•   When: Monday, March 01, 2021 from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM
•   Speakers: Nik Sultana, Post-doc, University of Pennsylvania
•   Location: ZOOM
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Abstract:

To meet our unabated need for information processing, computer systems like Internet datacenters interconnect arrays of heterogenous hardware within increasingly-programmable network fabrics. Such distributed and heterogeneous systems are difficult to program because, in addition to thinking about the program's logic, you must reason about different execution domains and hardware targets, resource scheduling, and resilience to partial failure.

 In this talk I'll describe my work on this problem, focusing on Flightplan: a target-agnostic, programming toolchain for P4, a domain-specific language for programmable networking.  Flightplan (https://secure-web.cisco.com/1VfYM22GCOtbQOUxVrfYjJ0bs9_B1k8OB3rBSV3tBfs4RJ8_e9xa-salAPhRLCKfj6_Qta4qoZo03Wds6t_XWP1wz0jAOMaI8D0Oqoc2jQD4NntqJxLmWO9gzAiZw9iNIrAtoHLXh46OyNhuec5xkAmhmzA4hK4MxKU88UW89u6maKVD1h0G7Ug7vWv6DK0AQ0DVj9asNO4SF8_ldEUzuM3vJIj95aj8LxbqMsm8S_Fu10NPooc2tLwZ1e5nydVpSNFpUajAg7AyAr5hjaVxhWbLvBbGTLEaUVATnkY0YpB773y7jRlHU4CaJygv6EHWvoPDCxiVDNEN0ehKb-NuSLjG2wZJJnlIlYpOiwRsGUKtIK1wgZhEsVRTJPYbmLKCYJNzZqEvMcQXZYiuZiHfdGOsV1Dvvicl-PUcTu9hhUmzB9-atq0GDDizugxAgtv-p/https%3A%2F%2Fflightplan.cis.upenn.edu%2F%29 helps with splitting a program into a set of cooperating programs and maps them to run as a distributed system. I'll describe how Flightplan exploits features offered by heterogeneous hardware targets and assists with configuring, testing, and handing-over between programs.

 I'll also describe ongoing work to generalize this approach beyond programmable networking and beyond datacenters, and will outline a research agenda on this theme of *programming for distributed and heterogeneous resources* to achieve better performance, utilization and security while minimizing the burden on programmers and operators of such systems.

Bio: 

Nik Sultana is a post-doc at the University of Pennsylvania where he works on programmable networking and program transformation. His research interests span distributed systems, security, and formal methods. For his PhD at Cambridge University he developed a compiler-based approach to translating formal proofs between logics. Having worked in both theory and systems research, his work often bridges between research areas to connect problems with solutions.

His webpage is at https://secure-web.cisco.com/19OBnuMBdoQE9oRH6SNCf6g6QnKtLgD0I0JAheT_kABamBlMb3X97y1mJSjNGz4z9NVtD20hc6sAI-5fktRwuu1gvAmTxj9YUzB-ZLAjHb0oM9pAaQjVtmpH49n8aZa-pmVrljyI29P-SS4cwM7Zm5hJdqZA25GM3yIjsrCJ8XBLEkQWAi20873G42zc3JdKyyEmneutxH84lBzZBuZtDAxKjiOu-NRgFeM8siO0drd8OfY8o5uFJyJE5EMHGiWZy5RQXkqKmzcry2YlY5_SJOPVHbSuyYChBWfLy22Dg00b9ApCKtP6g4RhvANkgHIl74ZbQX-lsJGhkpPBN7qT9DtJnXr1IgRcIhn0s9GK8shkYTAZuuUxJsJLi3AyBWiP23GX3IaJiLGg5t_zwp4jcSVKRtuZoFNl-dUf5RGU8W4EGn3U5dyXkt3c9J73RMyIa/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nik.network