It’s not often I come across three interesting notes in the same day but here’s another. Earlier today the Jim Gray Systems Lab was announced and it will be lead by long time database pioneer David DeWitt. This is great to see for a large variety of reasons. First of all it’s wonderful to see the contribution of Jim Gray to the entire industry recognized in the naming of this new lab. Very appropriate. Second I’m really looking forward to working more closely with DeWitt. This is going to be fun.

This is “earned” in that Madison has been contributing great database developers to the industry for what seems like forever – I’ve probably worked with more Madison graduates over the years than any other single school. It’s good to see a systems focused research lab opened up there.

It’s also good to see this project come together. I was involved in earlier discussions on this project some years back and, although we didn’t find a way to make it happen then, I really liked the idea. I’m glad others were successful in doing the hard work to get this project to reality.

· University of Wisconsin at Madison News: http://www.news.wisc.edu/15097

· DeWitt Interview (from above): http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2008/apr08/04-23DeWitt.mspx

· Server and Tools Business News Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/stbnewsbytes/archive/2008/04/23/an-addition-to-the-sql-server-team.aspx

· Information Week: http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/database/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=2PMY2VDAXNZHSQSNDLOSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=207401497

–jrh

James Hamilton, Windows Live Platform Services
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