8/5/2021 Ivan Sanchez
CSL’s Ravi Iyer, along with his co-authors David Rossetti and Mei-Chen (Sandy) Hsueh, has been honored with the 2021 Jean-Claude Laprie Award in Dependable Computing.
Written by Ivan Sanchez
CSL’s Ravi Iyer, along with his co-authors David Rossetti and Mei-Chen (Sandy) Hsueh, has been honored with the 2021 Jean-Claude Laprie Award in Dependable Computing.
The Laprie Award is bestowed by the IFIP Working Group 10.4 on Dependable Computing and Fault Tolerance to recognize outstanding papers, published at least 10 years prior to the award, that significantly influenced the theory and/or practice of dependable computing. Iyer, Rossetti, and Hsueh were honored for their paper “Measurement and Modeling of Computer Reliability as Affected by System Activity,” which was published in the ACM Transactions on Computer Systems in August 1986. They received the Laprie Award at the 51st Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN) in June.
During his acceptance speech, Iyer, speaking on behalf of all three authors, expressed his gratitude for the honor. “This is especially gratifying as Jean-Claude was indeed a very, very good friend,” he said. “Everyone knows of Jean-Claude’s significant contributions to dependable computing. He was a brilliant researcher, largely responsible for unifying the field of dependable and secure computing, particularly when it came to DSN. However, I was fortunate to also know Jean-Claude as a great friend. During those formative years, he was working in modeling, and I was working in measurements and analysis, and we indeed formed a very strong personal and professional bond as we developed concepts and methodologies to advance the field.”
Iyer is the George and Ann Fisher Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Illinois and leads the DEPEND Group in CSL, which focuses on the research, design, and validation of highly available, reliable, and trustworthy computing systems and networks. Sandy Hsueh was an early student of Iyer’s at Illinois and is a former member of the CSL community.
“It is very satisfying to see Prof. Iyer receiving due credit for his pioneering work in the award-winning paper,” said Bruce Hajek, ECE Department Head and Leonard C. and Mary Lou Hoeft Endowed Chair in Engineering. “The paper cleverly defines very practical graphical tools as well as definitions for hazard rates for the analysis of computer failure data that are as relevant today as they were when the paper was written. This award recognizes the strong, lasting impact of the work.”
Klara Nahrstedt, CSL Director and Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering, also applauded the award. “Ravi has been and is one of the CSL’s most active innovators in the area of reliable, dependable and trusted computing. It is no surprise to me that he is the recipient of the prestigious Jean-Claude Laprie award from the IFIP Working Group 10.4 on Dependable Computing and Fault Tolerance... His TOCS’86 research paper is only a slice of his highly impactful body of dependability work and a slice of the innovation vision he is showing in his current exciting research efforts within the machine learning area for healthcare systems.”
The citation from this year’s Jean-Claude Laprie Award Committee said that the paper “has had a tremendous impact in shaping subsequent empirical studies, as well as those in analytical modeling of computer systems.…This paper has been considered as a landmark paper in the field of computer system reliability by the evaluation committee, which resulted in its unanimous selection for the award.”