Nikolai Pitaev (born 21 April 1973) is an IT Expert and academic who contributed significantly to the Network Function Virtualization and Internetworking. His main research areas are applied science of virtual network functions, wide-area computer networks and high-speed broadband-aggregation.
Pitaev was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan to a father, Valeri Pitaev, solid-state physicist, who worked directly with Nobel Prize winner Zhores Alferov, and mother Luba Michailovski. In 1990 Nikolai completed high school in a specialized class with focus on mathematics and physics and continued his education at St. Petersburg Polytechnic University.
1993 the family followed research job of Valeri and moved to Darmstadt, Germany. In 1999 Nikolai graduated from Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology. Nikolai was offered Ph.D. position at the Darmstadt Technical University, but he went into Industry and continue his applied science and research activities at Deutsche Telekom and later at Cisco Systems.
Nikolai Pitaev built the first 40 Gig Point of Presence in Germany and designed the first broadband DSL Aggregation Network in Europe. Later on he created horizontal-scale based solutions for virtual broadband aggregation networks and focused his attention on performance of virtual network elements.
Nikolai holds top-level Industry Certification - Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert #12721 (i.e. person number 12.721 in the world, who archived this degree). He is a well-known Speaker at international research (IEEE) and industry (Cisco Live) conferences.
In his spare time, he is a passionate Ice Hockey Parent of two young goalies, holds lectures for Kids University and mentors students for IT WorldSkills World Championship.
The picture below shows Nikolai leading the first 4-hours Lab for 30 Students on Cloud-based Routing and Virtual Network Functions in Berlin, Germany in 2016:
