I am a systems researcher. I design, build, and evaluate real-world computer systems. A common goal of my research is to support the architecture and engineering of highly scalable distributed systems.
I work at the intersection of a variety of research topics, including:
- Large-scale distributed systems
- Cloud computing and big data infrastructure
- Cluster management frameworks and scheduling algorithms
- Performance evaluation and benchmarking
- Systems and machine learning
- Microservices: in particular service choreography languages
PhD students
- Nnamdi Ekwe-Ekwe, University of St Andrews
- Chalee Boonprasop, University of St Andrews
Graduated
- Ole Weidner, Design and implementation of a telemetry platform for high-performance computing environments, PhD in Informatics, University of Edinburgh, 2021. Now at Lego Group. Co-supervised with Malcolm Atkinson, University of Edinburgh
- Sheriffo Ceesay, PhD in Computer Science, University of St Andrews, 2020. Now a PDRA at the University of St Andrews.
- Dawand Sulaiman, PhD in Computer Science, University of St Andrews, 2020. Now at Ocado.
- Paolo Pareti, Representation and Execution of Human Know-How on the Web, PhD in Informatics, University of Edinburgh, 2019 (co-supervised with Ewan Klein). Now a PDRA at the University of Southampton.
- Long Thai, Optimising the Usage of Cloud Resources for Executing Bag-of-task applications, PhD in Computer Science, University of St Andrews, 2017. Now at Amazon.
- Ward Jaradat, On the Construction of Decentralised Service-oriented Orchestration Systems. PhD in Computer Science, University of St Andrews, 2016. Now at Adobe
- Jonathan Ward, Efficient Monitoring of Large Scale Infrastructure as a Service Clouds. PhD in Computer Science, University of St Andrews, 2015. Now at Amazon.
- Chris Schneider, Using Unsupervised Machine Learning for Fault Identification in Virtual Machines. PhD in Computer Science, University of St Andrews, 2015. Now at Google.
- Gary McGilvary, Ad hoc Cloud Computing. PhD in Informatics, University of Edinburgh, 2014. Now at CloudReach.
Research Fellows and Visitors
- Dr Sheriffo Ceesay, Research Fellow, September 2020 – Current.
- Dr Yuhui Lin, Research Fellow, April 2018 – Current.
- Dr Bo Chen, visitor from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), Jan 2016 – Jan 2017.
- Dr Roushanak Rahmat, Research Fellow, Jan 2016 – Jan 2017. Now a PDRA at the University of Cambridge.
- Dr Long Thai, Research Fellow, June 2014–June 2015. Now at Amazon.
- Dr Blesson Varghese, Research Fellow, 2012-2015. Now a Senior Lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast.
Research grants
To support my research I am an Investigator (both PI and Co-I) on grants worth over £3 Million from a diverse range of funding sources, including the EPSRC, European Research Council (ERC), Royal Society, Google, Royal Society of Edinburgh, Impact Acceleration Account (IAA), SICSA, Amazon and Microsoft
- Google, Research Scientist, 2019 – current.
- EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA), £5,000, PI.
- ABC: Adaptive Brokerage for the Cloud, EPSRC (EP/R010528/1) and EPSRC (EP/R010889/1), £775,259.00, 2018 – 2021, PI.
- Microsoft, Microsoft Azure for Research, $20,000, 2016, PI.
- Google, Research Scientist, 2016.
- WORKANDHOME, European Research Council (ERC), €1,430,921.00, 2015 – 2020, Co-I.
- EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA), £33,323.00, Joint-PI.
- Bringing Science to the Cloud, Royal Society Industry Fellowship, 2014 – 2016, PI.
- Working Together Across ICT: Constraints and Cloud Computing, EPSRC (EP/K015745/1), £630,232.00, 2013 – 2016, Co-I.
- Tweeting the Blues, Royal Society of Edinburgh, £3732.00, 2012 – 2014, PI.
- Stop Traffic, Royal Society of Edinburgh, £3932.00, 2012 – 2014, Co-I.
- Elastic Virtual Infrastructure for Research Applications (ELVIRA), EPSRC (EP/I034327/1), £72,283.00, 2011, Co-I.
- Travel Grant to UC Berkeley, SICSA, £7500.00, 2012 – 2013, PI.
- Scottish Crucible 2012.
- Amazon Research Grant, 2012 – 2014, PI.
- Microsoft Windows Azure Academic Collaboration, PI.
Recent Invited Talks and Keynotes
- Academic Cloud Computing Research: Pitfalls and Opportunities. Barcelona Super Computing Centre, August 2018.
- Keynote: Academia and Industry: A Research Perspective. University of Cardiff, Research Retreat, May 2017.
- Keynote: Academia and Industry: A Systems Research Perspective. SICSA DEMOfest, Glasgow, November 2016.
- Network-Aware Borg. Google Borg Master Team, Google headquarters, Mountain View, September 2016.
- Everything you wanted to know about Borg but forgot to ask! Google Borg Master Team, Google headquarters, Mountain View, March 2016.
- Cloud Services Brokerage: A Survey and Research Roadmap. 8th IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing (CLOUD 2015), NYC, July 2015.
- Executing Bag of Distributed Tasks on Virtually Unlimited Cloud Resources. 5th International Conference on Cloud Computing and Services Science (CLOSER 2015), Lisbon, May 2015.
- Academic Cloud Computing: Five Pitfalls and Five Opportunities. University of Zurich, Zurich, March 2015.
- Academic Cloud Computing: Five Pitfalls and Five Opportunities. University of Lancaster, Lancaster, February 2015.
- Cloud Benchmarking for Performance. 6th IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science (CloudCom 2014), Singapore, December 2014.
- Keynote: Academic Cloud Computing: Five Pitfalls and Five Opportunities. 7th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing (UCC 2014), London, December 2014.
- Bringing Science to the Cloud. Royal Society Research Conference, London, March 2014.
- Data-Intensive Distributed Systems. Large-Scale Complex IT Systems Workshop, Grasmere, February 2014.
Media coverage
- Google reveals how its Borg clusters have evolved, The Register, April 2020.
- Yet More Google Compute Cluster Trace Data, Google AI Blog, April 2020.
- Rethinking HPC Platforms for ‘Second Gen’ Applications, Communications of the ACM, February 2017.
- HPC Wire, February 2017.
- Big Data Solving Big Problems, Forbes, March 2015.
- Big data: 4 predictions for 2014, The Guardian, January 2014.
- Six new Royal Society Industry Fellowships connect academia and industry, The Royal Society, October 2013.
- The Big Data Conundrum: How to Define It?, MIT Technology Review, October 2013.
- EPSRC: Examples of Working Together, EPSRC, 2013.
- Cover Story: Delivering Big Data, ASEE PRISM Magazine, December 2012.