Yoram Ofek Explained

Yoram Ofek (Hebrew: יורם אופק; September 25, 1950 – December 9, 2009) was a Marie Curie Chair and full professor in the Information Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of Trento, Italy. He was the inventor of 45 US and European patents^[1] and published more than 120 journal and conference papers.^[2] He invented several novel architectures for networking, computing and storage. He was elected IEEE Fellow in 2006 for his contributions to switching, scheduling and synchronization in data networks.^[3]

Education and career

Ofek was born in Kibbutz Ramat David, Israel. He received his B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign.

In 1979 Yoram Ofek was a researcher at Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, and in 1982 at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. In 1987 he became research staff member at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center. In 1998 Prof. Ofek and Prof. Mario Baldi^[4] founded Synchrodyne Networks, a company that developed switching technology for the Internet.^[5]

He became the Marie Curie Chair and full professor at the University of Trento in 2004, where he also taught graduate and master level courses.

Research

Prof. Ofek was directing IP-FLOW (a recursive acronym for "IP FLows over Optical and Wireless"). The focus of IP-FLOW was the flow control of IP packets over the Internet.^[6]

Awards

• IEEE Fellow.
• IEEE ICC-007 ONS Best Paper Award: "Scalable Switching Testbed not 'Stopping' the Serial Bit Stream," (with D. Agrawal, M. Baldi, M. Corra, G. Fontana, G. Marchetto, V. T. Nguyen, D. Severina, T. H. Truong).^[7]
• IEEE ICC-2009 - Best Paper Award (First International Workshop on Green Communications): "Time for a 'Greener' Internet," (with Mario Baldi).^[8]
• IBM Outstanding Innovation Award for his invention of the MetaRing architecture^[9] and his contributions to the SSA storage products.
• IBM Research Division Award for developing the PARIS high-speed networking prototype system.
• Four IBM Invention Achievement Awards.
• Three IBM External Honors.
• Three commendations of excellence for his research at Rafael.

Articles about some of Yoram Ofek's inventions

Pipeline forwarding
Time-driven switching
Fractional lambda switching
Time-driven priority

External links

• Prof. Ofek's homepage at the University of Trento
• Remembering Yoram Ofek
• Interview with Yoram Ofek (Italian)

Notes and References

1. Web site: Ofek . Yoram. Patents. 30 January 2015.
2. Web site: Ofek. Yoram. Publications. 30 January 2015.
3. Web site: IEEE Fellows Elected as of January 1, 2006. 20 October 2014.
4. Web site: Mario. Baldi. Mario Baldi's page at the Technical University of Torino. 29 January 2015.
5. Web site: Synchrodyne Networks, Technology Perspective. 19 October 2014.
6. Web site: IP-FLOW homepage at the University of Trento. 30 January 2015.
7. Book: Ofek. Yoram. 2007 IEEE International Conference on Communications . Scalable Switching Testbed not "Stopping" the Serial Bit Stream . 2269–2274. 10.1109/ICC.2007.381. 2007. 978-1-4244-0353-0. 17686918 .
8. Book: Ofek. Yoram. 2009 IEEE International Conference on Communications Workshops . Time for a "Greener" Internet . 1–6. 10.1109/ICCW.2009.5208036. 2009. 978-1-4244-3437-4. 34374340 .
9. Ofek. Yoram. Overview of the MetaRing Architecture. Computer Networks and ISDN Systems. March 1994. 26. 6–8. 817–830. 10.1016/0169-7552(94)90047-7. 10.1.1.98.5064.