Technical Tracks

Track 1: Infrastructure Networking Technologies
Track Co-Chairs:
Noriaki Kamiyama, Ritsumeikan University, Japan, kamiaki@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp
Ke Xu, Tsinghua University, China, xuke@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn
Paolo Bellavista, University of Bologna, Italy, paolo.bellavista@unibo.it

Description:
Networks will have to support bigger and more diverse traffic volumes at low latency in the coming decades. They need to provide more predictable and reliable services as they are an important infrastructure of our society. This track asks which advances are needed to enable our network infrastructure to deal with this development and how to make an infrastructure’s capability accessible to applications and services. Future network infrastructure must be more flexible, on many different levels, layers and elements of the network architecture. An important property is the proper integration of multiple network domains - from the Internet at large over mobile/cellular networks to data-center networks. Flexibility and infrastructure advancements are needed at different levels of the network architecture, from switching hardware over softwarizing networks up to resource management aspects like slicing. The track also looks at how some aspects of computing can be brought into the network in a flexible and programmatic way, and to have the network be more responsive to specific workloads. It also encompasses research and development on different aspects, like management, governance or policing of networks, up to legal, policy-making and ethical aspects.

Track Topics:
• Internet at large
• Mobile and cellular networks, including satellite networks, cell-free or core-less mobile networks
• Data-center networks
• SD-WANs
• Programmable software and hardware targets (e.g., SmartNICs) as well as corresponding compilers, architectures, and toolchains
• Programmable offloading for transport and networking protocols
• In-network support for distributed computing or in-network aggregation for distributed Machine Learning, Security, Software-Defined Mobile Networks, and Edge and Ubiquitous computing
• Softwarization concepts like software-defined networks or network function virtualization and how they can be flexibly accelerated using customized or programmable networking hardware
• Flexible resource management, e.g., agile spectrum sharing or network slicing or resource management for unconventional application patterns like machine learning at the edge
• Reconfigurable network infrastructure, e.g., optical networks or radio self-backhauling
• Computation offloading using infrastructure/data processing units (IPU/DPU), up to and including in-network computing
• Network support for HPC and high-speed data center fabric
• Automated/intelligent network configuration
• Efficient network misconfiguration diagnosis methods
• Planning, provisioning, deployment, operation, and management of network infrastructure
• Policy-making, regulation and governance of networks; sustainable network infrastructures
• Optical Network infrastructure
• Quantum networks
• Business models like open radio access networks (ORAN) and ethical aspects

TPC List:
• Madhurima Ray, Penn State Beaver, USA
• Yuchao Zhang, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China
• Reza Tourani, Saint Louis University, USA
• Dawei Li, Beihang University, China
• Wolfgang John, Ericsson Research, Sweden
• Fei Song, Beijing Jiaotong University, China
• Laaziz Lahlou, Ecole de Technologie Superieure (ETS), Canada
• Dian Shen, Southeast University, China
• Younghee Park, San Jose State University, USA
• Zhi Zhou, Sun Yat-sen University, China
• Vaji Farhadi, Bucknell University, USA
• Yongmin Zhang, Central South University, China
• Wouter Tavernier, Ghent University - imec, Belgium
• Zehua Guo, Beijing Institute of Technology, China
• Dewang Gedia, University of Colorado Boulder, USA
• Fuhong Lin, University of Science and Technology Beijing, China
• Fabio Pianese, Nokia Bell Labs, Belgium
• Shen Su, Guangzhou University, China
• Yueping Cai, Chongqing University, China
• Kurt Tutschku, Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH), Sweden
• Ben Niu, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
• Michail-Alexandros Kourtis, NCSR Demokritos, Greece
• Yangming Zhao, Nanjing University, China
• Fabrizio Granelli, University of Trento, Italy
• Na Ruan, Shanghai Jiaotong University, China
• Marcus Brunner, Huawei Technologies, Switzerland
• Jin Cao, Xidian University, China
• Cristian Borcea, New Jersey Inst, Technology, USA
• Yitao Hu, Tianjin University, China
• Michele Polese, Northeastern University, USA
• Lu Tang, Xiamen University, China
• Carlo Puliafito, University of Pisa, Italy
• Carla Fabiana Chiasserini, Turin Polytechnic, Italy
• Jiannong Cao, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China
• Serge Fdida, Sorbonne University, France