Biographical sketches of authors

Peter Gayek IBM Global Services, P.O. Box 12195, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, 27709 (pwgayek@us.ibm.com). Mr. Gayek is a Senior IT Architect in the e-Technology Center, which provides worldwide technology and development services for offerings within IBM Global Services (IGS). He received a B.S. degree in computer science from Cornell University in 1982. Much of his career at IBM has focused on the design and development of networking products, including satellite controllers, local-area network (LAN) bridges and gateways, routers, and switches. He also did extensive standards and architecture work on the integration of Systems Network Architecture (SNA) and Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) networking. Since joining IGS, Mr. Gayek has designed the architecture for a number of solutions and new services in support of both e-business Hosting and the wider Global Service Delivery community. One of his areas of specialty has been content and application distribution, and he served as the lead architect of the content serving utility discussed in this paper.

Richard Nesbitt IBM Global Services, P.O. Box 12195, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, 27709 (nesbittr@us.ibm.com). Mr. Nesbitt is a senior software engineer in the IBM Special Events Web Solutions group. During his career at IBM, he has worked on projects such as IBM's Internet Connection Server, the Lotus Domino^® Go Webserver, and IBM HTTP Server. For the last four years, Mr. Nesbitt has developed custom applications for hosting of high-volume Web sites. They include tools in the areas of stress testing, intrusion detection, and log analysis, as well as custom, high-performance Web server plug-ins for sports Web serving. He received a B.S. degree in computer engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1992.

Herbie Pearthree IBM Global Services, P.O. Box 12195, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, 27709 (hpear3@us.ibm.com). Mr. Pearthree is the technical lead of IBM's Special Events Infrastructure. Since joining IBM in 1999, he has served as a technical webmaster responsible for the end-to-end technical leadership of the Special Events Infrastructure, including the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. Mr. Pearthree was the lead technical designer and implementer of the content serving utility discussed in this paper.

Anees Shaikh IBM Research Division, Thomas J. Watson Research Center, P.O. Box 704, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598 (aashaikh@watson.ibm.com). Dr. Shaikh is a research staff member in the Networking Software and Services group in IBM Research. He received a Ph.D. degree in 1999 from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, and BSEE and MSEE degrees in 1994 from the University of Virginia. Since joining IBM, his research has focused on Internet services infrastructure, particularly the areas of content distribution, Web and network performance, and Internet measurement. He has also published a number of papers on load-sensitive routing, middleware for real-time communication, and multicast routing.

Brian Snitzer IBM Global Services, P.O. Box 12195, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, 27709 (snitzer@us.ibm.com). Mr. Snitzer is the manager of networks, security, and architecture for IBM's Special Events Infrastructure. He received a B.A. in computer information sciences and in philosophy from Temple University in 1997 and is a candidate for the degree of Master of Business Administration from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business in May 2004. Since joining IBM, he has worked in emergent technologies as part of IBM's WebAhead initiative, served as a technical webmaster providing overall end-to-end technical leadership for event Web sites, served as technical lead for hosting NBCOlympics.com for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, and has served as manager of the network, security, and architecture group for the Events Infrastructure since 2000.