The convocation of the IT@Intel blog

posted by Marty Menard on October 09, 2006

Welcome to our Blog! Ok, ok, so you are already asking, who am I and why should you care about hearing or sharing anything from or with me? My name is Marty Menard and I ‘m the director for high performance computing at Intel. One of the more interesting and rewarding parts of my job is leading the IT@Intel program, which focuses on building collegial relationships with other IT shops. We hold over 500 events with the IT industry per year, including meeting with individual CIOs and their staffs to figure out how to improve the industry and Intel. More about me and my role at Intel in a minute.

My son began his college career last month at San Diego State University (SDSU, go Aztec’s!) and the leadership team called a convocation to invite the students, professors, and families to participate in the beginning of the (hopefully!) four year journey for the incoming freshman at SDSU. The president of the university described this event as ‘a beginning’ and ‘a time to learn, to share, and to discuss.” A Convocation (Latin ‘calling together’, translating the Greek ecclesia is a group of people formally assembled for a special purpose.

I was struck by how similar the IT@Intel blog is to a convocation. The intent of this blog and our writers is to create discussion; we intend to share what we know; and finally learn from others. The idea of writing blogs by the CIO staff and the key IT’ers is very aligned with the Total Quality Management principles we follow at Intel and within IT. We believe that by holding conversations with others we can share, learn and grow. There are key areas where we consider ourselves to be best in class in the IT industry. And there are areas where we are not best in class. By sharing data and insight, we learn where we stand and can focus on the areas that need the greatest attention.

So, welcome to our blog. I hope you join us regularly, comment and discuss your thoughts and ideas, and find this a virtual location to learn and share.

Finally today, a short bio on myself.

I’ve been at Intel 23 years, today I work for the CIO, John (JJ) Johnson. I’ve been an IT employee for six of these years, but at Intel everyone is expert at Intel, it just took me 17 years to find my way into the IT org! Along my career, I’ve worked in our manufacturing, HR, processor and embedded businesses. My scope, in terms of financials is: 700 employees operating in 50 countries, $100 million in direct spending and $200 million in capital. In our high performance computing environment we have more than 60,000 servers that support our 22,000 engineers 24 x 7 x 365. Earlier I mentioned that there are areas where we believe we are best-in-class. Our server utilization is >60% and we expect to hit 70% by the end of 2006. Our goal for 2007 is 80% and, even in this large environment, believe 90% is possible. Do you have any stories to share about your utilization and how you got exemplinary results? I’d be interested in hearing more about this.

Good Computing,
Marty

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