SEATTLE, WA -- (Marketwire) -- 02/03/10 -- Opscode, Inc., a cloud infrastructure automation company, today announced the appointment of John Willis as the company's new Vice President of Training & Services. In this capacity, Willis will be responsible for leading the training, evangelism, and professional services functions within the company.

"John has done more to bridge the traditional Enterprise Systems Management space and the emerging Cloud Infrastructure world than anyone I know. He has a unique position in the industry and is widely respected for his deep technology, management, and market expertise. John will play a critical role in driving adoption of Chef and advancing our mission to bring infrastructure automation to the masses," said Jesse Robbins, CEO and co-founder of Opscode. "It's not every day someone of John's caliber comes along. He has more than three decades working in the IT trenches managing complex infrastructures, John understands firsthand the Opscode vision and through his contributions, we will be well positioned to succeed in the market."

Willis has worked in the IT management industry for more than 30 years. Prior to joining Opscode, Willis founded Gulf Breeze Software, an award winning IBM business partner, which specializes in deploying Tivoli technology for the enterprise. A leading infrastructure management architect in the enterprise systems management category, Willis has trained more than 10,000 people on IBM Tivoli products around the world and is recognized as an industry expert in enterprise systems management and monitoring. Willis has authored six IBM Redbooks for IBM on enterprise systems management and was the founder and chief architect at Chain Bridge Systems.

John is known internationally for his IT Management and Cloud blog, JohnMWillis.com, and is the co-host of Redmonk's "IT Management Guys" podcast series as "Cloud Cafe." Willis is also an organizer of the wildly successful CloudCamp & OpsCamp unconference movements.

"I've been a fan of Opscode ever since Chef was first released last January," said John Willis, Vice President of Training & Services for Opscode. "Opscode has taken an entirely innovative approach to automating infrastructure by writing code rather than running commands. Because the cloud infrastructure of tomorrow will be in constant flux, a new generation of tools will be required to efficiently manage these incredibly dynamic environments. I'm thrilled to be working with some of the brightest minds in infrastructure to bring this vision to fruition."

About Opscode

Opscode was co-founded in 2008 by Jesse Robbins and Adam Jacob, along with other notable technologists who have helped to shape today's Cloud infrastructure. Opscode enables companies of all sizes to build and maintain scalable, fully automated infrastructure based on community best practices and expertise. The company is privately held and headquartered in Seattle's historic Pioneer Square neighborhood. More information can be found at www.opscode.com