PITTSBURGH, PA--(Marketwired - Jun 20, 2017) - Avere Systems, a leading provider of hybrid cloud enablement solutions, today announced that CTO and Co-founder Michael Kazar was named a recipient of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Software System Award. Kazar has been honored for the co-development of the Andrew File System (AFS), the first distributed file system designed for the use of scalable, secure and ubiquitous access to shared file data.

The ACM recognizes researchers and leaders who make significant contributions that have had far-reaching impact on how we live and work. The ACM Software System Award is presented to an institution or individuals recognized for developing a software system that has had a lasting influence, reflected in contributions to concepts and commercial acceptance. In addition to Kazar, this year's award recipients include Mahadev Satyanarayanan, Robert N. Sidebotham, David A. Nichols, Michael J. West, John H. Howard, Alfred Z. Spector and Sherri M. Nichols.

Kazar and fellow developers designed and built AFS in the 1980s, working as a partnership between Carnegie Mellon University and IBM, at the Information Technology Center. The team's exceptional engineering and concepts led to the system being widely used, and later introduced as a commercial application. Their work has influenced cloud-based file stores and continues to be developed in OpenAFS today.

"It is a true honor to receive the ACM Software System Award alongside fellow developers of the Andrew File System," said Kazar. "The foundation of AFS and its development over the years have led to significant innovations in file sharing and enterprise storage systems."

The ACM awards banquet honoring recipients of the Software System Award takes place on June 24 in San Francisco, CA.

In 2013, Kazar was named the recipient of the IEEE Reynold B. Johnson Information Storage Systems Award for his expertise in network file systems and for leading the development of Avere's innovative NAS optimization architecture. Kazar earned an S.B. in Mathematics and an S.B. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in Computer Science.

About Avere Systems
Avere helps enterprise IT organizations enable innovation with high-performance data storage access, and the flexibility to compute and store data where necessary to match business demands. Customers enjoy easy reach to cloud-based resources, without sacrificing the consistency, availability or security of enterprise data. A private company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Avere is led by industry experts to support the demanding, mission-critical hybrid cloud systems of many of the world's most recognized companies and organizations. Learn more at www.averesystems.com.