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Dmitrii Ustiugov

I am an Assistant Professor at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore. My work spans the domains of computer systems and architecture with a focus on designing fast, scalable, and resource-efficient cloud systems. My current research projects target cloud and serverless architectures, and system support for Machine Learning.

I am leading the vHive open-source ecosystem for serverless experimentation and innovation across the deep distributed HW/SW stack used in 30+ academic and 8+ industry organisations.

Bio: I received a PhD degree in Computer Science from the University of Edinburgh where was co-advised by Profs. Boris Grot and Edouard Bugnion (EPFL). Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Researcher at ETH Zurich with Prof. Ana Klimovic.

HIRING: I am looking for motivated PhD students, Research Assistants/Associates, and Fellows (aka Postdocs)!


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Hyperscale Systems and Cloud Architecture lab
NTU Singapore

Interested in Cloud Systems Research?

Open Positions: PhD students (August 2024 intake), Research Associate/Assistants, and a Research Fellow (aka Postdoc)
Do you love prototyping and hacking systems? Wonder what is under the hood of a modern cloud? Or just curious what the future of computing holds? I have a number of fully-funded PhD student positions for research in cloud/serverless/edge computing and systems for machine learning.

Qualifications
A strong applicant must have a MSc or BSc degree in computer science, electrical or computer engineering with a solid GPA. Background in programming, and systems programming in particular, as well as understanding of operating systems, networking, and/or computer architecture are key. Experience in research or working with open-source projects are desirable.

Why Join NTU Singapore?
NTU is a top international university ranked #11 in Computer Science, #19 overall in QS rankings. Singapore is an excellent place for research, comfortable and safe environment for daily life, and a melting pot of the western and eastern cultures. Also, it is in top-10 photogenic universities world-wide!

Interested? Please send me an email attaching your CV. Prospective students should also send me the transcripts (including BSc), motivation letter, as well as TOEFL (or IELTS) and GRE certificates. If you miss any documents (e.g., TOEFL, GRE) at the moment of contacting me, please elaborate on your plans to obtain them. Note, all these documents are mandatory, no exceptions are possible.

Funding Opportunities for PhD Students
(contact me before applying)
Nanyang President's Graduate for all
SINGA for international students
Alibaba-NTU for Singaporeans and PRs
A*STAR Graduate (AGS) for Singaporeans and Singaporean Uni graduates
AISG PhD fellowship for all
A*STAR Computing and Information Science (ACIS) for all
SIMTech-NTU for all
Other NTU scholarships

International PhD exchange scholarships 
(contact me before applying)
A*STAR Research Attachment Programme (ARAP) for current international PhD students

Funding Opportunities for PostDocs 
(contact me before applying)
A*STAR International fellowship for all
Lee Kuan Yew Postdoctoral fellowship (LKYPDF) for Singaporeans
NTU Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship (PPF) for all
Maria Curie (MSCA) for EU and UK graduates (but not only)
Schmidt AI in Science for all

Send an Email

Research Directions

There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge available to us: observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.
Denis Diderot, On the Interpretation of Nature

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Cloud & Serverless


Explore trade-offs in performance, security, and efficiency of next-generation cloud systems
Learn more about Serverless & vHive

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Edge Computing


Design geo-distributed operating systems and programming models for edge & smart city infrastructure.

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Heterogeneous Computing & AI-as-a-Service

Accelerate AI-as-a-Service workloads by integrating heterogeneous hardware into cloud infrastructure.

vHive Serverless Ecosystem 

vHive
Join the vHive Open-Source Community

vHive is a full-stack open-source framework & ecosystem for serverless experimentation and innovation. vHive is representative of real serverless clouds, as recognized by leading serverless providers and an ASPLOS'21 Distinguished Artifact Award, integrating production-grade components, including AWS Firecracker, Containerd and Kubernetes.

Today, vHive is in use in 30+ top universities around the globe, for both research and teaching, supported and/or sponsored by 8 international IT companies.

Learn more GitHub

Selected Publications (More)

There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.
Homer, The Odyssey

  • Enabling In-Vitro Serverless Systems Research. D. Ustiugov, D. Park, L. Cvetković, M. Djokic, H. Hè, B. Grot, A. Klimovic. WORDS@SOSP'23
  • Lukewarm Serverless Functions: Characterization and Optimization. D. Schall, A. Margaritov, D. Ustiugov, A. Sandberg, B. Grot. ISCA'22
    IEEE Micro Top Picks Honorable Mention
    PDF GitHub
  • Analyzing Tail Latency in Serverless Clouds with STeLLAR. D.Ustiugov, T.Amariucai, B.Grot. IISWC'21
    PDF Video GitHub
  • Benchmarking, Analysis, and Optimization of Serverless Function Snapshots. D.Ustiugov, P.Petrov, M.Kogias, E.Bugnion, B.Grot. ASPLOS'21, Distinguished Artifact Award
    PDF Video GitHub
  • PTEMagnet: Fine-Grained Physical Memory Reservation for Faster Page Walks in Public Clouds. A.Margaritov, D.Ustiugov, A.Shahab, B.Grot. ASPLOS'21
    PDF Video GitHub
  • Prefetched Address Translation. A.Margaritov, D.Ustiugov, E.Bugnion, B.Grot. MICRO'19
    PDF

Teaching & Supervision

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
Albert Einstein

  • Operating Systems. Lecturer and tutor, 2023. NTU Singapore.
  • Digital Logic. Lecturer and tutor, 2023-2024. NTU Singapore.

  • Cloud Computing Architecture. Invited lecturer, Spring'22. ETH Zurich.
  • Extreme Computing. Invited lecturer, Fall'21. University of Edinburgh. [Slides]
  • Operating Systems. Invited lecturer, Spring'21. University of Edinburgh. [Slides]
  • Systems Programming and Computer Architecture, Teaching assistant, Fall'22, ETH Zurich.
  • Introduction to Computer Systems, Teaching assistant, Fall'19, '20, University of Edinburgh.
  • Extreme Computing, Teaching assistant, Fall'19, University of Edinburgh.
  • Computer Architecture, Teaching assistant, Fall'15, '17, EPFL.
  • Statistics, Teaching assistant, Spring'16, EPFL.
  • Introduction to Multiprocessor Architecture, Teaching assistant, Spring'15, EPFL.

Students, Research Staff, and Interns (Incl. Incoming)

Ruiqi Lai (SJTU, China), 2023-ongoing.
JooYoung Park (Korea University, South Korea), 2023-ongoing.

Leonid Kondrashov (MIPT), 2023-ongoing.

Aiza Maksutova (HSE), 2023-ongoing.
Dohyun Park (Korea University, South Korea), 2023.
Georgiy Lebedev (MIPT), 2023.
Haoyuan Ma (ZJU, China), 2023.
Anshal Shukla (BITS Pilani, India), 2023.

URECA
Siyang Shao 2023-2024

Final Year Projects (FYP)
Batch 2023-2024
Benjamin Chun
Colin Hong
Jason Chua
Min Kabar Kyaw
Lee Xuan Hua
Sokunthea Eang
Yan Kai Lim
Xingjian Li
Yi Pun

Past Students and Projects

Lazar Cvetković, PhD Student (with Prof. Klimovic), ETH Zurich, 2021-2022.
Project: Scheduling policy exploration for serverless clouds.

Foteini Strati, PhD Student (with Prof. Klimovic), ETH Zurich, 2022.
Project: Cloud and serverless computing support for large-scale machine learning.

Hongyu He, Master Student (with Prof. Klimovic), ETH Zurich, 2021-2022.
Project: Methodology for performance analysis of large-scale serverless clusters.

Mihajlo Djokic, Master Student (with Prof. Klimovic), ETH Zurich, 2021-2022.
Project: Large-scale serverless cloud simulation for rapid design exploration.

Yijun Ma, Master Student (with Prof. Klimovic), ETH Zurich, 2021.
Project: Edge computing with a serverless programming model.

Tom Kuchler, PhD Student (with Prof. Klimovic), ETH Zurich, 2021-2022.
Project: Scheduling policy exploration for serverless clouds.

Shyam Jesalpura, Research Intern, BITS Pilani, 2021.
Project: High-speed communication fabric for serverless clouds.

Mert Bora Alper, Undergraduate Intern, University of Edinburgh, 2021.
Project: Benchmarking methodology for serverless clouds.

Michal Baczun, Undergraduate Intern, University of Edinburgh, 2021.
Project: Representative suite of serverless workloads.

Yuchen Niu, Undergraduate Student, University of Edinburgh, 2020-2021.
Project: Implications of multi-tenancy on serverless hosts.

Theodor Amariucai, Undergraduate Student, University of Edinburgh, 2020-2021.
Project: Tail latency analysis framework for serverless clouds.

Plamen Petrov, Undergraduate Student & Intern, University of Edinburgh, 2020.
Project 1: End-to-end serverless benchmarking framework.
Project 2: RDMA networks security and covert communication.

Ivy Wang, Undergraduate Student, University of Edinburgh, 2019.
Project: Software support for contiguous page table allocation.

Sean Mullan, Undergraduate Student, University of Edinburgh, 2019.
Project: Design exploration for TLB prefetching.

Lei Yan, Master Student, EPFL and RWTH Aachen University, 2018.
Project: Design space exploration of cooperative scheduling for latency-critical cloud services.

Siddharth Gupta, PhD Student, EPFL, 2017.
Project: Analysis of persistent memory systems on modern CPUs.

Nikhil Gupta, Undergraduate Intern, EPFL and IIT Delhi, 2016.
Project: Robust infrastructure for QFlex (Flexus) simulation framework.

Virgile Neu, Undergraduate Student, EPFL, 2016.
Project: Analyzing CPU front-end efficiency using perf counters. 

Collaboration & Funding

I thank my past and present collaborators round the globe for their professional and financial support.

Previous Next
  1. Arm generously provided 3-year fellowship at the University of Edinburgh, supporting our work on "Virtual Memory Software-Hardware Co-Design for Cloud Computing".
  2. Google generously provided one-year Faculty Award (2019) for "Neural Address Translation" project at University of Edinburgh based on the research proposal written together with Prof. Boris Grot and my colleague Artemiy Margaritov.
  3. Oracle Labs generously provided one-year (2018) gift funding for the joint "Disaggregated processors" project at EPFL based on the research proposal I wrote with the help of Prof. Alex Daglis and Prof. Babak Falsafi.

Professional Activities

  • TPC member: MICRO'22, SoCC'23, FedEdge'23, OSDI'24.
  • Co-chair of the 1st SESAME workshop at EuroSys'23.
  • The head organizer of the Serverless & vHive Tutorial series at ASPLOS'22 and SOSP'23.
  • External reviewer at ATC'19, ISCA'19, CAL'19, 20; MDPI JLPEA'22, MDPI Electronics'22.
  • EuroSys'21 ShadowPC member.
  • SOSP'21 session co-chair.
  • Artifact Evaluation: co-chair at HPCA'24,  committee member at JSys'22, ASPLOS'20.

Awards and Recognition

  • IEEE Micro Top Picks Honorable Mention 2023.
  • ASPLOS'21 Distinguished Artifact Award.
  • The winner of the 1-minute thesis pitch competition at the JOBS workshop at MICRO'20.
  • Arm Center of Excellence Fellowship, 2019.
  • EPFL PhD Fellowship, 2014.

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The HyScale logo was designed by Anna Kondrashova.

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