2 years Post-Doc position on programmable networks

ORGANISATION/COMPANY

Université catholique de Louvain

Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, Electronics and Applied Mathematics (ICTEAM)

RESEARCH FIELD

Networking, Systems, High-speed packet processing, SmartNICs, P4, NFV

LOCATION

Belgium › Louvain-la-Neuve

TYPE OF CONTRACT

Post-Doc fellowship for 24 months.

JOB STATUS

Full-time

HOURS PER WEEK

38

OFFER DESCRIPTION

The applicant will join the ENSG to work on leading-edge research topics in crossroad of networking and systems to build a sustainable IT infrastructure. The group is composed of the PI and 3 PhD students, with fundings for 1 new PhD students and 2 post-docs (including this proposal).

The post-doc will join the PI’s group to conduct research on thematics that fit the PI’s area of expertise. The applicant will also be expected to advise master students and take a leading role with PhD students. The exact project is open to discussion, but the following project is proposed and describes well the overall direction of the lab.

Internet was designed at a time when computers were monolithic devices, transferring data over a network of routers and switches. This paradigm does not match the reality of today’s devices, which are composed of several elements of different nature (CPU cores, RAM, storage, NICs, GPU, etc).  You will join the study of the fundamental challenges for the Internet to catch up with this shift of paradigm. Much like atoms were later refined into a set of particles, the communications of hosts must be reconsidered to enable the next leap in the Internet evolution.

We will examine the newfound programmability of the network, i.e., P4 switches and Smart NICs, to enable sub-atomic communications over the Internet by delegating the intelligence out of the end “hosts”.

The Smart NIC of a host may essentially act as a transparent multiplexer for the sub-devices of the host, bypassing unneeded CPU transfers, and saving time and energy. The Smart NIC will be aware of power-conservative strategies when assigning requests to cores. The group is also conducting research on efficient CPU-aware software pipelines using dynamic compilation to avoid cache and branch misses.

Programmable switches will similarly act as coordinators of the streams through the edge. They will also lead the transfers toward the right particles among the increasingly disaggregated datacenter’s resources that are serving a provider’s content. To overcome ossification, they may expose information and negotiate a behavior for each particle’s streams to reach one possible servicing entity through the best paths. It will be possible without going back to the “ends”, and therefore enable particle-to-particle encryption as well as network efficiency.

The resulting low latency communication will enable future use cases such as cloud gaming and latency-critical workloads, connecting nearby particles that are getting virtually closer thanks to 5G and fiber connectivity. In the long-term, the vision enforced by the group will bring back competitiveness to the Internet by standardizing the means for such next-generation sub-atomic communication.

SKILLS/QUALIFICATION

• Particularly successful student
• Excellent in the Operating System and networking courses
• Ease with low-level programming in C and/or Rust
• English, French is a plus

SUBMISSION

Please send to tom.barbette@uclouvain.be:

(a) Curriculum vitae;
(b) A letter of motivation;
(c) Links to Masters and PhD thesis (If already defended);
(d) List of publications and links to PDF (not behind a paywall);
Please send both a comprehensive list of publications as well as the list
of up to three ones that you consider the most important. For each of these
important publications, give the details of your personal contribution and
involvement;
(e) If applicable, links to examples of personal software contributions.

REQUIRED LANGUAGES

ENGLISH: at least B2 (upper intermediate)

French is not required

Requirements

Research Field Computer science » Computer systems

Education Level PhD or equivalent

Skills/Qualifications

• Particularly successful student
• Excellent in the Operating System and networking courses
• Ease with low-level programming in C and/or Rust
• English, French is a plus

Languages ENGLISH

Level Good

Research Field Computer science » Computer systems/ Computer science » Computer architecture

Additional Information

Benefits

• The salary level of post-doc in Belgium is relatively high compared to neighboring countries or the USA
• The ENSG has many high-end servers and equipment and significant funding available to acquire more
• The ICTEAM is host to 50 professors and more than 200 researchers in computer sciences, applied mathematics, and electronics, it is a very innovative ecosystem with all expertise available on hand to develop your career

Selection process

The candidatures will be reviewed once every 2 weeks

1) The candidates will be first evaluated on CV and other requirements detailed above

2) An online discussion will be organized with candidates passing stage one

3) An on-site interview will be organized (if possible) to meet all members of the team, typically a presentation of your PhD thesis will be asked

Website for additional job details https://perso.uclouvain.be/tom.barbette/open-post-doc-position/

Work Location(s)

Number of offers available 1

Company/Institute UCLouvain / ICTEAM / INGI

Country Belgium

City Louvain-La-Neuve

Postal Code 1348

Street Place Sainte-Barbe, 2

Where to apply

E-mail tom.barbette@uclouvain.be

Contact

City Louvain-la-Neuve

Website https://www.tombarbette.be

Street Place Sainte-Barbe 2

Postal Code 1348

E-Mail tom.barbette@uclouvain.be

Phone 0032479609463