I’m delighted to announce that Gordon Brebner (Xilinx) has agreed to lead the P4 Architecture Working Group, joining Andy Fingerhut (Intel) as co-chair. Working group co-chairs are appointed by the P4 Chief Architect and typically serve a 3-year term.
Gordon has been a leading figure in the P4 community for many years, and has been involved with developing languages for programmable forwarding longer than that. He served as co-chair of the P4 Language Design Working Group from 2015-2018 and was the recipient of the 2018 P4 Distinguished Service Award. The citation for that award was as follows:
As one of the stewards of the P4 language, Gordon has provided essential leadership and guidance through the early years of the development of the language. He has been a tireless advocate for the elegant and yet pragmatic design that can be seen in many of the language’s features. At Xilinx, Gordon also led development of a P4-enabled target, building on his decades of expertise implementing efficient packet-processing engines using FPGAs.
In his new role, Gordon will provide guidance for the P4 Architecture Working Group as they work to develop new architecture specifications and reference implementations. Architectures for programmable NICs are expected to be a focus of the group over the next few months, and Gordon’s considerable experience with P4, NICs, and reconfigurable architectures will be extremely valuable.
Please join me in thanking Gordon for agreeing to serve in this role. I look forward to seeing what the P4 Architecture Working Group produces in the coming years!
