Michael L. Kazar

{{Infobox person

|name = Michael L. Kazar

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|alma_mater = Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Carnegie Mellon University

|occupation = CTO of Avere Systems, Inc

|known_for = Andrew File System

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Michael L. Kazar is an American engineer and technology executive.

Kazar received a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in Computer Science.{{cite thesis |last=Kazar |first=Michael |year=1985 |title=Automatic distribution of programs and data in a distributed environment |type=PhD |oclc=1031753650}}

Kazar is a co-creator of Andrew File System (AFS){{cite web|title=Avere Management Team Profiles|url=http://www.averesystems.com/about-us/management-team}} (AFS). He received the 2013 IEEE Reynold B. Johnson Information Storage Systems Award.{{cite web|url=http://www.ieee.org/about/awards/bios/johnson_info_recipients.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100521003701/http://www.ieee.org/about/awards/bios/johnson_info_recipients.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=May 21, 2010 | title= IEEE Reynold B. Johnson Information Storage Systems Award Recipients| website= Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)}} This is an IEEE annual award given for outstanding contributions to information storage systems. Michael holds 38 patents related to file systems design.{{cite web|url=http://patents.justia.com/inventor/mike-kazar | title= US Patent Collection for Michael L. Kazar}}{{cite web|url=http://patent.ipexl.com/inventor/michael_l_kazar_1.html | title = IPEXL Patent List for Michael L. Kazar}}

He worked at FORE Systems and co-founded Transarc in 1989 (acquired by IBM in 1994). Transarc commercialized AFS that was originally developed at Carnegie Mellon.

Kazar was chief technical officer (CTO) of Spinnaker Networks. Spinnaker Network was sold to Netapp in 2004.{{cite web|url=http://www.crn.com/news/storage/18825829/network-appliance-acquires-spinnaker.htm | title=Network Appliance Acquires Spinnaker| date=4 November 2003}} He co-founded and became CTO of Avere Systems, Inc, where he designed and oversaw the development of the Avere OS and the virtual cloud bursting software, the vFXT.

In 2016, Kazar received the ACM Software System Award for his work on the development of the Andrew File System.{{cite web| url=https://awards.acm.org/award_winners/kazar_0825615| title=Michael Kazar| publisher=ACM| access-date=6 August 2017}}{{cite web| url=https://awards.acm.org/software-system| title=About ACM Software System Award| publisher=ACM| access-date=6 August 2017}}