HP ProLiant DL288 ISS Technology Update, Volume 9 Number 1 - Page 6

ISS Technology Update Volume 9, Number 1 Meet the Expert-Siamak Tavallaei Siamak Tavallaei, a Distinguished Technologist with HP Industry Standard Servers (ISS) Platform Architecture and Technology, is a leading HP expert on Intel processors and chipsets, primarily with HP ProLiant 500 series platforms. His expertise includes processor architecture, cache coherency, memory sub-systems, legacy components, fabric/IO interfaces to processor and peripheral components, and storage and network controllers. That's not all. Siamak collaborates externally with customers, technology vendors, suppliers, and industry partners; he also collaborates internally with product development and marketing organizations to arrive at optimal solutions that satisfy customer needs. Handling such a long list of responsibilities requires exceptional skill. Gene Freeman, his manager, lauds Siamak's outstanding analytical ability by saying, "He can take any subject and break it down to fine levels of detail for careful analysis." Gene points out that Siamak is very active in HP ISS Technology Tour events, HP ISS Technology Exchanges, and the HP ISS Technology Advisory Council. He also participates with HP Business Critical Systems (BCS) as a solution architect for mission critical customers, adding his x86 expertise to the Itanium perspective to help solve customers' difficult problems. Name: Siamak Tavallaei Title: Distinguished Technologist, HP Industry Standard Servers Years at HP: 19 University: MS and BS Electrical Engineering, Utah State University Early lessons pay dividends Siamak and his wife, Linda, have a daughter (11) and a son (7). Siamak BS, Applied Mathematics; BS, Electronics Engineering Technology, Outstanding Mathematics Graduate volunteers as a den leader with his son's Cub Scout pack, where he enjoys Weber State University teaching lifelong principles to the cub scouts. Early on, Siamak learned the principal lessons from his parents and teachers to think, experiment, build, and teach. He observed his father's meticulous attention to detail and marveled at his creations. Siamak's middle school mathematics teacher provoked him to think hard until his brain got hot. He was fortunate to have science teachers who let him experiment in the physics and chemistry labs; and his mother encouraged him to share his learning with others. On the forefront of InfiniBand Siamak has developed useful innovations into a number of multi-processor ProLiant servers that has led to their successful production. But one of his career highlights with HP occurred during two years of intense competitive collaboration with industry leaders to develop the specification for InfiniBand. It required tremendous finesse in balancing technical prowess, company business needs, social interactions, and leadership within a group of expert volunteers from competing companies. Solutions driven by customer input When asked about the role that customer input plays in product development, Siamak said, "Our solutions are mostly driven by customers' stated desires, but it is their unstated needs that provide a richer opportunity for innovation. To profitably meet such requirements, I constantly look for opportunities to adapt existing technologies, to develop new ones, or to invent useful solutions." Collaboration with industry partners Siamak believes that the strength of HP comes not only from the expertise of its engineers, but also from their interaction with industry partners. For example, HP participates internationally in over 200 standards organizations through more than 500 technical committees. HP engineers help develop specifications for memory, wired and wireless telecommunications, storage, management software, information technology and security, ANSI, IEEE, ISO/IEC, and so forth. HP also works closely with industry partners that develop processors, memory, storage, and networking components. 6