Chris Jackson, CCIE No. 6256, is a Distinguished Systems Engineer working in worldwide sales training and enablement and the author of Network Security Auditing (Cisco Press, 2010). Chris is focused on all aspects of Cisco data center and cloud, not only in a technology perspective but through thought leadership in helping Cisco and customers better leverage the business transformational aspects these technologies provide. He holds dual CCIEs in security and routing and switching, CISA, CISSP, ITIL v3, seven SANS certifications, and a bachelor’s degree in business administration. Residing in Franklin, Tennessee, Chris enjoys tinkering with RC drones, robotics, and anything else that can be programmed to do his bidding. In addition, he is a black belt in Taekwondo and a rabid Star Wars fan, and has a ridiculous collection of Lego. His wife, Barbara, and three children, Caleb, Sydney, and Savannah, are the true joy of his life and proof that not everything has to plug into a wall outlet to be fun.
Hank Preston, CCIE No. 38336, has been with Cisco for five years, starting as a systems engineer and then moving into a data center and cloud architect—focused position working with large enterprise customers on developing their cloud strategy. Prior to Cisco, Hank spent much of his career with partners designing and implementing solutions across IT, not just networking. In fact, before deciding to focus and specialize in the networking space, Hank was a programmer and database designer, spent a good amount of time as a sysadmin managing Microsoft, VMware, and Citrix-based solutions, and has worked in many IT areas. This well-rounded experience gives him a great foundation to work from when discussing “The Cloud,” as like few other technology trends, the cloud touches all areas of IT. Prior to moving into IT, Hank worked in the entertainment industry running lights and sound for musicals, stage plays, and concerts. Having never lost the love of the stage, he still spends time in community theatre productions when time allows.
Steve Wasko is a systems engineer at Pure Storage, one of the fastest-growing companies in Silicon Valley. Combining his years of experience with enterprise applications, networking, and compute gives him a unique perspective at Pure Storage. Prior to Pure Storage, Steve spent the previous 11 years at Cisco involved in application networking, storage networking, cloud, unified computing, and data center virtualization solutions. His recent work there over the past decade led to dozens of large, complex, enterprise implementations of UCS as well as multiple UCS Central deployments and private cloud implementations.
Before Cisco, Steve spent seven years at Microsoft as a senior product manager in the Windows Server division as well as time as a senior technology specialist in the Microsoft Enterprise field. Before that, Steve spent time at IBM and EDS. Past certifications include CNE, MCSE, CCNA, and ITIL. In his spare time, Steve enjoys his family, CrossFit, hunting, and technology.