Datacenter Solutions Architect

Brian R Thorner, Walnut Creek CA *****

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-r-thorner-810624/ Mobile: 925-***-****

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I'm a dynamic and passionate technologist with more than 20 years of sales and pre-sales experience. I thrive on complex architectural design and solving problems creatively through technology. I have an entrepreneurial sales spirit backed by MBA acumen, and I take a methodical, consultative approach towards understanding how I can best benefit my customers. I posses vast competitive and industry knowledge, and excel at overcoming fear & doubt while demonstrating a solution's value-add.

I consider myself a Solutions Architect with deep expertise within the Storage and Server segments, and a strong understanding of the Cloud Native space, including Kubernetes, containers, automation & orchestration, DevOps practices, observability, GCP & AWS.

Work Experience:

Earthly Delights – Oakland, CA

Co-Founder, 03/2020 – present

TOP DEALS: Sold soil to 5 of the Top 10 growers in the Emerald Triangle (Humboldt, Trinity, Mendocino)

Organic soil company helping customers grow better quality cannabis, with less effort, significantly less cost, and less impact on the environment

Responsible for product R&D, sourcing, marketing, packaging, and finance Red Hat – Sunnyvale, CA – acquired by IBM

Sr. Specialist Solutions Architect, 07/2019 – 02/2020

TOP DEALS: Closed $9.5M OpenShift deal with Boeing; closed $3M OpenShift deal with Costco

Pre-sales Solutions Architect focused primarily on Red Hat OpenShift (Kubernetes), but also responsible for the Red Hat OpenStack Platform, Red Hat Ceph Storage, and Red Hat CloudForms

Supported 12 large “strategic” accounts headquartered in the Bay Area, Portland and Seattle

Supported two Specialist Sales Reps, mapped to five Strategic Account Executives Applied Computer Solutions (ACS) – Sunnyvale, CA – acquired by Computacenter Sr. Solutions Architect, 11/2013 – 07/2019

TOP DEALS: Closed $30M+ Arista deal with Comcast; closed $20M+ Cisco deal with Workday; closed

$12M SAP HANA (on HPE Superdome) deal with Callidus Cloud; closed multi-million dollar Pure Storage deals with Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Salesforce, Workday, Comcast, Verizon Wireless, Infor, Shutterfly, and McAfee

Bringing disruptive yet proven technologies to customers

Supported the #1 Pure Storage channel rep in the U.S.

Supported ACS’ parent company Pivot Technologies with emerging technologies, including: Kubernetes, containers & microservices, hybrid / multi-cloud solutions, OpenStack / private cloud, software-defined networks / storage, Object-based storage, distributed file systems and other scale-out solutions NetApp – Sunnyvale, CA

Sr. Systems Engineer, 07/2012 – 10/2013

TOP DEALS: Closed several multi-million dollar NetApp storage deals within the Information Systems & Technology group (IS&T) at Apple with teams in Cupertino, Sunnyvale and the Maiden, NC datacenter

Supported NetApp’s largest Enterprise customer (Apple)

Was dedicated to a business unit with ~60PB of NetApp storage across approximately 300 systems

Oversaw a team of seven Professional Services people (also dedicated to the same business unit)

Responsible for the entire NetApp portfolio including FAS, E-series, and StorageGRID platforms Dell Technologies – Santa Clara, CA – renamed DellEMC Sr. Solutions Architect, 08/2011 – 07/2012

Pre-sales Storage Architect within the Intelligent Data Management (IDM) division

Focused on Large Enterprise “named accounts” throughout the Bay Area and Northern California

Responsible for the entire Dell Storage portfolio: Compellent, EqualLogic and PowerVault MD SAN solutions; FluidFS NAS solutions; CommVault and Symantec Backup & Recovery solutions; and Cloudera-based DX Object Storage platform, supporting private/hybrid cloud solutions Hewlett-Packard – Cupertino, CA – renamed HPE

Storage Solutions Architect, 02/2011 – 08/2011

Pre-sales Solutions Architect within the Enterprise Servers, Storage & Networking (ESSN) division

Focused on SAN solutions for VMware, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange and Oracle

3PAR and P9500 storage system specialist

DataDirect Networks (DDN) – Mountain View, CA

Systems Engineer, 06/2010 – 02/2011

TOP DEALS: Closed $6M GPFS deal with Apple, helping launch Siri

Solutions Architect for cloud, content & rich media environments, specializing in “Big Data” solutions

Focused on StorNext and GPFS file systems, with S2A9900, S2A6620 & SFA10000 storage systems Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) – Santa Clara, CA – renamed Hitachi Vantara Sr. Sales Engineer, 04/2008 – 03/2010

TOP DEALS: Closed $3M Hitachi USP deal with VISA; closed $1.3M Hitachi USP deal with CyberSource

Pre-sales storage systems engineer, architecting Open Systems solutions for: Enterprise applications

(Oracle, SQL, Exchange, VMware), SAN, NAS, Backup & Recovery, Compliance Archiving, Disaster Recovery, Storage Virtualization, and HSM/Tiered Storage, for the #1 sales district in the company

Extremely well versed in Hitachi hardware, software, and appliance/gateway offerings, including: USP V & USP VM, USP & NSC55, AMS2000 and SMS systems, Device Manager, Tuning Manager, Tiered Storage Manager, BlueArc NAS products, CommVault Simpana, and APTARE StorageConsole Technical Marketing Engineer, 01/2006 – 04/2008

Integral member of the Solutions Demonstration Team; performed product & solution demos, both in the EBC and live via WebEx, to predominantly Large Enterprise customers in more than 70 countries

Helped maintain the ‘live’ demo environment, which included Windows, Solaris & AIX hosts, Brocade switches, Hitachi Enterprise & Modular storage arrays, and virtualized EMC, HP & IBM storage

Worked extensively with virtualized CX300 and CX700 CLARiiON systems, as well as a DMX-3000 Symmetrix system; familiar with ECC, Navisphere, SRDF, Timefinder, etc. Redpath Group – San Francisco, CA – acquired by Hewlett-Packard Account Executive, 01/2005 – 09/2005

San Francisco-based “whitebox” storage start-up, who got acquired shortly after I joined PCM, Inc. – Torrance, CA – acquired by Insight Enterprises Account Executive – Corporate Outbound Division, 04/2001 – 04/2004

Supported the #1 team in Business Development

Developed and successfully rolled out a new company business model pairing sales w/ pre-sales engineers

Selected to CEO’s Circle of Excellence (Quarterly Top 10) five times Arthur Andersen Business Consulting – New York, NY – acquired by BearingPoint (KPMG) Senior Consultant, 06/1997 – 07/2000

SAP Consultant specializing in the Sales & Distribution module of versions 4.0B & 4.6B

Responsible for all configuration, training and deliverables pertaining to: Enterprise Structure, Sales, Shipping, Billing, Pricing, Account Determination and Output on several implementations

Worked on projects including: software selections, information systems plans, competitive market analysis, strategic planning, and financial reporting reengineering

Wrote, edited and assisted in designing Proposals (RFPs) and Quotations (RFQs) University of Connecticut – Storrs, CT

Teaching Assistant, Microsoft Office laboratory, 01/1997 – 05/1997 Web page development, Accounting Department, 05/1996 – 09/1996 Graduate Assistant, University External Relations department, 01/1996 – 05/1996 Ames Department Stores – Rocky Hill, CT

Public Relations Coordinator, 05/1993 – 05/1995

Provided investors, shareholders, brokers and equity analysts with detailed financial information concerning the company’s operating performance (e.g., 10K and 10Q releases)

Tracked the company’s stock price and compared with competitor’s market performance

Drafted non-financial media releases in conjunction with community relations projects

Identified, organized and drafted copy for “Ames Video News,” the company’s monthly video newsletter

Researched, wrote, laid-out & edited feature articles for the company’s newsletter (22,000 employees) Education:

Masters of Business Administration, Finance & Management, UConn, Storrs CT, 05/1997 Bachelor of Arts, English, UConn, Storrs CT, 05/1993 (graduated Cum Laude) Honors and Posts Held:

Vice President of Student Affairs, Graduate Business Association, 1996-1997 Integral member of the Dean’s Student Leadership Council, 1995-1996 Golden Key National Honor Society, 1993

Certifications:

Introduction to Kubernetes (LSF158X)

NVIDIA DGX Technical Curriculum

Red Hat Engineer Specialist – Automation (Ansible) Red Hat Engineer Specialist – Cloud Infrastructure (OpenStack) Red Hat Engineer Specialist – Cloud-Native Development Red Hat Engineer Specialist – Container Platform (OpenShift) Red Hat Engineer Specialist – Ceph Storage

Red Hat Engineer Specialist – Virtualization (RHV) Red Hat Delivery Specialist – Container Platform Application Deployment I Red Hat OpenShift SE Accreditation

Red Hat OpenStack Platform SE Accreditation

Pure Storage Certified Architecture Professional – FlashArray Pure Storage Accredited Technical Specialist (PAST) Pure Storage Accredited Sales Expert (PASE)

NetApp Accredited Sales Professional

VMware Certified Professional

Brocade Certified Fabric Designer

Compellent Certified Solutions Architect

Hitachi Data Systems Certified Professional (Enterprise & Modular)

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