A Change in Direction

In 2008 my career took a sudden unexpected turn into the world of MySQL when I was offered a job at Sun.  Since then MySQL and it's forks have been a big part of my life.  The whole community (I mean the people, not the companies) around MySQL are part of what really drove me.

Unfortunately to me something has changed.  I am not exactly sure what it is, but I am sure it is not just me because others have expressed it in conversation too.  I wasn't enjoying things as much as I used to and for several reasons, some related to this, I have been quite ill.

Recently I was approached by HP's new cloud division who wanted me to work on OpenStack.  It seemed the perfect opportunity to start something new inside a new vibrant community.  That is not to say I have anything against my previous employer, SkySQL.  They are doing a fantastic job with a great vision and I wish them well in the future.

So, I have been working on OpenStack's Core Infrastructure team for a week and a half now and so far I am loving it.  The community is very welcoming and it is refreshing to see a development model similar to the one used in Drizzle so widely adopted.  I look forward to diving deeper into the OpenStack world and blogging about it as I go.