About Benson

Profile

Benson Schliesser is an IT thought leader and network technology subject-matter expert. He has more than 15 years of professional experience with Internet technologies, most spent developing infrastructure for service providers.

Currently, Benson is a Technical Vice President in the Office of the CTO at Savvis, Inc. where he is responsible for network architecture and technology, providing product development leadership, new technology evaluation, and M&A support.

Before joining Savvis, Benson held positions in software development, network engineering, and systems administration. His career began during high school in the mid-’90s when he co-founded an Internet Service Provider to serve his local community. Benson went on to provide systems administration for several university labs while attending the University of Missouri – St. Louis, and then network engineering and software development for a regional Internet Services Provider.

Professional Interests

Benson’s career began with the recognition that then-emerging Internet technologies hold the potential to empower people from all walks of life.  Now, 15 years later, Internet access is nearly ubiquitous in the developed world and new technologies are emerging to enable the low-cost deployment of server infrastructure in the Cloud.  Benson’s goal is to help lead in one or all of these great opportunities for development, to contribute to the success of new technologies which will enable the next-wave of Internet access, web services, and (social) media applications.

The ideal employment for Benson is in technical thought leadership, which would allow him to remain close to the development of new technology while primarily being responsible for strategy and planning.  The ideal environment for Benson would encourage creativity and the exploration of new ideas, while challenging him with original and interesting development and engineering problems, and demanding the very best of every contributor.  The ideal employer would be interested in growth and market leadership.

Technology Interests

Benson’s interest is currently focused on next-generation datacenter networking and cloud infrastructure. New datacenter network technologies capturing his attention include TRILL, Enhanced Ethernet and Data Center Bridging, Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregation, as well as upcoming developments enhancing both vertical and horizontal scale in LAN environments.

Other interests include scalability and optimization of routing in the global Internet, Internet-scale application architectures, and quality of service (QoS) architectures. Benson is currently involved in the development and testing of the Location-ID Separation Protocol (LISP), XML-based APIs for cloud provisioning and automation, and optimized routing and load-balancing. Additional topics he is researching include mesh networking and Delay-Tolerant Networking, as well as enhancements to existing and new transport protocols to take advantage of high-speed multi-path environments.

Employment History

  • Technical Vice President, Savvis, Inc. 2006-Present
  • Senior Network Technologist, Savvis, Inc. 2004-2006
  • Director of R&D, Savvis, Inc. 2001-2004
  • Senior Network Engineer, Savvis, Inc. 1999-2001
  • Senior Systems Engineer, Savvis, Inc. 1999
  • Systems Programmer, InLink Comm. 1998-1999
  • Web Programmer, InLink Comm. 1998
  • Senior Support Engineer, InLink Comm. 1998
  • Systems Administrator, UMSL 1997-1998
  • Network Systems Engineer, BPC Internet 1995-1997

    Notable Projects

    Highlight projects from Benson’s career include:

  • the architecture, development, and design of Savvis’ next-generation cloud network
  • the architecture and design of Savvis’ global QoS-enabled MPLS network (also known as a Next-Generation Network or NGN)
  • the architecture and design of Savvis’ Hosting Area Network (HAN) datacenter network
  • the design and implementation of Savvis’ Intelligent IP Layer-3 VPN network
  • the development and implementation of InLink Communications’ back-office Operations, Support, & Billing system
  • the complete implementation of BPC Internet’s dial-up Internet access platform and supporting services

What People Say About Benson

  • “I have had the opportunity to interact with Benson on strategic topics such as technologies that can be pivotal to creating a business architecture e.g. for Service Providers. Benson is very structured and logical in articulating a value proposition or in posing questions that require more debate and discussion. Benson recently participated in a panel I had chaired in Washington D.C., October 2009: see: http://blogs.cisco.com/sp/comments/mpls_conference_2009_-_big_topics_great_panel/ Benson is exactly what our industry requires in terms of strategic and provocative thinking in terms of deconstructing the impact of technology to business.” December 30, 2009 – Monique Morrow
  • “I had the pleasure of working with Benson for nearly 10 years. He is far and away one of the smartest and brightest engineers I have ever met. He not only has a great aptitude for technologies of all types, but also has a passion for them. He is a great asset to any organization.” December 24, 2009 – Jason Gutenschwager
  • “I had the pleasure of working with Benson on a few projects and it always was a great experience: Give Benson high level requirements, he will help refine them and will then deliver a well though about solution on time!” December 23, 2009 – Nicolas Keller
  • “Benson provides an excellent combination of technical vision with practical know-how. He leads by example, keeping on the crest of the technology curve and translating it into practical application. He excels at leading multiple vendors to deliver a differentiated solution by means of clear communication, in depth technical understanding and steady project management.” March 5, 2008 – Geoff Mattson
  • “Benson is a true IT problem solver, highly skilled and intelligent. He earned the respect of all in our group who worked with him. He’s professional and trustworthy. I highly recommend Benson.” April 13, 2007 – Ken Cooper

Publications, Works in Progress, & Presentations

  • B. Lozano, B. Schliesser & S. Mandava, “Enterprise Use-Case Roundtable”, CloudCamp St. Louis Conference, December 2009.
    M. Morrow, B. Schliesser, et al., “Panel: Emerging Technologies and Business Architectural Impact”, MPLS 2009 Conference, October 2009.
  • B. Schliesser & T. Nadeau, “Definition of Textual Conventions for Virtual Private Network (VPN) Management”, IETF RFC 4265, November 2005.
  • S. Hares, P. Muley, K. Patel, L. Fang, B. Schliesser & N. Bitar, “Co-operative Route Filtering capability for BGP-4”, IETF 64 Conference – Presentation to the IDR Working Group, November 2005.
  • S. Hares, P. Muley, K. Patel, L. Fang, B. Schliesser & N. Bitar, “Co-operative Route Filtering capability for BGP-4”, Work In Progress, IETF Internet-Draft draft-muley-idr-orf-order-02, October 2005.
  • J. Laria, E. Stelzer, S. Hancock & B. Schliesser, “Virtual Router Management Information Base Using SMIv2”, Work In Progress, IETF Internet-Draft draft-ietf-l3vpn-vr-mib-04, July 2005.
  • A. Nagarajan, J. Sumimoto, M. Suzuki, P. Knight & B. Schliesser, “Applicability Statement for Virtual Router-based Layer 3 PPVPN Approaches”, Work In Progress, IETF Internet-Draft draft-ietf-l3vpn-as-vr-01, February 2004.

Related Experience and Memberships

  • CloudCamp St. Louis organizer – 2009 – Present
  • Member of the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) 2005 – Present
  • IETF participant, multiple working groups – 2000 – Present
  • Member of the Internet Society (ISOC) – 1999 – Present
  • Member of the Waterloo, IL School District (CUSD#5) Technology Planning Committee 1994 – 1996