When EMC bought out scale-out storage systems maker Isilon in 2010 for over $2 billion dollars, co-founder Sujal Patel took it upon himself to make sure that the company remains successful under the new ownership.  Two years later, he’s leaving Isilon after a job well done.

“Everyone knew this was coming. Sujal is a startup guy at heart. He made a two year commitment to EMC and lived up to that,” Wikibon’s chief analyst and co-founder Dave Vellante said. “He had an incredible exit with Isilon, taking it to IPO then selling to EMC for more than $2B. He’s young, smart, talented and there’s no doubt his fingerprints will be on other startups down the road – either as investor or perhaps even as an active manager again.”

Patel, a serial entrepreneur, has invested in a dozen startups in the past 12 months. Two more deals are expected to close sometime next month, and he didn’t dismiss the possibility that he may start a new venture sometime down the road. For the time being however, he intends to take a break from the business world to become a full-time dad.

Patel’s departure is made more notable by a very similar executive change over at SAP. Sybase CEO John Chen also stepped down this week, after having served 15 years at company and leading the merger with SAP.

Chen was responsible for transforming Sybase from a fledgling database vendor to a successful mobile solutions provider, but it seems that SAP’s management has not been too appreciative of this fact. The executive was not offered a seat on the board, unlike SuccessFactor founder founder Lars Dalgaard  and Ariba CEO Bob Calderoni.

There’s been a lot of executive-level shuffling going on in Silicon Valley lately. Only yesterday Google Apps backup provider hired Jeff Erramouspe to serve as its chief revenue officer, a newly created position filled in response to the startup’s rapid growth in recent months.