THOUGHT LEADER AND THINKING PARTNER
2018 European Processor Initiative (EPI): I assisted one of the partners in the EPI consortium with review of proposals and evaluation of critical technology.
2013- Square Kilometer Array (SKA) radio telescope: As a consultant to Cambridge University, I contributed to technical, vendor related, and process oriented aspects of engineering for the SKA.
2014 Department of Science and Technology (DST) South Africa: I evaluated proposals for the DST and assisted them brainstorming about critical initiatives. I brought new areas of focus to the annual CHPC conference.
2011 - 2013 Exascale I/O Workgroup: I led a discussion group which developed influential ideas.
2012-2014, EC Brussels: I served on the committee to create initial blueprints for the Horizon 2020 program’s HPC research initiatives.
COMPUTING INDUSTRY EXECUTIVE
XYRATEX 2010-2013
Xyratex acquired ClusterStor, and I joined as Senior Vice President. I was a member of the CEO’s executive team and directed software engineering, in a team of some 300 engineers, across many shipping and new products, including:
ClusterStor’s product line
Grid RAID for Lustre
Lustre with multi-level security
MERO/Colibri Object Storage System
Enclosure Firmware
I introduced architecture and software development processes, managed outsourcing relationships for software and was involved in the selection of overseas design and manufacturing of hardware.
When it became apparent Xyratex was going to be acquired (by Seagate) I left the company.
SUN MICROSYSTEMS, VICE PRESIDENT 2007-2008
After Cluster File Systems’ acquisition, I joined SUN and reported to the Executive VP of Engineering (John Fowler). I worked with the CEO (Jonathan Schwarz) I worked on strategic projects such as:
the integration of Cluster File Systems into SUN
designing a unified approach to the SUN storage portfolio
ports of products from Linux to Solaris and vice versa
In many of these projects I worked with Jeff Bonwick and Bill Moore. I visited many customers around the world and worked on proposals for HPC installations with Andreas Bechtolsheim. When it became apparent SUN was going to be acquired (by Oracle) I left the company.
CEO FOR 5 OF MY STARTUPS, (AND CTO FOR ONE)
Besides general management, I led the architecture of products, early customer relations and technical marketing for 6 startup companies which I founded or co-founded. We developed products for data storage and parallel computing mostly in the context of high performance computing. I leveraged processes from Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute for software architecture and engineering team management. To gain knowledge of corporate executive skills, I worked with Nicola Phillips as a coach. This became very valuable as the company grew to around 130 people and 100 customers. I wrote many design documents, white papers and course materials and delivered many technical lectures.
ACADEMIC
Academic 2014-: I interact with a few research groups on issues described on the work page. I give some 5 invited lectures annually, and frequently initiate discussions about open issues that have not received enough attention. I organize brainstorming meetings or small workshops. Sometimes I publish refereed papers, and supervise graduate students. I work both with academic and industry researchers.
Senior Systems Scientist 1996-2001 (adjunct until 2006): I took over leadership of the Coda project in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University as a Senior Systems Faculty member. The project and one of my papers won an award, and the origins of two successful commercial products (InterMezzo and Lustre) were established.
Mathematician 1980-1996: Starting with my DPhil supervised by Sir Michael Atiyah, I pursued an academic career until 1997. I had the privilege of meeting and working with many world leading mathematicians and held a permanent position in Oxford. I published papers, had eight PhD students complete their thesis under me. During the last few years I taught computer science lectures and tutorials in Oxford.