Toronto Networking Seminar


Organized by Department of Computer Science and
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto


 

Network Services Scheduling for Emerging 
Applications



 





Nasir Ghani  




Advanced 
Cyber-Infrastructure Lab



ECE Department, University 
of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA





http://ece.unm.edu/~nghani,

http://ece.unm.edu/acl  


 


 



Date: March 18,   3pm


Room: BA B024   (Bahen Center Basement)










Abstract:






The last decade has seen many 
advances in next-generation networking technologies.  For example, ubiquitous IP 
and Ethernet networks (Layers 2, 3) have evolved to multi-gigabit speeds with 
full quality of service (QoS) provisions, as enabled by gains in 
high-speed electronics technologies.  Concurrently, developments in optical 
wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) sub-systems have revolutionized the 
fiber-optic layer (Layer 1), delivering flexible “wavelength” circuit 
connectivity with terabits/fiber yields.  As these technologies have matured, 
many scientific research organizations have actively deployed wireline 
networking infrastructures to support expanded distributed computing needs.  For 
example, many “e-science” applications already need massive dataset transfers, 
i.e., petabytes-exabytes range, placing huge burdens on network resource 
provisioning.  Given these trends, it is very plausible that even the most 
scalable backbones may not be able to handle all user requests in an “on-demand” 
manner.  As a result, the concept of advance reservation (AR) of 
connections is becoming an increasingly critical concern.  Namely, the ability 
to reserve connections at future time instants, i.e., network scheduling, allows 
operators to stagger demands and improve resource assignments and utilization.  
Moreover, AR services also have broad relevance to data-center management and 
other commercial applications.  In light of the above, various studies have 
looked at this area, both at the IP/Ethernet and optical DWDM network layers. 
 Along these lines, this talk will survey this exciting new field and outline 
several new research directions.  In particular, refined AR scheduling 
strategies will be presented to help lower request blocking rates and improve 
resource efficiencies.  Furthermore, novel network control plane extensions will 
also be detailed to help translate theoretical AR algorithms into practical 
real-world settings, i.e., distributed operation, multiple domains.


 





Bio:





Dr. Nasir Ghani is an Associate 
Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the 
University of New Mexico, where he is actively involved in a range of research 
and teaching activities.  His current interests include network 
cyber-infrastructure design, survivability, services/applications, and 
knowledge-based systems. He has published over 40 journal and 80 conference 
papers, several book chapters, and has also co-authored various industry 
standards contributions.  Overall, his work has been funded by several US 
government agencies (including the National Science Foundation and Department of 
Energy) as well as some industry sponsors.  In particular, he received the NSF 
CAREER award in 2005 to support his work in the area of multi-layer network 
design.  Prior to joining academia, Dr. Ghani spent over 8 years working in 
industry and held key technical positions at several large companies (Nokia, 
Motorola, IBM) as well as some start-up organizations (Sorrento Networks, Array 
Systems Computing).  In addition, he has actively been involved in a range of 
outreach and technical community service roles. For example, he has served as 
chair of the IEEE ComSoc Technical Committee on High Speed Networks (TCHSN) 
from 2008-2010 and has also been a symposium co-chair for IEEE Globecom 
(2006, 2010) and IEEE ICC (2006, 2011).  He has also built and 
established a successful high-speed networking workshop series for the flagship
IEEE INFOCOM conference and served as a panelist for numerous NSF, DOE, 
and international panels.  Dr. Ghani is an associate editor of the IEEE 
Communications Letters journal and has also guest-edited special issues of 
the IEEE Network, IEEE Communications Magazine, and Cluster 
Computing journals.  He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and has also been 
faculty advisor for the Etta Kappa Nu honor society. He received his Bachelors 
degree in computer engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada, his 
Masters degree in electrical engineering from McMaster University, Canada, and 
his Ph.D. degree in computer engineering from the University of Waterloo, 
Canada.


 


 








Host of Talk:



  Yashar Ganjali [yganjali@cs.toronto.edu]