Jason Nieh

{{short description|American computer scientist}}

{{Infobox scientist

|name = Jason Nieh

|workplaces = Columbia University

|alma_mater = {{Plainlist|

• MIT
• Stanford University

}}

|thesis_title = The design, implementation, and evaluation of SMART: A scheduler for multimedia applications

|thesis_url = https://www.proquest.com/docview/304525856/

|thesis_year = 1999

|doctoral_advisor = Monica S. Lam

|website = {{URL|https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~nieh/}}

}}

Jason Nieh is a professor of Computer Science and co-director of the Software Systems Laboratory at Columbia University. He was the technical advisor to nine States regarding the Microsoft antitrust settlement and has been an expert witness before the United States International Trade Commission. He was Chief Scientist of Desktone, which was purchased by VMware, and currently holds the same position at CertiK.

Nieh is most well known for his work on virtualization.{{cite book |first1=Edouard |last1=Bugnion |first2=Jason |last2=Nieh |first3=Dan |last3=Tsafrir |title= Hardware and Software Support for Virtualization |publisher= Morgan Kaufmann |year= 2017 |isbn= 978-3-031-00625-8}} He was one of the early pioneers of operating-system-level virtualization, introducing key concepts such as process namespaces{{cite conference |first1= Steven |last1= Osman |first2= Dinesh |last2= Subhraveti |first3= Gong | last3= Su | first4= Jason | last4= Nieh |title= The Design and Implementation of Zap: A System for Migrating Computing Environments |conference= Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation, Boston, MA, USA |url= https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/osdi02/tech/full_papers/osman/osman.pdf |year= 2002 |access-date= 2024-06-14}} and file system layers{{cite conference |first1= Shaya |last1=Potter |first2= Jason | last2= Nieh |title = Improving Virtual Appliance Management through Virtual Layered File Systems |conference= Large Installation System Administration Conference, Boston, MA, USA |url= https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/lisa11/tech/full_papers/Potter.pdf |year= 2011 |access-date= 2024-06-14}} which led to the development of Linux containers and Docker. He was an early proponent of desktop virtualization, conducting many of the early studies demonstrating the feasibility of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. He developed and influenced many key technologies for Arm virtualization, including the Linux ARM hypervisor, KVM ARM,{{cite web|url=https://lwn.net/Articles/557132/|title=Supporting KVM on the ARM architecture|date=July 3, 2013|publisher=Linux Weekly News|accessdate=January 15, 2014}} and Arm architecture features to support virtualization host extensions, nested virtualization, and confidential computing.{{cite press release|url=https://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20220715-new-computing-security-architecture-protects-sensitive-private-data|title=New Computing Security Architecture Protects Sensitive Private Data|publisher=Homeland Security News Wire|date=July 15, 2022|accessdate=July 19, 2022}} He was also the first to introduce virtual machines and virtual appliances to teach hands-on computer science courses such as operating systems,{{cite web|url=https://www.drdobbs.com/examining-vmware/184404206?queryText=examining%2Bvmware|title=Examining VMware|publisher=Dr. Dobb's Journal|date=August 1, 2000|accessdate=June 10, 2023}} which has now become common practice at universities all over the world.