{"id":26833,"date":"2018-06-19T22:16:24","date_gmt":"2018-06-19T22:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.microsoft.com\/?p=409008"},"modified":"2018-06-19T22:16:24","modified_gmt":"2018-06-19T22:16:24","slug":"geekwires-geek-of-the-week-microsofts-raghu-ramakrishnan-geeks-out-on-data-how-we-use-it-and-secure-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/06\/19\/geekwires-geek-of-the-week-microsofts-raghu-ramakrishnan-geeks-out-on-data-how-we-use-it-and-secure-it\/","title":{"rendered":"GeekWire\u2019s \u2018Geek of the Week: Microsoft\u2019s Raghu Ramakrishnan geeks out on data, how we use it and secure it\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure id=\"attachment_427239\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-427239 size-full-width\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/geekwires-geek-of-the-week-microsofts-raghu-ramakrishnan-geeks-out-on-data-how-we-use-it-and-secure-it.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"630\" height=\"473\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Raghu Ramakrishnan has been at Microsoft for six years. (Photo courtesy of Raghu Ramakrishnan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s been a professor and a chief scientist, a founder, a technical fellow and a chief technology officer. Through it all, Raghu Ramakrishnan has been focused on the data.<\/p>\n<p>Ramakrishnan is Microsoft\u2019s CTO for Data and our latest Geek of the Week. In his six years at the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant,\u00a0Ramakrishnan founded the CISL applied research team and led the development of Azure Data Lake, Microsoft\u2019s exabyte-scale storage and analytics platform.<\/p>\n<p>Prio to Microsoft,\u00a0Ramakrishnan spent 22 years as a professor at the\u00a0University of Wisconsin-Madison, in addition to\u00a0being founder and CTO of QUIQ, an early online crowd-sourced question-answering company.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullquote\"><span class=\"icon-quotes-left\" \/>\u00a0I think about what\u2019s around the bend in the space of data \u2014 the trends in how we\u2019re capturing data, how we are using it \u2026<span class=\"icon-quotes-right\" \/><\/aside>\n<p>\u201cMy early work in database systems has influenced query optimization in commercial database systems and the design of window functions in SQL:1999, and has received the SIGMOD Test-of-Time Award for work on clustering and the ICDT Test-of-Time Award for work on nearest-neighbor indexing,\u201d\u00a0Ramakrishnan said. \u201cI\u2019ve also written the widely used text \u2018Database Management Systems.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In his six years at Yahoo! as a chief scientist,\u00a0Ramakrishnan\u00a0led, among other things, the science teams for major initiatives, including the CORE project that was the foundation for Yahoo\u2019s personalized portal pages.<\/p>\n<p>Learn more about this week\u2019s Geek of the Week,\u00a0Raghu Ramakrishnan:<\/p>\n<p><strong>What do you do, and why do you do it?<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cI think about what\u2019s around the bend in the space of data \u2014 the trends in how we\u2019re capturing data, how we are using it, the concerns around appropriate data use and regulatory changes, and the implications for data platforms and technologies. In SQL Server and Azure, Microsoft has industry leading data management and cloud platforms, and we need to constantly up our game to ensure that these are state of the art.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s the single most important thing people should know about your field?<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cIncreasingly, many aspects of the world we live in are reflected in data that we gather to operate or improve aspects of that world. This data is at the very heart of the AI revolution that we now hear about everywhere \u2014 you can\u2019t apply machine learning without data to learn from \u2014 and database systems are the key to securing this data and ensuring that policies for appropriate access and usage are indeed enforced.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Where do you find your inspiration?<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cThe fact that data is center-stage in our world today means that we need to build powerful and dependable systems to secure and interpret that data. In a very real sense, your most private data (and mine) are protected by data management systems. So, it\u2019s more than bits and bytes at stake here, it\u2019s about the most important aspects of our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s the one piece of technology you couldn\u2019t live without, and why?<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cThe internet. It\u2019s how I learn what\u2019s going on in the world, it\u2019s how I call people more often than not, it\u2019s how my entertainment is delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s your workspace like, and why does it work for you?<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cOpen, informal, good coffee \u2014 what more could you ask for? Oh yes, the only professional team that\u2019s community owned. Say cheese.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_427241\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-427241 size-full-width\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/geekwires-geek-of-the-week-microsofts-raghu-ramakrishnan-geeks-out-on-data-how-we-use-it-and-secure-it-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"630\" height=\"473\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Raghu Ramakrishnan\u2019s allegiance to the Green Bay Packers is evident in his office decor and in some of his answers to our questionnaire. (Photo courtesy of Raghu Ramakrishnan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Your best tip or trick for managing everyday work and life. (Help us out, we need it.)<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cWork hard, but don\u2019t mistake work for life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mac, Windows or Linux?<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cWindows or Linux.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kirk, Picard, or Janeway?<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cPicard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Transporter, Time Machine or Cloak of Invisibility?<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cTransporter. Too many back-to-back meetings in different buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>If someone gave me $1 million to launch a startup, I would \u2026<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cTell them I\u2019m too busy to think about a startup.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>I once waited in line for \u2026<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cAn autograph from <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/William_Henderson_(American_football)\">William Henderson<\/a>, a guy who made his living by creating lanes for <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ahman_Green\">Ahman Green<\/a> to run through.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Your role models:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cSchool teachers. The best ones change the lives of our children when they\u2019re most in need of direction, and I value what they do enormously\u2014and I\u2019m humbled by how much the best of them put into their work, regardless of how shamefully they are underpaid.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Greatest game in history:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=oe0XChUkWgU\">The Ice Bowl<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Best gadget ever:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cThe wheel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>First computer:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cFingers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Current phone:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cAndroid.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Favorite app:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.microsoft.office.outlook&amp;hl=en_US\">Outlook<\/a> (seriously!)\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Favorite cause:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.againstmalaria.com\/\">Against Malaria Foundation<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Most important technology of 2018:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cGDPR support.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Most important technology of 2020:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cTransporters.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Final words of advice for your fellow geeks:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cDif-tor heh smusma.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Twitter:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/raghurwi?lang=en\">@raghurwi<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>LinkedIn:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/raghu-ramakrishnan-0059733\/\">Raghu Ramakrishnan<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Raghu Ramakrishnan has been at Microsoft for six years. (Photo courtesy of Raghu Ramakrishnan) He\u2019s been a professor and a chief scientist, a founder, a technical fellow and a chief technology officer. Through it all, Raghu Ramakrishnan has been focused on the data. Ramakrishnan is Microsoft\u2019s CTO for Data and our latest Geek of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[86,50],"class_list":["post-26833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-microsoft-news","tag-in-the-news","tag-recent-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}