Brian Aker
Brian Aker | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 4, 1972 Lexington, Kentucky, USA |
| Alma mater | Antioch College |
| Occupation(s) | Software developer, technology executive |
| Years active | 1998–present |
| Known for | Apache modules, Slash platform, MySQL storage engines, Drizzle project, libmemcached, Gearman |
Brian Aker, born on August 4, 1972, in Lexington, Kentucky, USA, is a recognized figure in the open-source community, noted for his work on Apache modules, the Slash platform, and various storage engines for the MySQL database system. He held the position of Director of Architecture at MySQL AB prior to its acquisition by Sun Microsystems, where he led the web scaling research team and contributed to the development of the Drizzle project. Subsequently, he was appointed Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems. Following Sun's acquisition by Oracle, Aker took on the role of CTO at Data Differential, where he supports open source initiatives such as libmemcached, Gearman, and Drizzle. He currently serves as a Fellow and Vice President at Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Aker completed his education at Antioch College, earning triple majors in environmental science, computing, and mathematics. His initial involvement in open source included contributions to the 386BSD operating system. During his tenure at Slashdot, he redesigned the database backend to enable compatibility with multiple database systems and co-wrote Running Weblogs with Slash. From 2001 through 2007, he published articles under the pseudonym "Krow".
Beginning in 1998, Aker's association with MySQL commenced. By 2001, he had developed a prototype that integrated Perl functions within MySQL and later spearheaded development efforts for versions 4.1 and 5.0 while working at MySQL and VA Linux Systems. In 2004, he showcased integration of Java-based functions into MySQL.
He has also delivered a Perl Certification Course at the University of Washington and contributed to the Virtual Hospital initiative at the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics, which was among the earliest medical websites on the internet.
Residing in Seattle, Washington, Aker frequently speaks at prominent open source conferences such as OSCON, LinuxFest Northwest, Southern California Linux Expo, and the MySQL Users Conference & Expo. He maintains responsibility for the C client library used by the Memcached server and leads ongoing development of Gearman. Additionally, he has presented on topics related to NoSQL database advancements at events including Ignite.
Notable MySQL-related projects developed by Brian Aker encompass:
- The Drizzle Database server
- MySQL Archive Storage Engine
- MySQL Federated Storage Engine
- Memcached Storage Engine
- CSV Storage Engine
- Blackhole Storage Engine
- WebMethods (HTTP) Storage Engine
External links
- Portrait: Brian Aker, database strategist
- Interview with Brian Aker
- Slashdot Interview with Brian Aker
- Brian Aker's Blog
- Audio Interview on the Future of Databases
- Interview with Brian Aker on open source developer careers
- Public Open Source Software Repository
- Interview with Brian Aker on FLOSS Weekly