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Award honors the contributions of women in the memory and storage industry

(PRUnderground) July 19th, 2024

FMS: The Future of Memory and Storage recognized as the world’s foremost conference highlighting the key advancements, trends, and industry figures shaping the multi-billion-dollar high-speed memory, storage, and SSD markets, today announced that Harriet Coverston, CTO of Versity Software, has won the SuperWomen of FMS Leadership Award for 2024. The award, now in its sixth year, honors the contributions of women in the memory and storage industry and aims to establish role models who have played pivotal roles in shaping the industry landscape.

Harriet Coverston has made significant contributions to the fields of file systems and archival storage systems over several decades, primarily proving that the integration of high-performance archiving and file systems is feasible on large-scale system implementations. Her work included developing the Quick File System (QFS), which laid the foundation for SAM-QFS. SAM-QFS was the first multi-node clustered file system combined with archiving, addressing the high-performance scaling needs of large real-time streaming data systems.

Coverston’s enhancements and contributions brought this model to market, influencing several subsequent products that are still actively developed and used at large-scale sites worldwide. This technology has shaped archival systems for scientific and research communities.

Today, in her 70s, she remains active in the community, building technology for efficient scale-out archives that encompass the full range of tape, S3, and cloud storage solutions.

Coverston grew up on a farm in the Florida panhandle and graduated with a math degree from  Florida State University. She studied abroad her senior year and did volunteer work during the 1966 flood of the Arno, becoming one of the famous “mud angels” who saved priceless works of art in Florence. Ms. Coverston entered the technology world as a programmer and, during her early days, working on the CDC 7600 Livermore Timesharing System at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. From there, in the 1970s, she moved to Control Data Corporation, where she collaborated on the Cyber 205 Operating System and CDCNET. She then went on to co-found LSC, serving as vice-president of technology where she developed SAM-FS and SAM-QFS for managing cold and archived data. Sun Microsystems acquired LSC in 2001 in large part due to LSC’s critical infrastructure work for a major government customer, and she became a distinguished engineer at Sun until 2010. In 2011, she co-founded Versity with Bruce Gilpin, where she has been the CTO, focusing on archiving software.

“Harriet has had an amazing impact on the data infrastructure community and particularly those involved with large scale computing. In a time where AI is on every press release, we know she has helped lay the foundations for the future.” said Camberley Bates, FMS Executive Committee member and Chief Technical Advisor for The Futurum Group. “Throughout her career spanning over five decades, she been a rare female leader paving the way for more SuperWomen of FMS!”

“This recognition is a tremendous honor, and I am proud to stand among the accomplished and notable women before me who have helped advance the data storage technology industry,” said Coverston. “I am deeply humbled to receive this recognition. It is a privilege to contribute to the field of data storage and to stand alongside so many accomplished women who have inspired progress and innovation.”

The award presentation will take place August 7 at 11:30 AM during the FMS Summit in Santa Clara, Calif. In addition to the presentation, a special Superwomen of FMS reception will be held in the evening sponsored by SK Hynix and Kioxia. Space is limited and reservations are required. Follow this link to learn more about the program and reserve your spot.

SuperWomen of FMS 

The SuperWomen of FMS initiative celebrates the successes of women in the memory and storage sector, while also advocating for increased female participation in this dynamic field. Supported by a wide array of women and technology leaders, including this year’s sponsors Kioxia and SK Hynix, the initiative continues to grow steadily. Through a series of events at FMS, it fosters a diverse community interested in advancing the role of women in memory and storage technology.

About FMS: The Future of Memory and Storage

FMS, produced by Conference ConCepts, showcases mainstream applications, key technologies, leading vendors, and innovative startups driving the multi-billion-dollar high-speed memory, storage technologies, and SSD and HDD markets. FMS is the world’s largest conference and exhibition featuring trends, innovations, and influencers driving high-speed memory technology adoption, and various storage technologies and applications within AI, enterprise IT infrastructure, cloud environments, high-performance computing, mobile, and embedded systems. It is the world’s leading conference and exhibition that brings together customers, IT professionals, analysts, and industry leaders to explore the latest trends and innovations in memory and storage technologies. With a renewed focus on inclusivity and forward-thinking, FMS is dedicated to shaping the future of storage applications, including its intersection with artificial intelligence.

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Original Press Release.