# Alex RN > Software Engineer Location: Palo Alto, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/alexrn Kubernetes, container networking/CNIs, eBPF, snowflake, apache spark/iceberg/nessie lakehouse, ML workflows, various cloud providers. File Systems: Architecture and implementation of scalable distributed file systems with dual NAS and restful object access for the cloud. Implementation of Nfsv4, pNFS, SMB2 NAS protocols. Network stack: Highly parallel protocol stacks(IPv4 & v6) for multi-cores, and whole TCP stack implementation, with routing protocols and FIBs. Security Stack: IPSec/IKE implementation. Freebsd,Linux, Vmware VMkernel, GEOM and ZFS ## Work Experience ### Software Engineer @ Lacework Jan 2021 – Present | San Francisco Bay Area ### Software Engineer NSX @ VMware Jan 2020 – Jan 2021 | Palo Alto, California, United States ### Senior Member Of Technical Staff @ VMware Jan 2014 – Jan 2020 | Palo Alto Responsible for the development of in kernel metadata consistency checker for Vmware's VSAN hyper-converged stack. Worked on the change block tracking system which has an in band metadata mechanism for dealing with consistency of replicas as well as tracking changes from a given consistency point. ### Senior Software Architect @ CloudByte Jan 2013 – Jan 2014 Implemented a IO scheduling scheme for shaping and regulating disk IOs below the ZFS vdev layer to cater to multi-tenant qos requirements. GEOM layer bottleneck removal, context switches and queue contentions etc. Design approaches for ZFS metadata acceleration with optimal placement and preferential write allocations, persistent caches with recovery and rebuild support for reboot or disk failure events. ZIL fast path preferential scheduling and IO prioritization. Freebsd IO/CPU performance bottleneck identification and removal with hwpmc,dtrace,lock profiling, sleep queue and scheduler profiling etc. Implemented an ISCSI parallel processing scheme which is adaptive to go parallel or serial so as to safely account for write after read, read after write,control/reset dependencies among concurrent requests. ### Senior Engineer @ NetApp Jan 2010 – Jan 2013 Responsible for the architecture and implementation of a Big Data Content repository (several PB with billions of files/objects) which can be accessed through NAS protocols (NFS and CIFS) as well as the Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI). Designed critical features for posix compliance, layout of the files/objects for supporting regular attributes and extended attributes like ACL,streams,custom metadata and associated cluster lock state distribution needed to support delegations,L1/L2 oplocks,delete on close. Implemented non disruptive movement of files/objects with intelligent redirection for capacity balancing. Design for exporting the file/object layout for high performance parallel access via pNFS. Prototyping the protocol engine designs for driving http workloads. Pathless objects accessible via nfs IETF draft http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-dipankar-nfsv4-pathless-objects-02 ### MTS Engineer @ NetApp Jan 2009 – Jan 2010 NFS4.1 implementation for the callback channel. Implemented a framework for callback channel with a layered service provider model which can plug in multiple implementation of service providers under a provider interface. Also implemented a simple API set for expandability to different NFS versions like NFS 4.0 4.1 etc ### Engingeer NFS @ NetApp Jan 2006 – Jan 2009 Responsible for implementation corresponding to NAS IPv6 federal mandate. http://www.netapp.com/us/company/news/news-rel-20090423.html IETF standardization efforts http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-alexrn-nfsv4-ipv6-00 http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/75/slides/nfsv4-0.pdf ### Software Consultant @ Novell Software Jan 2005 – Jan 2006 Worked on synchronization file system optimization with valgrind tool suites on linux. Also worked on a continuous data protection solution based on open source DRBD on suse linux. ### Software Consultant @ Novell Software Jan 2002 – Jan 2005 Responsible for the development of Netware IPv6 stack. http://www.novell.com/documentation/oes2/ntwk_ipv6_nw/?page=/documentation/oes2/ntwk_ipv6_nw/data/ai4x21f.html This is a complete event driven implementation with, most of the basic RFC and is completely based on connection level parallelism for multiprocessor scheduling for identifiable flows and round robins scheduling across processors for IPSEC flows. RIP and a framework for arbitrating routing/static route information into the forwarding information base as a p-trie was implemented. Also implemented IPSEC/AH/ESP processing and a basic IKE with pre-shared key implementation. A path MTU discovery scheme optimization covered under US patent 7,304,959 and other pending patents on p-trie overlays for FIB. ### Software Engineer @ Novell Software Jan 1999 – Jan 2002 Worked on the TCPIP stack and WinSock implementations on netware. Implemented a generic mechanism using the wait states of TCP state diagram to mitigate attacks. SYN and FIN attacks are special cases of wait states in this model. A feedback mechanism based on memory and the distribution of connections was used to safegaurd the stack. Implemented a scalable timer for multiprocessors for the TCP stack, using multilevel timing wheels. ### Software Engineer @ Novell Software Jan 1998 – Jan 1999 Worked on IPX to IP migration gateway, connected multiple logical IPX network seamlessly with a logical router. Used extensively for transitioning IPX networks to IPv4 networks. IPX side services were populated into the IPv4 side using SLP. http://support.novell.com/techcenter/articles/ana19990804.html ## Education ### Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/alex-rn-5132b91 --- Source: https://flows.cv/alexrn JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/alexrn/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-10