Ron Flax

As Vice President and CTO of August Schell, I am involved in many aspects of our business. From sales to technical consulting to management and marketing. As CTO, I lead the way in our company for seeking and learning about new technology products, leveraging those in our business and educating our employees, partners and customers on the interesting and unique ways these technologies can be applied to solving problems.

For the past two and a half years I've spent a tremendous amount of time working with Nicira's Network Virtualization Platform (NVP). Nicira, the company, was acquired last year by VMware and the NVP product has gone through significant changes as VMware has worked to incorporate it into their Software Defined Data Center plans. VMware NSX is the result! VMware is also continuing to support NSX technology in the open source community by providing technical expertise, management and programming talent to the Neutron (formerly Quantum) offering in OpenStack's cloud framework. I have been busy working with VMware NSX to architect solutions that fit both cloud and enterprise customer needs and have designed and built several of these systems over the past year as the software has matured. With my background in Data Center Automation, I have also been keen to incorporate cloud management tools such as vCloud Automation Center and CloudBolt C2 (www.cloudboltsoftware.com), a Cloud Management System, to enable self-service compute on demand solutions that comprise both public and private cloud infrastructure as well as existing enterprise virtualization into a single offering built on top of network virtualization.

I was the Director for Data Center Automation at August Schell. In this role, I provide leadership, technical project oversight and management of the technical resources working on-site during customer deployments of data center automation technologies for August Schell’s clients. I joined August Schell in November 2008 as a Senior Consulting Engineer. Prior to joining August Schell, I spent the prior six years combined working for Opsware and Hewlett-Packard in a similar capacity. While working at customer sites, my team was responsible for deploying over 20 HP-SA Cores and more than 75 HP-SA Satellites on multiple networks world-wide.

Arrived at HP via the Opsware acquisition in 2007. Continued managing multiple Opsware deployments in the federal government.

Managed multiple major deployments of Opsware's Data Center Automation technology in the federal government. Provide technical consulting and engineering support to Opsware Federal Government customers by developing custom solutions where required to enable customers to better automate their data centers. Deliver customer training and guidance during delivery and installation of Opsware systems.

As a member of the Application Server team, I was a customer advocate for the multiple products our team built and delivered. Traveled world-wide selling, deploying and training customers to implement and use Oracle's Application Server products. These included many new mobile solutions. Worked to foster the inception and growth of Oracle Mobile, Oracle's entry into the mobile phone data market. Later joined Oracle's Federal Sales team and worked to sell Application Server products as a Solutions Architect. Developed customer proof of concepts for the City of New York (Wireless Access to Restaurant Inspections, City Events, Lost Vehicle Locator), New York State Agriculture & Markets (Mobile Inspections – Compaq iPAQ Pocket PC 9i Lite application), Sprint Long Distance (Expert Analyzer – Wireless Field Engineer application), Verizon Wireless (Wireless Store Locator, Wireless Corporate Phonebook, Wireless Credit Check for Sales Reps, Wireless Executive Information System for executive staff). Delivered developer level training to customers, partners, Oracle's consulting groups, and Sales Consultants on Oracle's wireless infrastructure products. Worked with Oracle's larger mobile infrastructure license partners and customers including Sprint PCS and Long Distance, AT&T Wireless, Verizon Wireless, Cingular, Compaq, GoAmerica, Telecom Italia, New York City government and others.

Launched private consulting firm to continue developing custom mobile applications. Initially targeting Apple's Newton PDA platform, later Palm's - Palm Pilot PDA product after Steve Jobs returned to Apple and killed the Newton product. Provided high quality software development services in the areas of Mobile Computing, Internet/Intranet Web design, and Web database integration. Hardware Platforms: Windows NT, UNIX, Windows 95 & Macintosh. Software Languages/Environments used: C, C++, Java, JavaScript, Visual Studio, Visual InterDev, HTML, ASP, VBScript & SQL Server, PhotoShop and others. Mobile Platforms: Palm Pilot, Windows CE (both H/PC & Palm PC) & Apple Newton. Client List: Apple Computer, NABISCO, Federal Express, First USA Bank, Moody's Investor Service, Anheuser-Busch, Boeing, KPMG/Peat Marwick, Hill-Rom, Booz•Allen & Hamilton, and US Military.

Helped Apple market and sell A/UX and Macintosh systems into the Federal Government. As a charter member of the Complex Systems team at Apple, led technical bid teams, worked as a liaison between industry and Apple on large opportunities in the Federal market. Later while at Apple I began developing custom solutions and software for the Newton PDA product.

Played bass guitar in a rock n' roll band throughout much of my college career. Also, owned a lighting and sound company providing stage services for small name national acts.