Karen Orlando is a Project Leader at the International Technical Support Organization, Tucson Arizona Center. Karen has over 25 years in the IT industry with extensive experience in open systems management, and information and software development of IBM hardware and software storage. She holds a degree in Business Information Systems from the University of Phoenix and is Project Management Professional (PMP), certified since 2005.

Ingo Dimmer is an IBM Senior Certified IT Specialist and a Project Management Institute (PMI) Certified Project Manager Professional in the EMEA IBM System Storage® Advanced Technical Support organization based in Kelsterbach, Germany. Ingo has 17 years of experience in enterprise storage. He provides pre-sales and post-sales technical support focusing on the IBM Power Systems™ platform. His areas of expertise include IBM i external disk and tape storage solutions, I/O performance, virtualization and high availability. Ingo is the author of several IBM technical papers and IBM Redbooks publications.

Detlef Helmbrecht is an Advanced Technical Skills (ATS) IT Specialist working for the IBM Systems & Technology Group. He is located in the European Storage Competence Center (ESCC), Germany. Detlef has over 25 years of experience in IT, performing various roles, including software design, sales, and solution architect. His areas of expertise include high-performance computing (HPC), disaster recovery, archiving, application tuning, and FlashSystem.

Jon Herd is an IBM Storage Technical Advisor working for the European Storage Competence Center (ESCC), Germany. He covers UK and Ireland, advising customers on a portfolio of IBM storage products including FlashSystem products. Jon has been with IBM for more than 40 years and has held various technical roles, including EMEA level support on mainframe servers and technical education development. He holds IBM certifications in Supporting IT Solutions at expert level, and Actualizing IT Solutions experienced level. He is also a certified member of the British Computer Society (MBCS CITP) and the Institute of Engineering and Technology (MIET).

Carsten Larsen is an IBM Certified Senior IT Specialist working for the Technical Services Support organization in IBM Denmark, delivering consultancy services to IBM clients within the storage arena. Carsten joined IBM in 2007, leaving behind a job at HP where he worked with storage arrays and UNIX for 10 years, holding, among others, the HP certification: Master Certified Systems Engineer (MASE). While working for IBM, Carsten obtained Brocade BCFP and BCSD certifications and NetApp NCDA and NCIE certifications. Carsten is the author of several Redbooks publications related to these product certifications.

Matt Levan is an IBM FlashSystem Corporate Solutions Architect. Matt has been involved in IT and Storage Technologies for over 15 years. He has performed innumerable roles, including storage administration, technical support, and solutions architect. Matt spent many years at technology-leading companies, such as Novus Consulting Group, VeriSign, EMC, and Innovative Data Solutions. Matt’s current role is to help worldwide field technical sellers for IBM Flash Storage products. His primary responsibilities are to provide technical sales engineering, competitive winning strategies, and cohesive technical sales solutions to a multitude of IBM internal organizations and IBM clients worldwide.