Member of Technical Staff at Google
San Francisco Bay Area
- Current
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- Member of Technical Staff at Google
- Past
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- Member of Technical Staff at ConSentry Networks
- Senior SW Engineer at Extreme Networks
- Principle Engineer at Dominet Systems
- Senior Staff Engineer at Sun Microsystems
- Education
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- Stanford University
- University of Michigan
- Connections
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265
connections
- Industry
- Computer Networking
- Websites
Denton Gentry’s Summary
Prior experience as an ASIC designer, now working as a software engineer. I tend to focus on platform and systems programming, at relatively low levels like kernel subsystems and device drivers.
I generally go by the nickname "Denny."
Denton Gentry’s Specialties:
ASIC and system bringup
Denton Gentry’s Experience
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Member of Technical Staff
Google
(Public Company; GOOG; Internet industry)
August 2009 — Present (4 months)
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Member of Technical Staff
ConSentry Networks
(Privately Held; Computer & Network Security industry)
August 2005 — August 2009 (4 years 1 month)
Software support for a massively multithreaded network processor to implement identity-aware network security policies. Implemented hash-based fastpath to quickly retire packets on fully-analyzed flows. Implemented support for multiple generations of chips in a single software image with negligible performance impact. Developed High Availability feature to keep user state synchronized between redundant systems. Developed internal control plane used to communicate between the control and datapath processors, with additional capabilities layered atop it such as publish/subscribe and a pseudo network interface. Led strike teams to resolve hot issues arising during large customer deployments.
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Senior SW Engineer
Extreme Networks
(Public Company; 501-1000 employees; EXTR; Computer Networking industry)
August 2002 — August 2005 (3 years 1 month)
Provided extensive software input into next generation Extreme switch ASICS, from feature set definition down to optimization of register access.
Developed tools to instrument and analyze software performance, uncovering several significant bottlenecks in common operations.
One of the primary resources for Linux/MIPS work, including debugging issues in VM and interrupt handling and filesystems implementation.
Defined and implemented the underlying software control mechanism for a large chassis switch product, a framework to maintain distributed state. -
Principle Engineer
Dominet Systems
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Computer Networking industry)
December 2000 — February 2002 (1 year 3 months)
Defined system architecture and began implementation of next generation of access networking using Ethernet in the First Mile. System included extensive IP and QoS features. Hardware architecture relied on FPGAs and switch fabrics for quick time to market. Software architecture used an embedded Linux kernel with remote administration of all services.
Extensive contributions to the IEEE 802.3ah standards working group. -
Senior Staff Engineer
Sun Microsystems
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; SUNW; Computer Hardware industry)
August 1992 — December 2000 (8 years 5 months)
From August 1997 - December 2000: Senior Staff Engineer
Architectural role for several network interfaces for Sun Solaris platforms, including gigabit ethernet and OC-48 Packet over Sonet. Designs included significant packet processing and TCP/IP acceleration features. Emphasis was on total system performance, achieved by tailoring the NIC design to the needs of the rest of the system.
From Feb 1996 - August 1997: Staff Engineer (SW)
Implemented Solaris kernel driver for SBus and PCI OC-12 ATM interface. Implemented test programs and software workarounds of hardware bugs.
From June 1992 - Feb 1996: Member of Technical Staff (ASIC)
Designed the receive segmentation and reassembly core and DMA engine
for an OC-12 ATM interface for Sun workstations, using Verilog HDL and Synopsys toolset. Involved in all phases of the design from early brainstorming through bench debug and bringup. Extensive involvement in software interface and TCP/IP protocol acceleration issues.
Denton Gentry’s Education
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Stanford University
MS , Computer Science , 1992 — 1997
- Activities and Societies:
- took Masters degree classes at Stanford while working full time at Sun Microsystems
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University of Michigan
BS , Electrical Engineering , 1988 — 1992
- Activities and Societies:
- Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu
Additional Information
Denton Gentry’s Websites:
Denton Gentry’s Honors:
23 granted US and international patents, mostly related to ATM & network interfaces, ~10 patents pending
Eagle Scout, Boy Scouts of America
Denton Gentry’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- expertise requests
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
