John R. Galloway, Jr.
795 Beaver Creek Way
San Jose, CA. 95133
(408) 250-1038
2007
Ingres, Performance Architect 2/07 –
Ingres Corporation was
spun out of Computer Associates in March of 2005 (after being bought by ASK
years earlier). The technology has
its origins from the University of California at Berkeley as the first (and
open source!) relational database released some 30 years ago. A dedicated performance group was
formed to determine the productÕs competitiveness and help guide its
improvement in all areas of performance.
Projects are under way in TPC benchmarking, testing infrastructure, and
subsystem prototypes.
PalmSource, Performance Lead 1/06 - 1/07
Palmsource is the software
division responsible for the PalmOS spun out of Palm, then bought by Access
(Japan) and now with groups (from acquisitions) in France and China. As announced at 3GSM in March, Access
is building a new system for handheld devices and phones providing a PalmOS
like user experience supporting PDAs and smartphones but using a common
Linux/Open-source base plus custom middleware. I was hired as Performance Lead, but changing company plans
required my assistance on more general development and I ended up designing and
implementing volume management (bridging the PalmOS world with Linux HAL/udev)
as well as contributing to global settings mgt, power mgt, and a host of other
odds and ends, while also keeping an eye on performance.
Toasterfish, Founder 11/03 – 11/05
Toasterfish was a self
funded garage startup that I did not manage to really get launched. The idea was to bring a set of high
level robotic modules and infrastructure components (power mgt, drives,
processors, etc) to allow developers to focus on the software that is so badly
needed to achieve the robotics revolution. Robotics is really in the same state as the early 80s
computer industry with parts and vertical systems. What is needed is the same explosion of software that open
systems and low cost hardware made possible. Alas a lack of funding has allowed
this opportunity to slip by. (http://www.toasterfish.com).
Zambeel, Senior Principal Engineer, Fremont
CA 9/01 – 4/03 - then as Storad – 703
Zambeel (now Agami)
developed a fully autonomous policy based cluster NAS built from commodity
components and Linux. This system
offered the first provisionable (ops/s, MB/s, and capacity) NAS product using a
highly scalable fully fault tolerant architecture. I lead the group that designed and implemented the Network
Data Management Protocol (backup/recovery), which had to not only achieve high
performance but adjustable performance in keeping with the policy based
management of the overall product.
Before during and after NDMP I also made major contributions to network
time protocol support, cluster coordination, messaging, disk failure analysis,
and customer support. I walked
away when the company was intentionally imploded to shed debt and reincarnated
as Storad->Agami.
Independent
Consultant – San Jose, CA
11/87 – 9/99
A
contract to rework the bottom half of the Informix database engine to exploit
the Sequent SMP architecture started a unique relationship as a consultant for
Informix core development. During
this period major work was done on many versions of single and multi node
Informix with a focus on storage management, logging, performance, scalability,
and concurrency. The core I/O,
scheduling, and OS layers were the primary focus, but significant work was also
done on utility applications and their interaction with the database. Work for other groups was done as well
including porting, benchmarks (TPC-B/C/D and customer specific) QA, and on-site
support (for the Municipal Court of Seattle, the largest Informix installation
of its day).
The
contract nature of the work with Informix also allowed OEM relationships to
form and contracts were done for MIPS, Siemens, Sequent, Data General and
others typically focusing on performance investigations and enhancements
usually to exploit the features of a newly released model.
During
the last four years of this period I formed a two-person company (Database
Engines) to continue essentially the same work I had been doing but with a
somewhat broader scope. Work with the major DMBS vendors and their OEMs
continued including Informix, Oracle, Sequent, Sun, and Tandem. Contract content was expanded to
include CORBA infrastructure and application server technology (at Oracle).
Opus Systems - Cupertino, CA 9/86 - 10/87
Opus built
Unix-coprocessor boards that plug into PCs, turning the PC into a Unix
workstation. I was responsible for
the graphics package which involved porting new versions of the X Window system
to the Opus dual processor architecture (PC plus coprocessor). The system was successful in small
niche markets requiring the (then) higher performance CPUs, but lost favor once
PCs caught up with the workstation vendors.
AIT – Santa
Clara, CA 10/85 - 4/86
American Information
Technology was founded to build a computer family based on a proprietary 64 bit
microprocessor. I was part of a
team that designed a micro-kernel dealing with memory, processor, and process
management as a service layer under several operating systems (initially Unix).
Several developers, including myself, left less than a year after joining when
we realized that the founders were not capable of creating a corporate
structure to match the technical one we were chartered with delivering
Independent
Consultant & NASA SBIR - San
Jose, CA 8/83 - 9/85
During
this period I did a major project for GE-Calma in addition to a small project
for Synapse and took an extended vacation in Nepal. The Calma project was to
redefine and then implement (a port of) their proprietary user level network
package on Data General systems.
Binary compatibility was maintained with both old (16 bit) and new (32
bit) users concurrently on the same system. The system worked well and was implemented on several
platforms.
In
1984 I received a $50k NASA SBIR grant for research into a new file system
architecture (what today would be termed a disk level object store). The
prototype work went well and verified excellent performance and reliability
gains, but required too much memory for current DRAM prices and required a
significant departure from SCSI, which did not seem achievable in 1984.
Synapse Computer
– Milpitas, CA 7/81 -
7/83
Synapse Computer was founded to build and market
systems developed specifically for the OLTP market. The system pioneered a microprocessor based cache coherent
symmetric shared memory design very much like today's Sequent Symmetry
series. I was a major contributor
to the overall architecture and designed and implemented the kernel file system
and associated memory mapped file I/O system. The system was particularly
innovative in its SMP hardware and layered software. The later which placed a RDBMS below the user visible OS
layer. Thus the kernel file system
was essentially the I/O subsystem of the database. An initial revision of the system was completed and
performed extremely well but targeting mission critical OLTP as our first
market proved to be a poor choice and the company never gained sufficient
traction to sustain itself.
Data General –
Westboro MA 11/75 - 6/81
At DG I worked on 3 operating systems and a new
architecture. I started by writing device drivers but quickly became one of the
senior members of a group developing the Advanced Operating System. I was
primarily responsible for all aspects of I/O (controller interface definition,
file systems, user libraries, etc.)..
After AOS I joined a team developing a new 32 bit architecture & OS
(a precursor to the eventual MV line) and completed my five years at DGC as the
technical lead of a group doing a new realtime OS for a new line of
microprocessors.
Case Institute of
Technology – Cleveland OH : 9/71 - 8/75
At Case I declined to follow the conventional
Computer Engineering curriculum. Instead I entered the Undergraduate Scholars
program which essentially allowed me to complete a masters level of courses and
projects in about a 60/40 HW/SW mix while getting only a BS in return (it
seemed like a good idea at the time!).
Then of course I went into software not hardware.