Curriculum Vitae

Full Name: Y Giridhar Appaji Nag
Professional Status: Member of Technical Staff
Organization: NetApp, 3rd Floor, Fair Winds Block, Embassy Golf Links, Off Intermediate Ring Road, Bangalore 560042, INDIA.
Web: http://appaji.net/
E-Mail: giridhar@appaji.net
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/appaji

Areas of Expertise: Seven years; working with systems software, web caching and security, internet protocols and mobile communications.

Education: Bachelor of Technology, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, Assam, India. CPI: 8.10 (On a scale of 10). May 2000.

Academic Distinctions: Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) summer research fellow, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) studentship, Qualifying test for the International Mathematical Olympiad.

Current Work

Member of Technical Staff: [Oct 2006 to date] NetApp, Bangalore, Karnataka, INDIA.

Currently working with the NearStore Virtual Tape Libraries team.

Past Work Experience

Member of Technical Staff: [Jan 2004 to Oct 2006] NetApp, Bangalore, Karnataka, INDIA.

• NetCache Nx: Involved in the study and high level architecture for the next generation NetCache (a high performace internet gateway, proxy cache and web delivery appliance) to solve problems like third party library/application integration, using user-space, MP support, better manageability, etc.
• Proposed and implemented extensions to the ICAP protocol for (a) Stateful handover of user profile to non communicating ICAP servers in a pipeline (b) Enhanced mime-type based content modification. These extensions were to be proposed as extensions to RFC 3507.
• NetCache: Maintained and enhanced the Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP - RFC 3507) implementation used for web URL filtering and virus scanning. Enhanced the functionality and fixed bugs in the HTTP, FTP, networking, caching, administration, logging, authentication and on-box filtering.
• OnTap GX: Was involved in the design review for the on-box virus scanning functionality for the next generation filer.

Senior Engineer: [Aug 2001 to Jan 2004] UbiNetics (Now Cambdrige Silicon Radio), Bangalore, Karnataka, INDIA. Was involved in the Multi-Mode (GSM/GPRS+UMTS) Mobile Terminal software project with the Core Technology Division of UbiNetics.

• Requirements Specification and Architecture: Involved in the project since its inception. Prepared the complete detailed requirements specification and the architecture of the GSM/GPRS Access Stratum part of the project.
• GSM/GPRS Cell Selection and Re-selection: Detailed design and implementation of the cell/PLMN selection and re-selection algorithms for GSM/GPRS. This was to provide for the mobile station with mobility in GSM/GPRS networks. Functionality was based on the 3GPP Release 99 specifications. SDL and C Language were used for this. Was responsible for the integration of the other Mobile Station modules involved in Idle Mode operation.
• Design of network controlled cell re-selection and study for providing Inter-RAT (Radio Access Technology) mobility features in the Mobile Station software.
• Software Quality: Was an active participant in defining lightweight processes for the software development life cycle. Participated in two external ISO certification audits. Consultant on various issues like configuration management, code reviews, change & bug reporting processes, build & release procedures and software engineering issues.

Software Engineer: [June 2000 to Aug 2001] Hughes Software Systems (Now Aricent), Gurgaon, Haryana, INDIA. Was a part of the Access Terminals division of Mobile Satellite Communication group. Work responsibilities included system and low level design, implementation, testing and integration

• GPRS Mobile User Terminal Stack (Oct 2000 to Aug 2001): Design and development of the SNDCP and LLC layers. Stack based on the Release 97 specification of GSM Phase 2+. SDL 98 and C Language were used for design and implementation.
• WAP Man Machine Interface Simulator Prototype and Microbrowser, MMI Interface (Aug 2000 to Oct 2000): WAP Phone MMI Simulator capable of displaying WML pages and WBMP images. Implemented using Xt and Motif libraries.
• Profiles for Bluetooth Stack (June 2000 to Aug 2000): Development of Service Discover Application Profile, Serial Port Profile and the Cordless Telephony Profile for a Bluetooth stack. Based on the Bluetooth SIG specification of Bluetooth profiles and Core stack. X-window based Bluetooth device simulator was also built to demonstrate the stack capabilities using these profiles with wireless chat and a printing application.

Summer Research Fellow: of JNCASR Bangalore [May 1999 to Jul 1999]. At the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, INDIA

• Re-engineering of a File System with Support for On-The-Fly Compression. Analysis of the design and implementation of a file system for the Linux 2.0 Kernel with on-the-fly Compression support. Was responsible for the re-engineering of the file system. Gained a fair amount of knowledge of file systems and software re-engineering. Analyzed the design of the file system and made changes taking speed and compression factors into consideration. Certain subtle problems in the existing implementation were also fixed.

Publications, Reports and Patents

• O(1) Parallel Lookups for High Speed Layer Four Switching The Sixth International Conference of Information Technology - CIT2003. Bhubaneshwar, India, Dec 22-25, 2003.
• Re-engineering of a File System with Support for On-The-Fly Compression Report submitted to the Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore. July 1999.

Volunteer Work

The Linux Documentation Project:

• Compiler and Co-Editor (Apr 2003 to Apr 2006) of the Linux Documentation Project Weekly News.
• Deployed and maintaining an unofficial bug reporting service for the Linux Documentation Project.
• Currently working on a GNU Build System HOWTO.

Debian Project:

• Report, triage and fix several Debian project bugs.
• Currently packaging few software for the official Debian archive.

Important Academic Work

B. Tech Project (Aug 1999 to Apr 2000) High Speed Lookups for Fast Layer Four Switching.

• This work deals with the problem of design of a router from an algorithmic stand point so that packet filtering at high speed, based on the higher layer (above L3) packet headers can be done. Fast lookup on these fields and deciding the least cost filter for taking a routing decision using parallel hardware was the main problem of interest. Designed constant and logarithmic time algorithms and investigated randomized approaches (like Karp-Rabin fingerprinting) for possible solutions.

Independent Study (Seminar) Work (Jan 1999 to Apr 1999) Real-time Operating System Kernels.

• Studied various paradigms in the design of Operating Systems that provide Real-time support (Aspects like the architectural requirements, Interrupt handling, multi-threading, scheduling, resource allocation, IPC, formal design and verification methods (VDM) etc.). SunOS and MiThOS were taken up as case studies.

Design and Implementation of a 4 bit CPU (Jan 1998 to Apr 1998)

• Designed and implemented a programmable CPU with a cut-down CPU instruction set, the bus and the required hardwired controller along with the I/O (by means of DIP switches and segmented displays), memory (RAM chips).

Skills

• Programming Languages and Libraries: C/C++, Perl, SDL (ITU-T, Specification and Description Language), X-Window (XLib, Xt, Motif) system, Shell programming and Shell scripting tools like sed etc.
• Protocols: HTTP, FTP, ICAP, GSM, GPRS and Bluetooth.
• Design and Development Tools: Telelogic Tau suite (for design and implementation of real-time communicating systems. The code generators, Tau public and postmaster interface). ClearCase and Perforce for configuration management, X-designer, software development tools like gcc, flex, bison, cvs, gmake, automake, autoconf, gdb, gprof, gcov etc.
• Operating Systems: Programmed for Linux, VxWorks, SunOS and Windows (Basic Win32 programming).
• Languages Known: English (Read/Write/Speak), Telugu (R/W/S), Hindi (R/W/S) and basic French.
• Additional Computing Skills: Documentation tools like DocBook SGML/XML & Latex. Power user of GNU/Linux. Knowledge of Internet technologies. Academic experience on working with databases, Prolog, Sun-PHIGS, Matlab and 80x86 Assembly Language. Software development processes.