Hi! I’m Brian Kroth.
This is my simple Github Pages site I’m using to host little blog articles on techie related things and whatnot.
Work
I’m a Principal Research Software Development Engineer (RSDE) at Microsoft’s Gray Systems Lab, an applied research group inside Azure Data. I also have a version of this for more internal topics (and almost certainly less polished).
I’m based in Madison, WI where I have the pleasure to work with and mentor a collection of professors and students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in order to analyze, develop, and eventually deploy new systems technologies, techniques, policies, etc. into products Azure Data.
Prior to that I was a Systems Administrator at the College of Engineering at UW-Madison, where I was also a student in the department of Computer Sciences. I also worked on the setting up the CloudLab testbed site there.
You can find my (probably out of date) CV here.
Interests
I’ve long been primarily a Linux person, but am a bit of a jack of all trades after more than two decades in industry.
I’m interested in a variety of things, including:
- Systems
- Networking
- Virtualization
- Storage
- Power
- Performance
- Benchmarking
I’ve dabbled in a variety of these areas with a touch of “ML for Systems” in the last number of years. But in general, I like going deep, measure first, and using those insights to make things more stable, efficient, fast, etc.
I am one of the original developers and maintainers of the MLOS project and also help maintain benchbase. Together we use these to provide benchmarking and autotuning as a service within Azure Data.
Personal
Outside of work, I’m an active geek and parent. I enjoy sci-fi, reading, a variety of podcasts, biking, running, hiking, camping, canoeing, motorcycles, cooking, music, cosplay, and more.