I’m a Research Professor in the Kahlert School of Computing at the University of Utah, and one of the directors of the Flux Research Group. I've also taught classes as an Adjunct Professor at Westminster College. I earned a PhD from the University of Utah in 2010 (advised by Jay Lepreau and Sneha Kasera), and an Honors BS from the same institution in 2001. I'm a long-time Utahn, having lived here since 1987, and I've been at the University of Utah in various capacities since 1997. You can find a lot more in my CV.
I work in infrastructure: the systems underneath the software and services that we use everyday. I've published in operating systems, networking, distributed systems, cloud computing, and more. I'm also interested in the security of those systems, because concerns of security and privacy need to be built into infrastructure from the ground up. Infrastructure is a very emprical field, requiring lots of implementation and experimentation, so I'm also interested in experiment design and analysis, and in building testbeds for research; I have worked on Emulab and its sucessors, including CloudLab, parts of GENI, and Powder, since 2000. One of the fundamental parts of the research process is building on and comparing to existing systems, so I also work in research reproducibility.
Where The Wild Things Are: Brute-Force SSH Attacks In The Wild And How To Stop Them NSDI, 2024
Arvin: Greybox Fuzzing Using Approximate Dynamic CFG Analysis 18th ACM ASIA Conference on Computer and Communications Security (AsiaCCS 2023), 2023
Avoiding the Ordering Trap in Systems Performance Measurement ATC, 2023
POWDER: Platform for Open Wireless Data-driven Experimental Research Computer Networks, 2021
Cloud Performance Variability Prediction 4th Workshop on Hot Topics in Cloud Computing Performance (HotCloudPerf 2021), 2021
A Year of Automated Anomaly Detection in a Datacenter MLCS, 2020
An Integrated Experimental Environment for Distributed Systems and Networks OSDI, 2002
GENI: A Federated Testbed For Innovative Network Experiments Computer Networks, 2014
Mobile Emulab: A Robotic Wireless and Sensor Network Testbed IEEE INFOCOM, 2006
Large-scale Virtualization in the Emulab Network Testbed USENIX Annual Technical Conference, 2008
Where The Wild Things Are: Brute-Force SSH Attacks In The Wild And How To Stop Them Proceedings of the Twenty First USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI), April 2024
Arvin: Greybox Fuzzing Using Approximate Dynamic CFG Analysis Proceedings of the 18th ACM ASIA Conference on Computer and Communications Security (AsiaCCS 2023), July 2023
Avoiding the Ordering Trap in Systems Performance Measurement Proceedings of the USENIX Annual Technical Conference (ATC), July 2023
POWDER: Platform for Open Wireless Data-driven Experimental Research Computer Networks, October 2021
Cloud Performance Variability Prediction Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Hot Topics in Cloud Computing Performance (HotCloudPerf 2021), April 2021
A Year of Automated Anomaly Detection in a Datacenter Proceedings of the 2nd workshop on Machine Learning for Computing Systems (MLCS), November 2020
POWDER: Platform for Open Wireless Data-driven Experimental Research Proceedings of the 14th International Workshop on Wireless Network Testbeds, Experimental Evaluation and Characterization (WiNTECH), September 2020
In Datacenter Performance, The Only Constant Is Change Proceedings of the Twentieth IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Internet Computing (CCGrid), May 2020
Is Big Data Performance Reproducible in Modern Cloud Networks? Proceedings of the Seventeenth USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI), February 2020
MME-FaaS Cloud-Native Control for Mobile Networks Proceedings of The Tenth ACM Symposium on Cloud Computing (SoCC), November 2019
On Studying CPU Performance of CloudLab Hardware Proceedings of the Worksop on Midscale Education and Research Infrastructure and Tools (MERIT), October 2019
Fluorescence: Detecting Kernel-Resident Malware in Clouds Proceedings of the 22nd International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (RAID), September 2019
The Design and Operation of CloudLab Proceedings of the USENIX Annual Technical Conference (ATC), July 2019
I Heard It through the Firewall: Exploiting Cloud Management Services as an Information Leakage Channel Proceedings of The Ninth ACM Symposium on Cloud Computing (SoCC), October 2018
Taming Performance Variability Proceedings of the 13th USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI), October 2018
Splinter: Bare-Metal Extensions for Multi-Tenant Low-Latency Storage Proceedings of the 13th USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI), October 2018
Harpocrates: Giving Out Your Secrets and Keeping Them Too Proceedings of The Third ACM/IEEE Symposium on Edge Computing (SEC), October 2018
Fail-Slow at Scale: Evidence of Hardware Performance Faults in Large Production Systems Proceedings of the 16th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST), February 2018
Rocksteady: Fast Migration for Low-latency In-memory Storage Proceedings of the Symposium on Operating System Principles (SOSP), October 2017
The Part-Time Cloud: Enabling Balanced Elasticity Between Diverse Computing Environments Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop on Scientific Cloud Computing (ScienceCloud), June 2017
PopperCI: Automated Reproducibility Validation Proceedings of the International Workshop on Computer and Networking Experimental Research Using Testbeds (CNERT), May 2017
Beyond Simple Request Processing with RAMCloud Data Engineering, March 2017
Path Boxplots: A Method for Characterizing Uncertainty in Path Ensembles on a Graph Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics (JCGS), January 2017
Report of the NSFCloud For Everyone Workshop November 2016
To Copy or Not to Copy: Making In-Memory Databases Fast on Modern NICs Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on In-Memory Data Management and Analytics (IMDM), September 2016
Active Learning in Performance Analysis Proceedings of the IEEE Cluster Conference, September 2016
Introducing Configuration Management Capabilities into CloudLab Experiments Proceedings of the International Workshop on Computer and Networking Experimental Research Using Testbeds (CNERT), April 2016
KnowNet: Towards a Knowledge Plane for Enterprise Network Management Proecceings of the Ninth IEEE/IFIP Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS), April 2016
OpenEdge: A Dynamic and Secure Open Service Edge Network Proecceings of the Ninth IEEE/IFIP Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS), April 2016
Report of the NSF Workshop on Software Defined Infrastructures and Software Defined Exchanges February 2016
The InstaGENIProject The GENIBook, January 2016
The GENI Book January 2016
The Need for Flexible Mid-scale Computing Infrastructure The GENIBook, January 2016
To Copy or Not to Copy: Making In-Memory Databases Fast on Modern NICs Data Management on New Hardware, January 2016
Emulab The GENIBook, January 2016
Realistic Packet Reordering for Network Emulation and Simulation Proceedings of the Eleventh ACM International Conference on Emerging Networking EXperiments and Technologies (CoNEXT), December 2015
POTASSIUM: Penetration Testing as a Service Proceedings of the Sixth ACM Symposium on Cloud Computing (SOCC), August 2015
Using Deduplicating Storage for Efficient Disk Image Deployment Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Testbeds and Research Infrastructures for the Development of Networks and Communities (Tridentcom), June 2015
Trust as the Foundation of Resource Exchange in GENI Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Testbeds and Research Infrastructures for the Development of Networks and Communities (Tridentcom), June 2015
Metadata Considered Harmful ... to Deduplication Proceedings of the 7th USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Storage and File Systems, June 2015
PhantomNet:Research Infrastructure for Mobile Networking, Cloud Computing and Software-DefinedNetworking ACM GetMobile, April 2015
Apt: A Platform for Repeatable Research in Computer Science ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, January 2015
Introducing CloudLab: Scientific Infrastructure for Advancing Cloud Architectures and Applications USENIX ;login:, December 2014
SMORE: Software-Defined Networking Mobile Offloading Architecture Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on All Things Cellular: Operations, Applications and Challenges, August 2014
Secret Key Extraction using Bluetooth Wireless Signal Strength Measurements IEEE International Conference on Sensing, Communications and Networking (SECON), June 2014
Operational Experiences with Disk Imaging in a Multi-Tenant Datacenter Proceedings of the Eleventh USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI), April 2014
GENI: A Federated Testbed For Innovative Network Experiments Computer Networks, March 2014
The InstaGENI Initiative: An Architecture for Distributed Systems and Advanced Programmable Networks Computer Networks, March 2014
Weir: A Streaming Language for Performance Analysis Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Programming Languages and Operating Systems (PLOS), November 2013
Fast and Flexible: Parallel Packet Processing with GPUs and Click Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE Symposium on Architectures for Networking and Communications Systems (ANCS), October 2013
Rethinking Abstractions in Big Data: Why, Where, How, and What June 2013
An Architecture For International Federation of Network Testbeds IEICE Transactions, January 2013
Designing a Federated Testbed as a Distributed System Proceedings of the 8th International ICST Conference on Testbeds and Research Infrastructures for the Development of Networks and Communities (Tridentcom), June 2012
Towards Fair Sharing of Block Storage in a Multi-tenant Cloud Proceedings of the 4th USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Cloud Computing (HotCloud), June 2012
Harnessing GPU Computing for Storage Systems in the OS Kernel Proceedings of the Fifth International Systems and Storage Conference (SYSTOR), June 2012
How To Build a Better Testbed: Lessons From a Decade of Network Experiments on Emulab Proceedings of the 8th International ICST Conference on Testbeds and Research Infrastructures for the Development of Networks and Communities (Tridentcom), June 2012
Getting Started with GENI: A User Tutorial ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review (CCR), January 2012
Partitioning Trust in Network Testbeds Proceedings of the Software Testing and Internet Testbeds Mini-Track, HICSS 45, January 2012
Emergency Service in Wi-Fi Networks Without Access Point Association Proccedings of the First International Conference on Wireless Technologies for Humanitarian Relief (ACWR), December 2011
Augmenting Operating Systems With the GPU January 2011
Trusted Disk Loading in the Emulab Network Testbed Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Cyber Security Experimentation and Test (CSET), August 2010
Enhancing Realism And Scalability In Network Testbeds May 2010
Modeling and Emulation of Internet Paths Proceedings of the Sixth USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI), April 2009
Securing the Frisbee Multicast Disk Loader Proceedings of the First Workshop on Cyber Security and Test (CSET), July 2008
Large-scale Virtualization in the Emulab Network Testbed Proceedings of the USENIX Annual Technical Conference, June 2008
The Flexlab Approach to Realistic Evaluation of Networked Systems Proceedings of the Fourth USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI), April 2007
Leveraging Bloom Filters For Smart Search Within NUCA Caches Proceedings of the Sixth Workshop on Complexity-Effective Design (WCED), June 2006
Flexlab: A Realistic, Controlled, and Friendly Environment for Evaluating Networked Systems Proceedings of HotNets-V, June 2006
Mobile Emulab: A Robotic Wireless and Sensor Network Testbed Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM, April 2006
Optimizing IP Address Assignment on Network Topologies February 2006
Lessons From Resource Allocators for Large-Scale Multiuser Testbeds ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, January 2006
Integrated Network Experimentation using Simulation and Emulation Proceedings of the First International Conference on Testbeds and Research Infrastructures for the Development of Networks and Communities (TridentCom), February 2005
Implementing the Emulab-PlanetLab Portal: Experiences and Lessons Learned Proceedings of the First Workshop on Real, Large Distributed Systems (WORLDS), December 2004
Fast, Scalable Disk Imaging with Frisbee Proceedings of the USENIX Annual Technical Conference, June 2003
A Solver for the Network Testbed Mapping Problem ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communications Review (CCR), April 2003
An Integrated Experimental Environment for Distributed Systems and Networks Proceedings of the USENIX Symposium on Operating System Design and Implementation (OSDI), December 2002
Agile Protocols, an Application of Active Networking to Censor-Resistant Publishing Networks August 2001
Active Protocols for Agile Censor-Resistant Networks Proceedings of HotOS-VIII, May 2001