[talks] Reminder: Ben Lee, tomorrow at 4:30pm

[Emily C. Lawrence]

Ben Lee from Duke University
Tuesday, May 1, 2018 at 4:30 p.m.
Maeder Hall auditorium

Title:
Datacenters and Energy Efficiency: A Game-Theoretic Perspective

Abstract:
Sharing datacenter hardware improves energy efficiency, but whether 
strategic users participate in consolidated systems depends on management 
policies. Users who dislike allocations may refuse to participate and deploy 
private, less-efficient systems. We rethink systems management, drawing on 
game theory to model strategic behavior and incentivize participation. We 
illustrate this perspective for two fundamental challenges in datacenters. 
For power delivery, we design sprinting games to produce equilibria in which 
users selfishly draw power for performance boosts yet avoid oversubscribing 
the shared supply. For resource allocation, we use Cobb-Douglas utility 
functions to produce fair allocations that incentivize users to share cache 
and memory. These solutions provide foundations for rigorously managing 
systems shared by strategic, competitive participants.

Biography:
Benjamin Lee is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer 
Engineering at Duke University. He received his B.S. from the University of 
California at Berkeley (2004), his Ph.D. from Harvard University (2008), and 
his post-doctorate from Stanford University (2010). He has held visiting 
positions at Microsoft Research, Intel Labs, and Lawrence Livermore National 
Lab. Dr. Lee’s research interests include computer architecture, energy 
efficiency, and security / privacy. He pursues these interests by building 
interdisciplinary links to statistical inference and algorithmic economics. 
His research has been recognized by IEEE Micro Top Picks (4x), 
Communications of the ACM Research Highlights (3x), as well as paper honors 
from the ASPLOS, HPCA, MICRO, and SC conferences. He received the NSF 
Computing Innovation Fellowship, NSF CAREER Award, and Google Faculty 
Research Award.