The Mark Scranton Group offers clients a unique mix of Informix education and consulting, specializing in IDS and XPS engine tuning, configuration and capacity planning. Bringing 15+ years of focused Informix experience, clients benefit from in-depth, educationally-based consulting, as well as “real world” classroom experiences. Specializes in the delivery of Informix custom classes including System Administration, Database Management, and Internal Architectures.

Senior Informix Team Lead including advisory consulting role for very difficult customer issues. Also responsible for the development and delivery of courseware/classes for clients. Automated one of the core customer consulting activities by developing the “IDS Sanity Check”, a complete architecture/methodology for the consistent, accurate, and repeatable health checks of customer databases, allowing “engine scoring”, the establishment of baseline measurements, load testing, and many other functions essential to the clients database engines.

Traveled the world extensively as the technical speaker for the Informix Sales Enablement Team, providing technical presentations and training for customers, user groups, seminars and product rollouts. This included IDS 10.x - the largest Informix release since the IBM acquisition of Informix. I also had the privilege of working very closely with IDS development team on new features and feasibility of customer requests.

Consistently rated a top instructor based on customer evaluations. Frequently requested for consulting engagements for advanced performance/configuration customer situations, including a 1-day troubleshooting assignment that developed into a highly visible and successful 6-month engagement. Frequent speaker at conferences worldwide, including an 18-city United States tour to speak with Informix clients following IBM acquisition. Selected into the "Technical Leader Resource" program for exceptional technical resources targeted as IBM technical leaders. Helped shape the future of the Informix products as a member of the International Informix User Group (IIUG) Board of Directors. Responsible for developing and delivering curriculum, including the "Informix Academy" and "Informix Masters Series" for advanced technology learners. Invited to create test questions for the "IDS 7, 9, and 10 Certification Exam". Solo presenter for new release webcast(s) for IDS 9.4 and 10, as well as webcasts on new product releases for clients worldwide.