Howard Gobioff (1971 – 2008) was a computer scientist. He graduated

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...

with a double major in computer science and mathematics from the

University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of Mary ...

. At

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

, he worked on the network attached secure disks project, before he went on to earn his PhD in computer science. He died suddenly from

lymphoma Lymphoma is a group of blood and lymph tumors that develop from lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). In current usage the name usually refers to just the cancerous versions rather than all such tumours. Signs and symptoms may include enlar ...

at the age of 36.

Career

In 1999, Gobioff went to work for

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

, which was then just a 40-person startup. As a

software engineer Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term ''p ...

, he worked on the advertising system and the crawling and indexing system. In 2004, as a Google engineering director, he launched and led their

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...

center.

Google File System

Gobioff was one of the architects of the

Google File System Google File System (GFS or GoogleFS, not to be confused with the GFS Linux file system) is a proprietary distributed file system developed by Google to provide efficient, reliable access to data using large clusters of commodity hardware. Goo ...

, a proprietary distributed file system developed by Google for its own use. In "The Google File System," the seminal paper about the software, Gobioff and his co-authors outlined their design, reported measurements, and presented real world use of the system.

Apache Hadoop Apache Hadoop () is a collection of open-source software utilities that facilitates using a network of many computers to solve problems involving massive amounts of data and computation. It provides a software framework for distributed storage ...

MapReduce MapReduce is a programming model and an associated implementation for processing and generating big data sets with a parallel, distributed algorithm on a cluster. A MapReduce program is composed of a ''map'' procedure, which performs filtering ...

and Hadoop Distributed File System components were originally derived respectively from Google's

and Google File System papers. Using the Google File System and MapReduce, or the Hadoop Distributed File System and MapReduce, a project can perform a computation over 300 Tbytes of data using 1,000 nodes, which previously would have been unachievable for most projects.

Gobioff Foundation

The Gobioff Foundation was founded by Howard Gobioff in 2007, months before his sudden death in March 2008. His directive was to "make the world a better place." The Foundation funds the same causes that Gobioff himself supported and awards grants and microgrants in the fields of arts and human rights. Among other initiatives, the Gobioff Foundation supported the Think Small to Think Big arts microgrant program in

Tampa Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough County ...

, Florida, which funded nearly 50 projects in the fields of

dance Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actor, actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The p ...

installation Installation may refer to: * Installation (computer programs) * Installation, work of installation art * Installation, military base * Installation, into an office, especially a religious (Installation (Christianity) Installation is a Christian li ...

performance A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Management science In the work place ...

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

, punk rock,

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

, and

digital art Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960s, various names ...

between 2011 and 2014. In 2014, the Gobioff Foundation joined a team of Florida grantmakers led by the Florida Philanthropic Network on

Capitol Hill Capitol Hill, in addition to being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues. It is one of the ...

to meet with Florida's congressional delegation to discuss local

philanthropic Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...

efforts and related legislative and

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public p ...

issues. These meetings were part of the annual Foundations on the Hill event organized by the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers, in partnership with the

Council on Foundations The Council on Foundations, founded in 1949, is a nonprofit leadership association of grantmaking foundations and corporations. The Council's mission is to provide the opportunity, leadership, and tools needed by philanthropic organizations to exp ...

and the Alliance for Charitable Reform.

U.S. patents

Gobioff was registered as co-inventor on 11 U.S. patents during his lifetime and post-mortem.
United States Patent 7065618
– Ghemawat, Gobioff, & Leung (2006). Leasing scheme for data-modifying operations.

– Ghemawat, Gobioff, Leung, & Desjardins (2006). Systems and methods for performing record append operations.

– Ghemawat, Gobioff, & Leung (2007). Namespace locking scheme.

– Ghemawat, Gobioff, & Leung (2010). Systems and methods for replicating data.

– Ghemawat, Gobioff, & Leung (2010). Maintaining data in a file system.

– Ghemawat, Gobioff, & Leung (2011). Garbage collecting systems and methods.

– Zhu, Ibel, Acharya, & Gobioff (2011). Scheduler for search engine crawler.

– Ghemawat, Gobioff, & Leung (2011). Systems and methods for replicating data.

– Ghemawat, Gobioff, & Leung (2013). Systems and methods for replicating data.

– Zhu, Ibel, Acharya, & Gobioff (2014). Document reuse in a search engine crawler.

– Zhu, Ibel, Acharya, & Gobioff (2014). Scheduler for search engine crawler.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gobioff, Howard Google employees American computer scientists 1971 births 2008 deaths Deaths from lymphoma University of Maryland, College Park alumni Carnegie Mellon University alumni