, networking, EMC storage arrays (CLARiiON and Celerra) and related software (PowerPath, Replication Manager, etc.). We produce a validated solution for the entire stack which can be implemented in a customer's environment. I also manage a virtual team consisting of both onshore and offshore resources, partnering with WiPRO our outsourcing agency.

• Global SE

  NetApp

  (Public Company; NTAP; Information Technology and Services industry)

  November 2003 — November 2005 (2 years 1 month)

  In this position, I led a team of high-level technology experts in various application environments (IBM DB2, high performance computing, etc.) who roamed the world closing deals with top enterprise accounts. I also performed this function with respect to Oracle on open systems storage.

• Senior Manager of Technical Marketing

  NetApp

  (Public Company; NTAP; Information Technology and Services industry)

  March 2000 — November 2003 (3 years 9 months)

  I led the Technical Marketing organization for the SAN/iSAN Business Unit (SiSBU) for Network Appliance during the period when the FCP and iSCSI protocols were rolled out in a project called Sledgehammer. My team was responsible for validating the use of these protocols with a variety of application environments, including IBM DB2 and Novell Netware. I also validated the use of the protocols for storing Oracle databases. As usual, I was not content to be "merely a manager" but insisted on remaining deeply technical, and immersed in the technology issues. In this position, I had my first experience with building offshore teams. I traveled to India where I hired a team who did rapid validation of FCP configurations for customers. This team was highly successful and still exists.

• Manager of Database Technical Marketing

  NetApp

  (Public Company; NTAP; Information Technology and Services industry)

  January 1999 — March 2000 (1 year 3 months)

  Having established my reputation as the first Database Technical Marketing Engineer, I then took on the challenge of duplicating myself. I hired a team of TMEs who addressed various application marketings, including IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase, Informix, and so forth. I continued to perform the job of Oracle TME as well.

• Database Technical Marketing Engineer

  NetApp

  (Public Company; NTAP; Information Technology and Services industry)

  October 1997 — January 1999 (1 year 4 months)

  In this position, I was responsible for the initial validation of the NFS protocol for use with Oracle databases. I was the original partner/customer of what became known as the Oracle Storage Compatibility Program (OSCP), filing the first results on that program for a NAS storage device, as well as storage snapshots. I was the author of many of the original white papers on how to integrate Oracle with NAS storage. Most of these white papers are still published on the NetApp web site, although none now bear my name.

• Director of Partner and Training Services

  4D, Inc.

  (Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

  March 1995 — October 1997 (2 years 8 months)

  I was responsible for managing a nationwide training program for the largest independent ISV in the Macintosh market at that time. I also managed their partner program.

• Software Engineer

  CTG, Inc.

  (Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; CTGX; Information Technology and Services industry)

  October 1992 — March 1995 (2 years 6 months)

  I worked on the maintanence program for the North Slope oil fields. I wrote the majority of the front end for this program, as well as much of the backend database code. The database was Sybase. I then worked on a project called AGEM (Alaska Global Econometric Model) the purpose of which was to model the entire world economy to provide a financial planning framework for British Petroleum of Alaska. The modeling tool was Comshare IFPS, the database was Sybase, and the front end was 4th Dimension. I wrote all of the front end, about 50% of the database code, and about 25% of the model.

• Senior Software Engineer

  ATiP, Inc.

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

  December 1989 — October 1992 (2 years 11 months)

  This was my first real job in the information technology industry. I was the main programing resource within ATiP, a computer think tank in the Infomart in Dallas. In this job, I was privileged to be present when many of the technologies we take for granted were first being invented and perfected. For example, I worked on the first use of bar codes on four-color newspaper inserts for fast food restaurant coupons (mostly pizza). I was also responsible for the first open systems program to automate the production of the daily journal of a State legislative body (the Texas House of Representatives, and later the Texas Senate). Then, I wrote the first open systems software for the production of punch card ballots for general and primary elections in this country. (Remember the year 2000 debacle in Florida? Yeah, my bad.)

Jeff Browning’s Education

• University of Houston Law Center

  J.D. , Law , 1973 — 1977

• Duke University

  B.S. , Political Science , 1970 — 1973

Additional Information

Jeff Browning’s Websites:

• My Blog
• My Company

Jeff Browning’s Interests:

I like to ride bikes and play the guitar and bass.

Jeff Browning’s Honors:

Oracle Certified Professional, DBA Track on Oracle 7, 8, 8i, and 9i.

Speaker at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006

Speaker at Oracle OpenWorld in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Melbourne, Australia, and Moscow, Russia in 2005

Author of numerous white papers on Network Appliance, Inc. and EMC Corporation websites on the subject of Oracle technology and integration with storage arrays and software.

Creator of The Oracle Storage Guy blog (see My Blog, above).

Speaker on Oracle virtualization at VMWorld 2008 in Las Vegas.

Jeff Browning’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• career opportunities
• consulting offers
• new ventures
• job inquiries
• expertise requests
• business deals
• reference requests
• getting back in touch