EXTENDED RÉSUMÉ — GARY SOCKUT, Ph.D.

My regular résumé is much shorter. This web page contains my extended résumé.


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To contact me about this web site or about other things that should be discussed at home (perhaps everything except technical issues in computer science), use my home e-mail address, which should be valid for the rest of my life. gary72 some text to thwart spammers' e-mail address harvesters alumni.brown.edu
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SUMMARY
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
EDUCATION
PUBLICATIONS
PATENTS
OTHER PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
AWARDS AND HONORARY SOCIETIES

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SUMMARY


I have worked mainly in data-related topics, including database management, since graduate school. Within database management, I am best known for database reorganization, especially reorganization that is performed online. Reorganization is a change in some aspect of the logical and/or physical arrangement of a database. A few examples are restoration of clustering, reorganization of an index, redefinition (e.g., splitting) of partitions, changing a column's data type, and changing a relationship from one-to-many to many-to-many. In traditional practice, many types of reorganization have required denying access to a database (taking the database offline) during reorganization. Taking a database offline can be unacceptable for a highly available (24-hour) database, e.g., a database serving armed forces or web applications, or for a very large database. A solution is to reorganize online (concurrently with usage of the database, incrementally during users' activities, or interpretively). My other data-related work has included data modeling, mapping / transformation / integration of heterogeneous data, and graphical user interfaces to databases. Some secondary areas of work have been high availability, operating systems, language systems, resource virtualization, performance modeling, firmware, graphics, and computer architecture.

Programming Languages: Java, Python, MATLAB, Linux / Unix shell scripting, C, C++, REXX, assembly (IBM 390, 1130, 1800, DEC PDP-11, PDP-10, PDP-8), PL/1, APL, LISP, COBOL, FORTRAN, EL1 (ECL), EAS-E, META 4 microcode, BRUIN, SNOBOL, LOGO.
Other Languages: SQL, XML, XML schema (XSD), WSDL, UML, RDF, OWL, HTML, CSS, LaTeX, GML, MACSYMA.
Operating Systems: Windows (10, 8.1, 7, XP, NT, 95), Linux, Unix, z/OS (OS/390, MVS), VM (CMS), OS/2, TOPS-10.
Database Technologies: PostgreSQL, Database 2 (DB2/UDB), Ingres, QBE, SQL/DS, iBATIS.
Other Technologies: Eclipse, JUnit, Subversion (SVN), Jira, Google Apps, SharePoint, Visual Paradigm for UML, XMLSpy, Jakarta Digester, Protégé-OWL, FileZilla, Office (Visio, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook), OpenOffice Writer, IBM Notes, KompoZer.


LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garysockutsoftware/




PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE



Retired at home, 2020-present


Senior software engineer at independent projects (concurrent with jobs), 2006-present:
Senior Software Engineer at ACI Worldwide (an electronic payment software company), Waltham, MA, 2012-2017:
Developer at Apex Systems (an information technology staffing company), subcontracting at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, MA:
Senior Software Developer at Rocket Software (an enterprise software company), Newton, MA (later moved to Waltham, MA):
Advisory Software Engineer at IBM Silicon Valley Laboratory (formerly Santa Teresa Laboratory), San Jose, CA:
Research Staff Member at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY:
Computer Scientist at National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD:
Staff Scientist at BGS Systems (a software and consulting company, concentrating on capacity planning; later acquired by BMC Software), Waltham, MA:
Programmer at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY:


EDUCATION



Harvard   Ph.D., Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Applied Mathematics (computer science)
  • Investigated online reorganization of databases, including examples of reorganization, motivations for online reorganization, requirements for online reorganization, and some techniques for online reorganization. Classified examples of reorganization into levels of abstraction. Designed and programmed performance model for online reorganization, showing how user workload and size of reorganization steps affected users' performance and reorganization's performance. Analyzed results for range of parameter values.
  • Surveyed work in firmware / hardware support for operating system functions.
  • Designed, programmed, and documented improvements in programming system's parser, and initiated improvements in system's run-time error handling.
  • Graded courses on database management and data structures.
  • Took courses on operating systems, programming languages, probability and statistics, etc.
  • Grade point average: 3.8 / 4.
S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Electrical Engineering (computer science)
  • Designed, programmed, and documented graphics package for animation of dynamic processes. It executed mainly in workstation that communicated with shared processor. Package included repertoire of graphics commands that could apply to hierarchy of groups of items. For high availability, garbage collector operated as background process, concurrently with usage and allocation of items it compacted.
  • Taught laboratory for digital circuits and graded courses on computation structures and operating systems.
  • Took courses on artificial intelligence (3 courses), algorithms, programming languages, computer architecture, and modern algebra.
  • Grade point average: 3.9 / 4.
Sc.B., Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, Applied Mathematics (computer science), magna cum laude
  • Designed, programmed (in firmware), and documented computer instruction set that supported linked lists, tables, and operating system functions, for a graphics project. Designed and implemented portions of operating system.
  • Graded courses on mathematics and engineering.
  • Took courses on programming, operating systems, probability and statistics, linear algebra, numerical analysis, differential equations, computer graphics, electrical engineering, psychology, etc.
  • Grade point average: 3.9 / 4.

Ongoing professional development via seminars, conferences, journals, and e-learning.




PUBLICATIONS



Most of my publications (other than those that I wrote as a Federal employee) are copyrighted. I have obtained permission from the copyright owners to post the publications that this web site contains. For publications whose copyright owners did not grant permission for posting, I say “file available upon request.” Here are some copyright notices: Now that I have satisfied the copyright owners, here are the publications:

G. H. Sockut and B. R. Iyer, “Online Reorganization of Databases,” Computing Surveys, Vol. 41, No. 3, ACM, Article 14, July 2009, 136 pages. The link to the paper succeeds in Edge and some other web browsers; it might fail in Firefox. Because the paper has many sections, and Computing Surveys no longer includes tables of contents inside papers, I have created a table of contents. After searching all issues of the journal, I have concluded that this is the longest paper ever published in Computing Surveys. This fact is unlikely to interest the people at Guinness World Records (What's ACM?), so I have not contacted them. ☺

B. R. Iyer and G. H. Sockut, an IBM technical report, corresponding to patent 6,411,964 (listed later under patents), June 1998.

G. H. Sockut, T. A. Beavin, and C.-C. Chang, “A Method for On-line Reorganization of a Database,” IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 36, No. 3, 1997, pp. 411-436; erratum in Vol. 37, No. 1, 1998, p. 152. A presentation corresponds to the publication.

G. H. Sockut, H. P. Arzu, R. W. Matthews, and D. E. Shough, “Issues in Designing an Information Model for Application Development,” Software Engineering Notes, Vol. 22, No. 2, ACM SIGSOFT, March 1997, pp. 25-34; errata in Vol. 22, No. 4, July 1997, p. 7.

G. H. Sockut and B. R. Iyer, “A Survey of Online Reorganization in IBM Products and Research,” Data Engineering, Vol. 19, No. 2, IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Data Engineering, June 1996, pp. 4-11.

G. H. Sockut, L. M. Burns, A. Malhotra, and K.-Y. Whang, “GRAQULA: A Graphical Query Language for Entity-Relationship or Relational Databases,” Data and Knowledge Engineering, Vol. 11, No. 2, North-Holland, Amsterdam, Neth., Oct. 1993, pp. 171-202; more details in Research Report RC 16877, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, March 1991.

K.-Y. Whang, A. Malhotra, G. H. Sockut, L. M. Burns, and K.-S. Choi, “Two-Dimensional Specification of Universal Quantification in a Graphical Database Query Language,” IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Vol. 18, No. 3, March 1992, pp. 216-224.

L. M. Burns, A. Malhotra, G. H. Sockut, and K.-Y. Whang, “AERIAL: Ad hoc Entity-Relationship Investigation And Learning.” This paper appeared in two media: A. Malhotra, L. M. Burns, G. H. Sockut, and K.-Y. Whang, “IRIS: Interactive Repository Interface Services,” Research Report RC 16943, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, June 1991.

K.-Y. Whang, A. Malhotra, G. H. Sockut, and L. M. Burns, “Supporting Universal Quantification in a Two-Dimensional Database Query Language,” Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Data Engineering, IEEE Computer Society, Feb. 1990, pp. 68-75.

G. H. Sockut and A. Malhotra, “A Full-Screen Facility for Defining Relational and Entity-Relationship Database Schemas,” Software, Vol. 5, No. 6, IEEE Computer Society, Nov. 1988, pp. 68-78.

K.-Y. Whang, A. C. Ammann, A. S. Bolmarcich, M. Hanrahan, G. T. Hochgesang, K.-T. Huang, A. Khorasani, R. Krishnamurthy, G. H. Sockut, P. Sweeney, V. E. Waddle, and M. M. Zloof, “Office-by-Example: An Integrated Office System and Database Manager,” ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems (later renamed ACM Transactions on Information Systems), Vol. 5, No. 4, Oct. 1987, pp. 393-427.

G. H. Sockut and R. Krishnamurthy, “Concurrency Control in Office-by-Example (OBE),” Proceedings of the IEEE Computer Society Office Automation Symposium, April 1987, pp. 164-170; abstract in SIGOIS Bulletin, Vol. 8, No. 3, ACM, Summer 1987, pp. 19-20; more implementation details in Research Report RC 10545, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, May 1984.

G. H. Sockut, “A Framework for Logical-Level Changes Within Database Systems,” Computer, Vol. 18, No. 5, IEEE Computer Society, May 1985, pp. 9-27.

G. H. Sockut, “Comparison and Mapping of the Relational and CODASYL Data Models – An Annotated Bibliography,” SIGMOD Record, Vol. 11, No. 3, ACM, April 1981, pp. 55-68.

G. H. Sockut and R. P. Goldberg, “Database Reorganization – Principles and Practice,” Computing Surveys, Vol. 11, No. 4, ACM, Dec. 1979, pp. 371-395.

S. Jeffery, D. W. Fife, D. R. Deutsch, and G. H. Sockut, “Architectural Considerations for Federal Database Standards,” COMPCON Spring 79, Digest of Papers, IEEE Computer Society, Feb. 1979, pp. 139-143.

G. H. Sockut, “A Performance Model for Computer Data-Base Reorganization Performed Concurrently With Usage,” Operations Research, Vol. 26, No. 5, Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, Sept.-Oct. 1978, pp. 789-804.

R. P. Goldberg, H. S. Schwenk, Jr., G. H. Sockut, and J. G. Perry, Jr., “Motivation for a Configuration and Integration Management Tool,” COMPCON Fall 78, Digest of Papers, IEEE Computer Society, Sept. 1978, pp. 326-329.

G. H. Sockut, “Data Base Performance Under Concurrent Reorganization and Usage,” Ph.D. thesis, Division of Applied Sciences (now School of Engineering and Applied Sciences), Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, July 1977; Technical Report 12-77, Center for Research in Computing Technology; presented at IEEE Computer Society 17th Annual Lake Arrowhead Workshop, on data management and storage hierarchies, Sept. 1978. Co-advisors: P. P.-S. Chen and U. O. Gagliardi. Virtual co-advisors: R. P. Goldberg and J. P. Buzen.

G. H. Sockut and R. P. Goldberg “Motivation for Data Base Reorganization Performed Concurrently With Usage,” Preprints, ACM Computer Science Conference, Jan. 1977, p. 26 (abstract); Data Base Engineering, Vol. 1, No. 1, IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Data Base Engineering, March 1977 (preprints, IEEE Computer Society Workshop on Operating and Data Base Management Systems), pp. 18-19 (abstract, entitled “Database Reorganization Issues Related to Operating and Data Management Systems Interface”); Technical Report 16-76, Center for Research in Computing Technology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, Sept. 1976.

G. H. Sockut, “Firmware/Hardware Support for Operating Systems: Principles and Selected History,” SIGMICRO Newsletter, Vol. 6, No. 4, ACM, Dec. 1975, pp. 17-26.

G. H. Sockut, “The New Parse Window,” ECL Working Memo, Center for Research in Computing Technology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, Oct. 1975.

G. H. Sockut, “A Graphics Monitor for Animation of Dynamic Processes,” S.M. thesis, Department of Electrical Engineering (now Electrical Engineering and Computer Science), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, Sept. 1974. Advisor: M. L. Dertouzos.

P. C. Anagnostopoulos, M. J. Michel, G. H. Sockut, G. M. Stabler, and A. van Dam, “Computer Architecture and Instruction Set Design,” Proceedings of the National Computer Conference and Exposition, Vol. 42, AFIPS Press, Reston, VA, June 1973, pp. 519-527.

P. C. Anagnostopoulos and G. H. Sockut, “Meta 4A Principles of Operation,” technical report, Center for Computer and Information Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI, June 1972.




PATENTS



B. R. Iyer and G. H. Sockut, “Methods for In-place Online Reorganization of a Database,” US Patent 6,411,964, June 2002.

C. A. Friske, G. H. Sockut, J. Z. Teng, and S. W. Turnbaugh, “Non-blocking Drain Method and Apparatus Used to Reorganize Data in a Database,” US Patent 6,070,170, May 2000, also “Non-blocking Drain Method and Apparatus for Use in Processing Requests on a Resource,” US Patent 6,519,613, Feb. 2003.

J. A. Ruddy, K. Shyam, G. H. Sockut, and J. A. Watts, “Application of Log Records to Data Compressed with Different Encoding Scheme,” US Patent 5,897,641, Apr. 1999.

G. H. Sockut and T. A. Beavin, “Interaction Between Application of a Log and Maintenance of a Table that Maps Record Identifiers During Online Reorganization of a Database,” US Patent 5,721,915, Feb. 1998, also US Patent 6,026,412, Feb. 2000.




OTHER PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES





AWARDS AND HONORARY SOCIETIES






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