Werner Hans Peter Vogels (born 3 October 1958) is the chief technology officer and

vice president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

in charge of driving technology innovation within the company. Vogels has broad internal and external responsibilities.

Early life and education

Vogels studied

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 ...

The Hague University of Applied Sciences The Hague University of Applied Sciences ( nl, De Haagse Hogeschool), abbreviated THUAS, is a university of applied sciences with its campuses located in and around The Hague in the Randstad metropolitan region in the west of the Netherlands. Th ...

finishing in June 1989. Vogels received a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in computer science from the

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (abbreviated as ''VU Amsterdam'' or simply ''VU'' when in context) is a public research university in Amsterdam, Netherlands, being founded in 1880. The VU Amsterdam is one of two large, publicly funded research ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

, supervised by Henri Bal and Andy Tanenbaum.

Career

After his mandatory military service at the

Royal Netherlands Navy The Royal Netherlands Navy ( nl, Koninklijke Marine, links=no) is the naval force of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. During the 17th century, the navy of the Dutch Republic (1581–1795) was one of the most powerful naval forces in the world an ...

, Vogels studied

radiology Radiology ( ) is the medical discipline that uses medical imaging to diagnose diseases and guide their treatment, within the bodies of humans and other animals. It began with radiography (which is why its name has a root referring to radiat ...

, both diagnostics and

therapy A therapy or medical treatment (often abbreviated tx, Tx, or Tx) is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a medical diagnosis. As a rule, each therapy has indications and contraindications. There are many differe ...

. He worked at the

Antoni van Leeuwenhoekziekenhuis The Antoni van Leeuwenhoekziekenhuis is a hospital in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, that specialises in oncology: the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The hospital forms one half of a combined organisation with the Netherlands Cancer Instit ...

, part of the

Netherlands Cancer Institute The Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) in Amsterdam was founded in 1913 by, among others, the surgeon Jacob Rotgans. The NKI, together with the Antoni van Leeuwenhoekziekenhuis, is formed into the NKI-AVL, which combines a scientific research i ...

, from 1979 through 1985. In 1985 he returned to university to study computer science. After completing his studies, he pursued a career in computer science research. From 1991 through 1994, Vogels was a senior researcher at

INESC The Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, Technology and Science (INESC TEC) is a research & development institute located on the campus of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (Portugal). INESC TEC is a private non-pr ...

Lisboa Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administrative limits w ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of th ...

. He worked with Paulo Verissimo and Luis Rodrigues on

fault-tolerant Fault tolerance is the property that enables a system to continue operating properly in the event of the failure of one or more faults within some of its components. If its operating quality decreases at all, the decrease is proportional to the ...

distributed systems A distributed system is a system whose components are located on different networked computers, which communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages to one another from any system. Distributed computing is a field of computer sci ...

, evolving the reliable group communication system that was developed in the context of the Delta-4 project. In 1994 he was invited to join the computer science department of

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

as a visiting scientist. From 1994 until 2004, Vogels was a research scientist at the Computer Science Department of Cornell University. He mainly conducted research in scalable reliable enterprise systems. He is the author of many conference and journal articles, mainly on

technologies for enterprise computing systems. He co-founded a company with

Kenneth Birman Kenneth P. Birman (born November 18, 1955) is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University. He currently holds the N. Rama Rao Chair in Computer Science. Education Birman received his B.S. from Columbia University an ...

and Robbert van Renesse in 1997 called Reliable Network Solutions, Inc. The company possessed U.S. patents on computer network resource monitoring and

multicast In computer networking, multicast is group communication where data transmission is addressed to a group of destination computers simultaneously. Multicast can be one-to-many or many-to-many distribution. Multicast should not be confused wi ...

protocols. From 1999 through 2002, he held vice president and chief technology officer positions with the company. He joined Amazon in September 2004 as the director of systems research. He was named chief technology officer in January 2005 and

in March of that year. Vogels described the deep technical nature of Amazon's infrastructure work in a paper about Amazon's

Dynamo "Dynamo Electric Machine" (end view, partly section, ) A dynamo is an electrical generator that creates direct current using a commutator. Dynamos were the first electrical generators capable of delivering power for industry, and the foundati ...

, the storage engine for Amazon's

shopping cart A shopping cart (American English), trolley (British English, Australian English), or buggy (Southern American English, Appalachian English), also known by a variety of other names, is a wheeled cart supplied by a shop or store, especi ...

Awards

* 2008: ''

Information Week ''InformationWeek'' is a digital magazine which conducts corresponding face-to-face events, virtual events, and research. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California and was first published in 1985 by CMP Media, later called Informa. The p ...

'' recognized Vogels for educational and promotional role in cloud computing with the 2008 CIO/CTO of the Year award. * 2009: Media Momentum Personality of the Year Award. * 2010: **

ReadWriteWeb ReadWrite (originally ReadWriteWeb or RWW) is a Web technology blog launched in 2003. RW covers Web 2.0 and Web technology in general, and provides industry news, reviews, and analysis. Founded by Richard MacManus, Technorati ranked ReadWrit ...

voted on the "Cloud's Most Influential Executive" and selected Vogels with a double-digit margin. ** Vogels was named a

TechTarget TechTarget is an American company which offers data-driven marketing services to business-to-business technology vendors. It uses purchase intent data gleaned from the readership of its 140 + technology focused web sites to help tech vendors rea ...

Top 10 Cloud Computing Leader in 2010, 2011, and 2012, * 2012: Led the list of

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San ...

's Top 10 Cloud Influencers and Thought Leaders. * 2014: ** Vogels received the inaugural Holland on the Hill

Heineken Heineken Lager Beer ( nl, Heineken Pilsener), or simply Heineken () is a pale lager beer with 5% alcohol by volume produced by the Dutch brewing company Heineken N.V. Heineken beer is sold in a green bottle with a red star. History On 15 Feb ...

Award for "Substantial contributions to the US-Dutch economic relationship, a commitment to innovation and support for entrepreneurs". ** AdvisoryCloud ranked Vogels Top Chief Technology Officer.

References

External links

A podcast interview with Vogels on architecture and distributed systems
Software Engineering Radio, Episode 40, Dec 2006.
All Things Distributed
personal blog {{DEFAULTSORT:Vogels, Werner 1958 births Living people Amazon (company) people American computer scientists Businesspeople in online retailing Chief technology officers Dutch computer scientists Dutch emigrants to the United States Scientists from Amsterdam Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam alumni Cornell University The Hague University of Applied Sciences alumni