How the Tampa Bay Rays leverage technology

[#1]

By Calvin Zito, @HPStorageGuy  

A couple of weeks ago I had a podcast that I had done with Andrew Friedman who manages baseball operations for the Tampa Bay Rays.  I was honored to visit the Rays in St. Pete's with my son Cameron.  My intentions were that I'd be doing podcasts or videos with Juan Ramirez, the Senior Director of IT for the Rays. 

Juan took my son and I on a tour of Tropicana Field including stops in the Rays clubhouse, the stingray pool where Cameron got to feed the stingrays and the field for batting practice, where Cameron got to meet several players including visiting star Josh Hamilton.  We had an incredible time! In fact, we spent so much time taking in the stadium (followed by fantastic seats at the game) that we ran out of time to do the podcast.  I was a bit embarrassed by that since that was my reason for going to Tampa Bay but never fear, Juan and I did a couple of podcasts via Skype. 

In part 1, Juan and I talk about how the Rays and Tropicana Field utilizes technology to drive their business.  I remember when I was with Juan at Tropicana Field, he mentioned that almost everything at the stadium - including lights, AC, radio and TV broadcasting, HD video on the large video screens, and more - go through the network he manages.  But from Juan's perspective, the most important thing he does is help baseball operations to put the best team on the field that they can. It's a very interesting look at how a professional sports team uses IT to their advantage.   

Here's the podcast with Juan:

If you rather download this as a podcast, right click here and save the MP3 file. You can also subscribe to my podcast on iTunes - go to the iTunes store and search for "Around the Storage Block" or you can open this link and click on the "View in iTunes" button under my picture.

I've already uploaded part 2 so if you want to get a head start on that, subscribe to my podcast on iTunes and you can hear the conversation with Juan.  For the rest of you, I'll post part 2 either late tonight or tomorrow morning.  In it, Juan talks about why they picked HP 3PAR (after moving away from another storage vendor's SAN).