ACM SIGCOMM 2018 Workshops and Tutorials: Friday Late Morning Session

---

Abstract: In this talk, we describe Self-Programming Networks (SPNs), an ongoing research effort at Stanford for making cloud computing networks autonomous; that is, to enable networks to sense and monitor themselves, and program and control themselves. We describe how AI/ML techniques can be used to achieve this goal. We present the architecture of SPNs and key algorithms: (i) Simon, for fine-grained network measurement using packet and probe timestamps taken at the network’s edge, and (ii) Huygens, for nanosecond-level clock synchronization in real-time and at scale. We will focus on Huygens and present results from some deployments.

 

Bio: Balaji Prabhakar is VMWare Founders Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, a faculty member in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science departments. He’s interested in cloud computing and data center networks, and leads the Self-Programming Networks research group at Stanford with Mendel Rosenblum. During 2007—2010 he co-invented the QCN (Quantized Congestion Notification) algorithm, and led the effort to standardize it as the IEEE 802.1Qau Data Center Ethernet Congestion Notification standard. QCN’s non-binary signaling of congestion inspired the widely-used DCTCP algorithm and the DCQCN algorithm. From 2008 he has worked on Societal Networks: networks vital for society’s functioning, such as transportation, electricity and recycling systems. He worked on developing and deploying "nudge engines" for transportation systems (notably, Singapore mass transit and the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)), wellness programs, and corporate learning programs. Based on this work, he co-founded Urban Engines, a startup which was acquired by Google in 2016. Balaji has received the NSF CAREER award, the Erlang Prize from the INFORMS Applied Probability Society, the Rollo Davidson Prize from the University of Cambridge given to "young scientists of outstanding promise and achievements in probability, statistics and related fields," and delivered the Lunteren Lectures of the Dutch Operations Research Society. He is a Fellow of IEEE, ACM and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He is the recipient of the inaugural IEEE Innovation in Societal Infrastructure Award which recognizes "significant technological achievements and contributions to the establishment, development and proliferation of innovative societal infrastructure systems.” He is a co-recipient of best paper awards from IEEE Infocom, IEEE HotNets, and ACM SIGMETRICS; and a “test of time award” from ACM Sigmetrics. He has served on the Advisory Board of the Future Urban Mobility Initiative of the World Economic Forum,and served on a Panel of Judges in Governor’s Andew Cuomo’s "MTA Genius Challenge” for addressing the problems faced by New York City’s Subway system.