Chris Walton is the Founder and Principal of Computer Performance Consulting. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and has over ten years experience providing performance support to developers of databases, protocol stacks, UNIX kernels, network processors and packet voice technology. He has solved performance problems at every stage of the product lifecycle, in environments ranging from Fortune 500 corporations to small startups.
Chris is a member of ACM, SIGMETRICS and the IEEE Computer Society. In 2002, Chris became a Senior Member of the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers. Fewer than 10% of IEEE members are recognized as Senior Members.
Most recently (2005 to 2010), Chris was a Senior Software Developer at Hyperformix. He not only developed new applications of Queuing Network Models, he also implemented these advances in the Capacity Manager product. Before joining Hyperformix, Chris was a Senior Quality Assurance Engineer at TippingPoint. He was a full-time consultant in 2002 and 2003, before deciding he was happier as a member of a development team than as a solo practitioner
Prior to starting FrontRunner, Chris was Principal Performance Scientist at Sariga Networks, a packet voice startup, where he used both analytic and simulation techniques to evaluate new jitter control algorithms and scheduling architectures. In 2000 and 2001, as a member of the technical staff at Agere Systems, he provided daily guidance on performance issues to the design teams for the PayLoad Plus™ network processor chipset.
From 1994 to 1999, Chris held a variety of positions at Tandem Computer's Austin site before and after Tandem's merger with Compaq Computer. He was responsible for performance analysis and capacity planning for the first generation infrastructure of Motorola's iDEN™ cell phone and two-way radio technology. Previous to joining Tandem, he was technical lead for OS/2 transport performance at IBM's Austin site.
Chris received his Ph.D. in Computer Sciences from the University of Texas in 1992. His dissertation research focused on how unbalanced data affected parallel join performance. His major contributions to the field were a new taxonomy and performance model of data skew in parallel joins. Chris also holds an M.S. in Computer Science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Chris Walton grew up in the New England region of the United States and attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. He majored in Physics and ran varsity cross country and track. In his senior year he was recognized as the outstanding male student-athlete in his class. After working at the United Technologies Research Center, he entered graduate school, first at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and then at The University of Texas at Austin.
Chris is married to Lori Wright and they have two children Alice and Stephen. Outside of work and family activies, Chris enjoys running, reading, cultural activities, hiking, home improvement projects and volunteer work.