Transcript Overview

Welcome to EECS 395/495
Networking Problems in Cloud
Computing
What is this class about?
• Goal: to help you learn how to do the
networking research
– Read research papers
– Argue and convey your ideas
– Execute a research project
– Write a research paper
– Test your ability to generate research ideas
– Learn about hot topics in networking problems in cloud
computing
Typical Path
• Pick a research topic
• Learn as much as you can about the topic (read
papers)
• Generate a research idea (something that nobody else
did before)
• Execute your idea (e.g., modeling, simulations,
implementation, measurements)
• Write a paper and submit to a conference/journal
• Present the paper at a conference
Typical Problems
• You may know a topic that you are interested
in
• Yet, you don’t know the related work
• It is sometimes hard to generate an idea,
even if you know the related work
• By the time you come up with an idea, several
quarters may pass (it took me 2 years!)
How to do it all?
• Projects:
– You should come up with a research project
• You can consult with my PhD, MS, and undergraduate students about ongoing
projects, or come up with your own ideas
– The goal is to generate quality networking research and potentially
submit the best work to networking conferences
• Classes:
– Discuss topics related to networking problems in cloud computing
(e.g., existing applications, datacenter architectures, security,
performance, incast, energy efficiency, geo-distributed cloud
services, etc.)
– Learn how to read papers
What do I expect from you:
• This is not an ordinary class
– This is a reality show!
• I’ll treat you as my PhD students
• I’ll expect you to behave as my PhD students:
– Independent
– Self-motivated
– Hard-working
Overview
• Administrative stuff
• Classes:
– Reading papers
– Paper reviews
– Presentations/debating
– Project topics
• Projects:
– Topics
• presentations will happen on Wednesday 3/31; make sure
you are present!
Course Overview
• Seminar class: paper reading + a big project
– Each class a new paper
– More on the class structure later
Teaching Stuff
• Aleksandar Kuzmanovic ([email protected]),
Office Hours: by appointment
• TA: no TA;
• Ionut Trestian ([email protected]) will be the class
coordinator
Prerequisites and Course Materials
• Required: CS340 (Intro to computer networking)
• Highly Recommended: OS or having some
familiarity with Unix systems programming
• No required textbook – paper reading!
• Recommended
– Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach
Featuring the Internet, [KR], Second Edition, James
Kurose and Keith Ross
Grading
• No exams for this class
• Class: 50%
– Paper reading summary 15%
– In class paper presentation and debating 20%
– Class participation and discussion (when you are not directly debating)
15%
• Project 50%
– Proposal 5% (up to 1 page)
– Midterm report 5% (up to 5 pages)
– Weekly report and meeting 10%
– Project presentation 10%
– Final report, 10 pages, 20%
Communication and Policies
• Web page:
http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~akuzma/class
es/EECS395-s10/
• Group e-mail [email protected]
• Send emails to the instructor for questions
inappropriate in newsgroup
• Paper reading summary is due by 2PM on Mon
and Wed
– Send it to me
– You can miss one paper summary without any
consequences
Overview
• Administrative stuff
• Classes:
– Topics
– Paper readings and reviews
– Presentations/debating
– Research ideas
• Projects:
– Topics
Course Topics
• I tried to pick interesting papers (breadth vs.
depth)
– Real-world cloud computing infrastructures (Google
cluster architecture, Amazon, Yahoo)
– Data center architectures
– Cloud security
– Performance (fingerprinting, failure trends, etc)
– Incast throughput collapse problem
– Energy efficiency
– Future data center architectures
Reading papers
• Why read?
• Decide what to read
• Reading for breadth: build a framework
• Reading in depth: Challenge what you read
– if you will lead a debate
Reviews
• Should…
– Point out the paper's contributions, strengths as well as
weaknesses.
• Think in terms of what makes good research?
• What qualities make a good paper?
• What are the potential future impacts of the work?
• Note that there is no right or wrong answer to these questions
• A review's quality will mainly depend on its thoughtfulness.
• Restating the abstract/conclusion of the paper will not earn a
top grade.
Writing Reviews (2)
• Write a very brief summary of each paper, to be emailed
to me before the class (.txt please)
• Summary should include:
– Paper title and its author(s)
– A short paragraph summary (what is this paper about?)
– A paragraph of the most significant new insight(s) you took away
from the paper (what is good? what is the contribution?)
– A paragraph of the one or two most significant flaw(s) of the
paper (what is bad?)
– Explain what reference would you read next and why
– Give a grade to the paper (1-5) (excluding 3!)
Overview
• Administrative stuff
• Classes:
– Topics
– Paper readings and reviews
– Presentations/debating
– Research idea
• Projects:
– Topics
Defense (1)
• 30 minutes; should present as if it were his/her own
• The point is to make a compelling case why the
contribution is significant.
• the context of the contribution,
• prior work,
– If an older paper: how the work has
influenced the research community or
industry's directions (impact)
– If newer paper: arguments for the potential
impact
Defense (2)
– should go well beyond a paper "summary“
– The defense should not critique the work
other than to try to pre-empt attacks from
the offense (e.g., by explicitly limiting the
scope of the contribution).
– The defense should also try to look up
related work to support their case
Offense (1)
• 20 minutes;
• Should critique the work, and make a case for
– missing links, unaddressed issues, lack of impact,
inappropriateness of the problem formulation, etc.
• The more insightful and less obvious the criticisms
the better
• While the offense should prepare remarks in advance,
they should also react to the points made by the
defense.
• Hint: The offense should also try to look up related
work to support their case
Offense (2)
• The defense and offense will be allowed
follow up arguments,
• The class will question either side either for
clarifications or to add to the discussions and
controversy and make their own points on
either side.
• Use Powerpoint (feel free to use existing
presentations from the Web)
Overview
• Administrative stuff
• Classes:
– Topics
– Paper readings and reviews
– Presentations/debating
– Research ideas (optional!)
• Projects:
– presentations will happen on Wednesday 3/31;
make sure you are present!
Research Idea (1)
• At the end of semester, you should hand in a
research proposal
• Up to 3 pages including references
• Something that nobody else did before
– What would you do?
– How would you do it?
Research idea (2)
• Writing the research-idea documents:
– What is the main idea?
– Why is it important/interesting?
– What is the related work?
– What would you actually do?
• How would you execute the idea:
– Modeling, simulations, experiments?
– What is the expected outcome?
Overview
• Administrative stuff
• Classes:
– Topics
– Paper readings and reviews
– Presentations/debating
– Research idea
• Projects:
– presentations will happen on Wednesday 3/31;
make sure you are present!
Timetable
• Week 2 (Wednesday 4/7) Find a partner, choose a topic for
your project, and meet with the project leader.
• Week 3 (Monday 4/12) Write an introduction describing the
problem and how you plan to approach it (what will you actually
do?). Include motivation (why does the problem matter?) and
related work (what have others already done about it?). 3 pages
total.
• Week 6 (Wednesday 5/3) Update your paper to include your
preliminary results. 5 pages total. Midterm presentations.
• Week 10 (Wednesday 6/2) Final presentations by all groups.
• Week 11 (Friday 6/11) Turn in your completed paper. 10 pages
total.