Edouard Bugnion

Edouard Bugnion
Board member of	Logitech, Innosuisse, ICRC

Edouard "Ed" Bugnion is a Swiss computer science professor at EPFL and a co-founder of VMware. Since 2025, he is Vice President for Innovation and Impact at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.[1]

Biography

Bugnion was raised in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.[2]

Bugnion was one of the five founders of VMware in 1998 (with his advisor Mendel Rosenblum) and was the chief architect until 2004.[3] While he was chief architect, VMware developed the secure desktop initiative also known as NetTop for the US National Security Agency.[4]

After VMware, Bugnion was a founder of Nuova Systems which was funded by Cisco Systems, and acquired by them in April 2008.[5] Bugnion joined Cisco as vice president and chief technology officer of Cisco's Server Access and Virtualization Business Unit.[6] He promoted Cisco's Data Center 3.0 vision, and appeared in advertisements.[7] In 2014, he became adjunct professor at the School of Computer Science at EPFL, Switzerland, where he is now a Full Professor. He was Vice President for Information Systems until he was appointed Vice President for Innovation and Impact starting 2025.[8][9]

Bugnion is also an angel investor in startup companies such as Cumulus Networks.[10]

He was elected as an ACM Fellow in 2017.[11]

References

1. "Vice Presidencies". EPFL. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
2. "Edouard Bugnion". Personal student web page. Stanford University. Archived from the original on October 6, 2009. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
3. "VMware Leadership". Archived from the original on December 29, 2004. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
4. "NSA hones secure desktop to run multiple OSes". Government Computer News. September 17, 2003. Archived from the original on January 24, 2013. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
5. "Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire Remaining Interest in Nuova Systems". News release. Cisco systems. April 8, 2008. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
6. Charles Waltner (March 16, 2009). "The Evolution of Data Center 3.0". News release. Cisco systems. Archived from the original on January 18, 2012. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
7. Dante Malagrino interview of Ed Bugnion (April 8, 2008). "Cisco Nexus 5000 Enables Virtualization Optimization". Promotional video by Cisco. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
8. "Nominations of EPFL professors" (Press release). Lausanne, Switzerland: EPFL. 2021-05-21. Retrieved 2024-12-09.
9. "ETH Board appoints EPFL's new leadership team" (Press release). Lausanne, Switzerland: EPFL. 2024-09-19. Retrieved 2024-12-09.
10. "Cumulus Networks™ Brings The Power Of Linux® To Networking". Archived from the original on 2013-06-27.
11. ACM Recognizes 2017 Fellows for Making Transformative Contributions and Advancing Technology in the Digital Age, Association for Computing Machinery, December 11, 2017, retrieved 2017-11-13