PhD positions Computer Networks: SDN in data centers, anticipatory systems, participatory systems, Paderborn University, Paderborn, Germany

Research Group Computer Networks

This research group works on communication in computer networks and classical telecommunication network scenarios. Main focus of the work is Internet, data centre networks and mobile and wireless communication.

• A PhD student position ("Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter", E13) in the context of the SFB-901 "On-The-Fly Computing"
  

• A PhD student position ("Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter", E13) with teaching obligations
  

• Two positions with 19 hours per week in SFB-901 "On-The-Fly Computing".
  

If interested in these jobs, please contact Prof. Karl by email (holger.karl@uni-paderborn.de); in the subject of the email, please mention JOB-FGCN-2016-I (else, your email will likely be ignored).

PhD student in SFB 901 On the fly computing 

Keywords: data centre networking, software defined networking, participatory systems, scheduling.
The collaborative research centre 901 ("Sonderforschungsbereich") considers the dynamic provisioning of both software and the its executing infrastructure upon request. You can find details on the SFB 901 webpage.

Our research group, more specifically, considers questions in the context of data center networking, the execution of complex applications in data centre (an example could be map/reduce-style jobs), and the participation of these applications in the decision making process. Our goal is to extend today's common data centre architectures by interfaces for applications to announce their needs, according scheduling algorithms that make use of such knowledge, and to build proof of concept realizations of these concepts.

A solid understanding of IT systems aspects (cloud computing like OpenStack, data centre, software defined networks) as well as some algorithm background (mostly, scheduling theory) are helpful here. You should be familiar with Linux system-level programming.

PhD student on anticipatory systems  

Keywords: anticipatory networking, video streaming, wireless communication, network function virtualization, scheduling

The idea of anticipatory systems describes systems that have a limited understanding of the future: their own state, likely user behavior, changes in capacity of wireless links, etc. A typical example is anticipatory video streaming: assuming some rough understanding of future data rates (available e.g. from mobility patterns or the knowledge that the user currently sits in a train), video segments can be intelligently pre-fetched to avoid playout interruptions. This is, however, only a single example scenario.

The goal of this PhD thesis is to dig into the idea of anticipatory networking, how it can be applied to different scenarios - wireless systems are one obvious example, network function virtualization another one - and how a coherent architecture to support anticipation can be designed. This includes questions like how to gather information to base anticipation upon, how to assess limited accuracy in such anticipation models, how a framework for such decisions should look like, and characterizing the benefits of anticipation decisions in various scenarios.

For this thesis, a solid understanding of networking in particular and IT systems design in general is required. Moreover, statistical methods will likely play a significant role; you should hence be familiar at least with basic stochastics. Machine learning might be a relevant technique here and knowledge here might be useful as well.

As this is a position with teaching obligations, you should either have or are willing & able to acquire quickly a decent working knowledge of German.

PhD student, open topic 

Apart from the topics described above, we are always interested in PhD students with own ideas. If you have an interesting idea, by all means, do contact us and let's discuss whether we can support that.

Requirements for PhD positions

To apply for a PhD position in the Computer Networks group, you should meet the following requirements:

• Typically, you have a Master degree from a research-oriented Master's degree program; typically in computer science, computer engineering or related subject (e.g., electrical engineering with a communications focus, applied mathematics). Alternative degrees might be acceptable but need to be discussed in detail.
  

• You should have very good communication skills.
  
  • You should be able to read, write, and speak English fluently in everyday and technical discussions. You should also have very good technical writing skills in English.
    
  • Knowledge of German is appreciated but not initially required; we recommend that you pick up at least a bit of working knowledge of German during the first year (useful for everyday life). For positions with teaching duties, a good proficiency in German is required in a reasonable amount of time.
    

To substantiate these skills, please apply with:

• A curriculum vitae, detailing your prior education and job experience
  

• Your Master's thesis
  

• Any papers you might have written or co-authored so far (not required, but certainly a plus)
  

• A research statement: what are you interested in, what do you want to work on, what is preferred style of work (e.g., analytic, simulation, experimental, ...), why do you think you are a good match with our group? (A statement saying "I want to work in networking" is not enough.)
  

Please only apply electronically by email; do not send paper; only send PDFs (applications with Word attachments will be ignored).

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