Dejan Kostic
Distributed systems that take into consideration the underlying network, known as network systems, form the basis of our society's infrastructure. Complex distributed protocols and algorithms are used in companies' storage systems, distributed databases and the internet. Errors in these systems can overload some clients and result in potential data losses and financial losses.
Dejan Kostic's work includes a new, exciting field known as software-defined networking (SDN). SDN can simplify the launch of new network protocols and network management, as well as reducing the cost involved. But the implementation of programmability in the network also dramatically increases the risk of catastrophic network failures resulting from programming bugs. The research group has, among other things, contributed new tools for testing software for SDN applications and network switches.
Kostic has brought his ERC Starting Grant to KTH. The project's objective is to revolutionise how network systems are developed and distributed. Today, data and processing is increasingly being moved to "the cloud". The research group is working on several challenging problems in this environment, including determining exactly what resources should be requested from the cloud distributor at each given point in time, and managing performance disturbances.