Board Appointments at DNA Data Storage Alliance

The DNA Data Storage Alliance, an organization formed in 2020 by Illumina, Inc., Microsoft Corp., Twist Bioscience Corporation and Western Digital Corporation to create and promote an interoperable storage ecosystem based on DNA as a storage medium, announced the appointments of Catalog Technologies, Inc. and Quantum Corporation to the governing board of the Alliance.

All 3 new board members bring to the Alliance storage expertise and experience launching new technologies.

“SNIA welcomes the expansion of the DNA Data Storage Alliance board with the addition of Quantum and Catalog. We are excited to see the Alliance expanding its membership and continuing to support the emergence of this important technology,” said Dr. J Metz, chair, SNIA board of directors. “With their talent and experience, David, Turguy, and Don will be excellent additions to the board. They’ll help guide this nascent industry through the next phase, address the inevitable challenges, and eventually reach a broader consumer base for these innovative technologies.“

“At this pivotal moment in the evolution of DNA storage, when the fundamentals of DNA synthesis and sequencing have progressed to the point where the storing of digital data in DNA molecules is technically feasible, it is vital to come together as an industry and implement standards that coalesce the whole sector in the drive to scale to commercially deployable systems,” said David Turek, CTO, Catalog Technologies. “I look forward to working with my fellow board members to help guide the Alliance toward this goal.“

“Bringing together diverse experience in storage media and technologies is critical to ensure that DNA storage moves toward standardized interoperability and ultimately broad adoption by customers,” said Turguy Goker, director of advanced development, LTO, Quantum. “SNIA and the DNA Data Storage Alliance are already making great strides to make this goal a reality.“

“DNA storage is primed to be a game-changer in storage, providing the ability to efficiently store vast amounts of data for a long time,” said Don Doerner, technical director, office of the CTO, Quantum. “As an industry, we should embrace this potential, and I look forward to playing my part to help usher in this new era for the storage sector.“

David Turek joined Catalog from IBM where he held numerous executive positions in HPC and emerging technologies. Achievements include: Acting as the development executive for the IBM SP program, which produced the first commercially successful, massively parallel system; starting IBM’s Linux Cluster business; and launching an early offering in cloud computing called Deep Computing Capacity on Demand; producing the Roadrunner system, the world’s first petascale computer; and managing IBM’s exascale strategy, which led to the deployment of the Summit and Sierra systems at Oak Ridge and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories respectively. He has been invited to testify to Congress on numerous occasions regarding the future of computing in the US and has helped establish technical collaborations with universities, businesses, and government agencies around the world.

Turguy Goker represents Quantum with LTO organizations and leads the advanced development team focused in LTO technology. He is a servo signal processing technology expert, with more than 30 years of experience in researching and designing tape drives, specifically LTO. He has been one of the key contributors for researching low flying heads for HDD systems and was a key member of a small R&D team that was responsible for the original LTO project collaborating with HP and IBM, helping the formation of LTO organization and tape technology. Early in LTO, he helped design and develop reel-to-reel motion control systems and the actuator tracking servo algorithms. Later in his career, he managed the LTO advanced development team for Quantum. He has been responsible for developing next gen data detection methods and electronic control concepts (ECC), including ASIC implementation and dual actuator-based adaptive servo control algorithms for multi-channel tape systems. He holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from San Diego State University.

Don Doerner joined Quantum in 2006 and is presently in the Office of the CTO, responsible for technology strategy, vision, and leadership of products. He is well-versed in storage and networking technology and has served in both engineering and product management roles at Quantum. His past projects include designing and implementing campus-area networks, automated tape storage libraries, error recovery algorithms for advanced tape storage devices and NVMe-based storage systems. He has led proofs-of-concept involving storage technology, such as object-based file systems, erasure coding and RAID. He holds a master’s degree in mathematics and a bachelor’s degree in physics, both from the University of New Mexico.

The DNA Data Storage Alliance mission is to create and promote an interoperable storage ecosystem based on manufactured DNA as a storage medium. The Alliance is achieving its mission by: 1) educating the storage ecosystem and the public on this emerging technology; 2) identifying key technical challenges in the underlying technologies in order to drive funding and research which facilitate commercialization; and 3) developing standards and specs (e.g., encoding, physical interfaces, retention, file systems) that enable the emergence of an interoperable DNA storage product ecosystem.

In 2022, the Alliance joined SNIA as a Technology Affiliate. SNIA’s legacy as a standards-setting organization, combined with the Alliance’s depth of knowledge in both storage and DNA technologies, provides a solid organizational foundation to achieve our goals.