Hello SQL Server Community!

The Global Release Services team within the SQL Server organization is a central team providing a variety of services to one of the biggest development organizations in the world. We drive a lot of processes and business decisions which significantly impact both, our internal operations as well as our customers world wide. This blog is intended to share some of this information with you straight from the source, drive interaction as well as to solicit your feedback on particular topics for us to make better decisions.

The following SQL Server teams are represented in this blog:

Release Management: A team of Program Managers who provide project management services to the SQL Server organization for future products we are working on. This team is also deeply involved in any development processes, practices and tools we drive through our ~ 1000 employee organization. This team is led by Eddie Fong

Sustaining Engineering Release Management: A team of Program Managers who drive servicing releases for already shipping SQL Server products and technologies in close cooperation with our support organizations. This team also constantly works on refining and improving our servicing experience for our customers. This team is led by Babak Ahmadi

Release Customer Program Team: A team of program managers coordinating our customer Technology Adoption programs (TAP) and Community Technology Preview programs (CTP). This team is led by Ajay Manchepalli.

Localization Team: A team of project managers and engineers responsible for translating our SQL Server products and technologies into the languages of our biggest target markets. This team is led by Iris Orriss

Regional Teams: A team of Program Managers and testers located in strategic geographic locations around the world to help us gather regional customer feedback and build better products suited to the needs of an international market place. This team is led by Rebecca Laszlo

Community and Samples Team: A team of Program Managers and Developers in charge to foster SQL Server’s community efforts and engagements as well as to generate SQL Server samples in a community driven manner. This team is led by Ed Lehman.

My name is Matthias Berndt and I am a Group Program Manager in the SQL Server organization. I have been around databases for the last 20 years. I started to work for Microsoft in 1992 and have been with the SQL Server team in Redmond, USA since 1996.

We look forward to blogging with you!