A Conversation with Ken Birman

Abstract

Ken Birman discusses the origins of cloud computing.

Ken Birman, who joined CS in 1981, exemplifies the successful synergy of research and entrepreneurial activities. His research in distributed systems led to his founding ISIS Distributed Systems, Inc., in 1988, which developed software used by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Swiss Exchange, the French Air Traffic Control system, the AEGIS warship, and others. He started two other companies, Reliable Network Solutions and Web Sciences LLC.

This entrepreneurship has in turn generated new research ideas and has also led to Ken’s advising various organizations on distributed systems and cloud computing, including the French Civil Aviation Organization, the northeastern electric power grid, NATO, the US Treasury, and the US Air Force.

Ken has received several awards for his research, among them the IEEE Tsutomu Kanai Award for his work on trustworthy computing, the Cisco “Technology Visionary” award, and the ACM SIGOPS Hall of Fame Award. He also has written two successful texts.

Here, Ken and interviewer Robbert Van Renesse discuss the origins of cloud computing.

Running Time: 46 min. http://hdl.handle.net/1813/41207