<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hello everyone, </span></p><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><font class=""><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Starting in April 2017, we will be taking a number of projects related to services we are offering "in the cloud" and creating a new team, </span><span class="" style="font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wikimedia Cloud Services</span><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (</span><span class="" style="font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">WMCS</span><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">), to support a more unified approach to these efforts. The sub-teams currently managing these efforts - the Labs sub-team within the Wikimedia Technical Operations team and the Tool Labs support sub-team from the Community Tech team - will be merged to form this new team.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wikimedia Cloud Services will be a new team in the Technology Department of the Wikimedia Foundation reporting to Victoria as the Foundation's Chief Technology Officer (CTO). This team is being formed based on a proposal made by the members of the Labs sub-team and the Tool Labs support sub-team.</span></p><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The new team will be managed by Bryan Davis, who previously managed the Reading Infrastructure and Community Tech teams before helping found the Tool Labs support team in 2016. Chase Pettet, formerly manager of the Labs team, is taking on the new role of Lead Operations Engineer. Andrew Bogott, Yuvaraj Pandian, and Madhumitha Viswanathan are transferring in their existing roles from the former Labs team.</span></p><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><font class=""><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The WMCS team will maintain and extend the existing Wikimedia Labs infrastructure as a service </span><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">platform, the Tool Labs platform as a service</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_as_a_service" class="" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></a><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> project, and many additional supporting technologies used in the cloud environment. The new team is excited to continue supporting developers who create innovative solutions to further the free knowledge movement, and will continue to partner with the larger Wikimedia volunteer community to manage the physical and virtual resources that power the environment and provide technical support to volunteer developers and other Wikimedia Cloud Services users.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This new team will focus on three areas of ongoing support and improvement:</span></p><ul class="" style="margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><li dir="ltr" class="" style="list-style-type: disc; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Providing a stable and efficient hosting platform</span></div></li><li dir="ltr" class="" style="list-style-type: disc; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Creating and maintaining services that empower the creation and operation of tools</span></div></li><li dir="ltr" class="" style="list-style-type: disc; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Delivering technical and community support for users of the products</span></p></li></ul><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><font class=""><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This new team will soon begin working on rebranding efforts intended to reduce confusion about the products they maintain. </span><a href="https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Labs_labs_labs" class="" style="text-decoration: none;"><span class="" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></a><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> This refocus and re-branding will take time to execute, but the team is looking forward to the challenge.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><font class=""><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stay tuned for more announcements, and as always Community members are encouraged to participate on <a href="mailto:labs-l@lists.wikimedia.org" class="">labs-l@lists.wikimedia.org</a>,</span><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/832/" class="" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none;"> </a>Phabricator <font color="#1155cc" class=""><u class=""> </u></font></span><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and the #wikimedia-labs IRC channel.</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thank you,</span></p><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 10pt;"><span class="" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Victoria & Wes</span></p></body></html>