Expertise: SQL Server, SharePoint Server, Microsoft Business Solutions applications (including Axapta, Great Plains, Navision, and Microsoft CRM), and IT practices.

Chris Alliegro analyzes and researches Microsoft infrastructure technologies such as SQL Server and SharePoint Server as well as Microsoft's business applications, such as Dynamics AX and CRM. Chris also writes about Microsoft's own internal IT infrastructure strategies and practices.

Before joining DIRECTIONS, Chris spent six years at Microsoft in several roles, including director of server, network, and telecommunications operations and engineering in Microsoft's IT organization, where his group was responsible for the "design and run" of Microsoft's worldwide data centers. Prior to his work in Microsoft's IT group, Chris managed engineering for MSN's data centers and test labs. In addition, Chris was the Group Program Manager for the Microsoft Commerce Server development team.

Before Microsoft, Chris was a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, where he led projects in operations support systems redesign and network design, and drove implementation of AT&T local telephony services. Prior to joining Bell Labs, Chris conducted research in elementary particle physics at Yale University as a graduate student and post-doctoral fellow.

Chris holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Yale University and a B.S. in Physics from the State University of New York at Binghamton.