Research Flywheel: from basic research to production of three distributed systems

LUNCH:
Lunch will be served at 11:45 am.

ABSTRACT:
In the talk I will share insights and experiences gained during my work on three industrial research projects in distributed systems. The three research projects reached production and had profound, sometimes surprising, impact on foundations of distributed computing. The first system is based on the HotStuff algorithm which became the core engine of the Diem blockchain infrastructure. In the second system, Flexible Paxos, I describe the notion of unlearning unnecessary constraints behind Log Device. The third system, CorfuDB, achieves scale-out without partitioning of VMware's NSX distributed control plane.

Naturally, the focus of my talk is in the field of distributed systems. Nonetheless, I believe that some take-aways from the experience of building distributed systems are of interest and value to other disciplines in computer science and software engineering.

SPEAKER BIO:
Dr. Malkhi's research over two decades spans broad aspects of reliability and security of distributed systems, with recent focus on blockchains and advances in financial technology. Her work resulted in over 150 publications as well as strong impact on computing technology, notably as co-inventor of HotStuff, the core engine of Diem, Aptos and other blockchains; co-founder and technical lead of VMware blockchain; co-inventor of Flexible Paxos, a method underlying Log Device; creator of CorfuDB, VMware NSX distributed control plane; and co-inventor of the FairPlay project. Read more: https://malkhi.com/about/