Pete told me a few weeks ago that he was leaving Red Hat (where he had been VP of Online Services and a key driver for Red Hat's RHX service) to move back to the Bay Area, but he didn't say where he was going. He did coyly ask me one time what I thought of Zmanda, but he was so sneaky about it that I didn't grok the import of his question. Well, as it turns out, Pete had good reason to ask about Zmanda, as today Pete told me a few weeks ago that he was leaving Red Hat (where he had been VP of Online Services and a key driver for Red Hat’s RHX service) to move back to the Bay Area, but he didn’t say where he was going. He did coyly ask me one time what I thought of Zmanda, but he was so sneaky about it that I didn’t grok the import of his question.Well, as it turns out, Pete had good reason to ask about Zmanda, as today he was announced as Zmanda’s new CEO. This is a great move for Pete, and a great addition for Zmanda. Pete’s background is stellar:Prior to joining Zmanda, Pete held executive leadership positions in major business units at Red Hat, most recently as vice president of Online Strategy and Operations. From 1998 to 2006, he served as vice president of Red Hat’s Global Learning Services (GLS), leading the global teams that established Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) as the premier Linux certification and one of Red Hat’s most successful brands. GLS today is the world’s largest provider of Linux and open source training and certification, one of the five largest business lines in all of open source, and Red Hat’s largest line of business after its Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system. Prior to Red Hat, Pete managed professional services at Seagate Software’s network and storage management group (acquired by Veritas) and consulted for network hardware, network management software, and telecommunications companies. He holds degrees from Yale and Duke and has engaged in venture advising and board service in software, learning and energy.Zmanda’s current CEO, Chander Kant, will move to the CTO role. Zmanda provides open source data protection software (based on the Amanda project), and should benefit from Pete’s experience executing in the competitive operating system market. Congrats, Pete! Open Source