Donald Ferguson (born 1960) is a Technical Fellow and Chief SW Architect at Ansys, Inc. Before joining Ansys, Ferguson was a

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

of Professional Practice in

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. Before joining Columbia in 2018, he was vice president and CTO for software at

Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...

. Previously he was CTO, Distinguished Engineer and Executive VP at

CA, Inc. CA Technologies, formerly known as CA, Inc. and Computer Associates International, Inc., is an American multinational corporation headquartered in New York City. It is primarily known for its business-to-business (B2B) software with a product po ...

, formerly known as Computer Associates.

Education

Ferguson graduated with a BA from

in 1982, a MS in 1984, and a PhD in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

in 1989. His thesis studied the application of economic models to the management of system resources in distributed systems.

Career

IBM

From 1985 to 2007, Ferguson worked for IBM, being appointed

IBM Fellow An IBM Fellow is an appointed position at IBM made by IBM's CEO. Typically only four to nine (eleven in 2014) IBM Fellows are appointed each year, in May or June. Fellow is the highest honor a scientist, engineer, or programmer at IBM can achie ...

in 2001, and chief architect for IBM's Software Group (SWG). He provided overall technical leadership for

IBM WebSphere IBM WebSphere refers to a brand of proprietary computer software products in the genre of enterprise software known as "application and integration middleware". These software products are used by end-users to create and integrate applications wi ...

Tivoli Software Tivoli Software encompasses a set of products originally developed by Tivoli Systems Inc. IBM bought the company and ran the operation as its Tivoli Software division. Additional products were acquired and run under the Tivoli portfolio brand. ...

IBM DB2 Db2 is a family of data management products, including database servers, developed by IBM. It initially supported the relational model, but was extended to support object–relational features and non-relational structures like JSON a ...

Rational Software Rational Machines is an enterprise founded by Paul Levy and Mike Devlin in 1981 to provide tools to expand the use of modern software engineering practices, particularly explicit modular architecture and iterative development. It changed its ...

and

Lotus Software Lotus Software (called Lotus Development Corporation before its acquisition by IBM) was an American software company based in Massachusetts; it was "offloaded" to India's HCL Technologies in 2018. Lotus is most commonly known for the Lotus 1-2- ...

products. He also chaired the SWG Architecture Board (SWG AB). The SWG AB focused on product integration, cross-product initiatives and emerging technology. Some of the public focus areas were web services,

pattern A pattern is a regularity in the world, in human-made design, or in abstract ideas. As such, the elements of a pattern repeat in a predictable manner. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern formed of geometric shapes and typically repeated l ...

web 2.0 Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, and ...

and

business-driven development Business-driven development is a meta-methodology for developing IT solutions that directly satisfy requirement, business requirements. This is achieved by adopting a model-driven approach that starts with the business strategy, requirements and go ...

. Ferguson guided IBM's strategy and architecture for SOA and web services, and co-authored many of the initial web-service specifications. Previously, he had been the chief architect for WebSphere and the WebSphere products, which provide support for dynamic web applications. Prior to transferring to IBM SWG, Ferguson was a research staff member at the IBM

Thomas J. Watson Research Center The Thomas J. Watson Research Center is the headquarters for IBM Research. The center comprises three sites, with its main laboratory in Yorktown Heights, New York, U.S., 38 miles (61 km) north of New York City, Albany, New York and wit ...

Microsoft

From 2007 to 2008, he worked at

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

as a technical fellow in platforms and strategy in the office of the CTO.

CA

Ferguson joined CA in March 2008.

Dell

Ferguson joined

in June 2012 as VP and CTO for

Dell Software Dell Software was a division of Dell with headquarters in Round Rock, Texas, United States. Dell Software was created merging various acquisitions (mainly Quest Software and Sonicwall) by Dell Inc., the third-largest maker of PCs and now a pri ...

Awards

Ferguson received the 2013

Columbia School of Engineering and applied Science The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (popularly known as SEAS or Columbia Engineering; previously known as Columbia School of Mines) is the engineering and applied science school of Columbia University. It was founded as th ...

Alumni Association Egleston Medal for Distinguished Engineering Achievement.

Books

* ''Web Services Platform Architecture: SOAP, WSDL, WS-Policy, WS-Addressing, WS-BPEL, WS-Reliable Messaging, and More'', Prentice Hall PTR, , March 22, 2005

References

External links

WWISA

The Architecture Journal

BPM 2006 Keynotes

2nd International Conference on Service Oriented Computing
1960 births Living people IBM employees IBM Fellows Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni Columbia College (New York) alumni {{US-compu-bio-stub