Tim Howes

hroughout his education and career, Tim Howes has been motivated by the need to solve problems. His work as a co-inventor of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP),the Internet standard for directories,was borne from his desire to handle situations that X500 could not address.

X500 directories list network resources to make finding them and using them easier for network administrators and users. Unfortunately, accessing X500 records has required a full-blown X500 server; there was no such thing as an X500 client. This led Howes to co-create DIXIE, a directory client for X500 directories. This work formed the basis of his Ph.D. dissertation and was the foundation for LDAP, a standards-based version of DIXIE for both clients and servers.

Howes' pragmatic leanings are evident in his current work at Opsware, where he drives the development of software that manages data center assets.

The software, originally developed by Loudcloud for managing its own infrastructure, is now sold to managed service providers and enterprises to tame unwieldy networks.

Howes characterizes his work at Opsware as another problem-solving opportunity: "If I solve my customers' problems, in some way I've solved my own."