Editing Governance/ProjectLeadElectionsJan2014 (section)

==== Jason S. Schafer - Schneider (Un-opposed) ====
	 	 	
For many years, the worlds of physical hardened datacenter have existed mostly separate from the IT environment contained therein, despite their codependence. “This is the year that facilities and IT will finally converge,” we have heard countless times. The truth is, however, that while intentions have been good, any innovation and development of new technologies on either side of the fence have lacked true collaboration at the level required to actually make this goal a reality.

Jason has extensive experience in the mission critical datacenter industry in the areas of construction, architecture, design, and testing while at the same time keeping in mind the importance of the operation and maintenance of the datacenter that cannot be understated or taken for granted. Additionally, it is paramount that the future of datacenter operations, maintenance, and design not only include the “hard” facilities backend but that the IT environment should also coexist.

Finally, the growing role of software and data analytics will also need to be intertwined with design, operations, maintenance, and IT as it plays a larger role in fault tolerance, continued uptime, and business continuity.

These are all tenets on which Jason bases his future outlook on datacenters; and along with his experience, uniquely position him as a prime candidate for the project lead for the Datacenter working group with the Open Compute Project.