Colloquium Speaker
Ming Zhang, Microsoft Research
Tuesday, September 29, 4:30pm
Computer Science 105

Software-Defined Datacenter Networks


Today ’s cloud-scale services (e.g., search, social networking and cloud computing) operate on large datacenter networks (DCNs). Keeping these networks running smoothly is difficult, due to the sheer number of physical devices, the complexity of network software stack, and the dynamic nature of the environment. At any given moment, multiple devices experience component failures, are brought down for planned maintenance, are upgraded with new firmware, or are reconfigured to adapt to prevailing traffic demand.

In this talk, I will go through some of the automated systems that are developed for managing the routing, configuration, and firmware and power of network devices in Microsoft Azure. I will first describe how NetPilot achieves fast, safe mitigation of common network failures by automatically deactivating or restarting offending links or devices. I will then describe how SWAN boosts the utilization of inter-datacenter networks by centrally controlling when and how much traffic each service sends and frequently reconfiguring the network’s data plane to match current traffic demand. Finally, I will present Network State Service (NSS) that manages the entire network state for Azure datacenter and wide-area networks. It serves as the foundation of multiple network management applications (including NetPilot and SWAN), allowing these applications to operate independently, while maintaining network-wide safety.

Ming Zhang is a Senior Researcher in the Mobility and Networking group at Microsoft Research, where he focuses on datacenter and wide-area networking. He creates cutting-edge technologies that power Microsoft’s massive cloud networks. His research is published in leading systems and networking conferences including SIGCOMM, NSDI, OSDI, and MobiSys. His work on MobiPerf won the Open Internet App Award and People's Choice App Award in FCC Open Internet Challenge. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Princeton University in 2005 and his B.S. in Computer Science from Nanjing University in 1999.