Ningning Hu
Ph.D. Candidate 
Computer Science Department
Carnegie Mellon University
412-268-3778 (office)
hnn@cs.cmu.edu
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~hnn
Campus Address
Computer Science Department
Carnegie Mellon Univeristy
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Home Address
5610 Hobart Street
Apt #9
Pittsburgh, PA 15217

Research Interests
Computer networks and distributed systems

[goto top]
Education
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA
Ph.D. in Computer Science, May 2006 (expected)
Dissertation: Network Monitoring and Diagnosis Based on Available Bandwidth Measurement
Advisor: Professor Peter Steenkiste

Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA
M.S. in Computer Science, October 2005
Advisor: Professor Peter Steenkiste

Nanjing University
 Nanjing, China
B.S. in Computer Science, July 1998

[goto top]
Dissertation
Title:  Network Monitoring and Diagnosis Based on Available Bandwidth Measurement 
Advisor: Professor Peter Steenkiste
My thesis research studies network monitoring and diagnosis problems from an available-bandwidth perspective. I have developed (1) an end-to-end available bandwidth measurement technique, (2) an Internet bottleneck location algorithm, and (3) a measurement scheme that can obtain the available bandwidth of the N^2 paths in a N-node system with O(N) measurement overhead. To systematically support these sophisticated bandwidth monitoring and diagnostic operations, I have designed, developed and deployed a topology-aware measurement infrastructure.

[goto top]
Research Experience
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA
Network Measurement Infrastructure
02/2005-Now
Designed and developed TAMI a measurement infrastructure that has topology-aware capability and measurement scheduling functionality. It improves the performance of large-scale available-bandwidth estimation, network-event diagnosis, and network monitoring.

Locating Internet Bottlenecks
11/2003-02/2005
Developed the Pathneck tool which can efficiently and effectively locate end-to-end bandwidth bottlenecks. Conducted several Internet-scale studies on bottleneck properties, such as the distribution of bottleneck locations, bottleneck persistence, and the distribution of end-user network access bandwidth. These studies are published in SIGCOMM 04, INFOCOM 05, and WCW 05.

TCP Startup Algorithm
 04/2002-10/2003
Designed a new TCP startup algorithm PaSt by integrating the PTR available bandwidth measurement algorithm into TCP s slow start algorithm. PaSt allows TCP to reach the correct congestion window size more quickly while also greatly reducing the amount of packet loss. This work is published in ICNP 03.

Available Bandwidth Measurement
 04/2001-03/2002
Developed an end-to-end available bandwidth measurement tool IGI/PTR, which implements two algorithms, estimating background traffic load (IGI) and packet transmission rate (PTR), respectively. Compared with other tools like Pathload, IGI/PTR has much smaller measurement overhead, in terms of both network load and measurement time. This work is published in JSAC Vol. 21(6) 2003.

Adaptive Software Architecture
 01/2001-05/2003
Member of the Rainbow group, which focused on designing an advanced software architecture that can dynamically adapt to the computing environments. Developed an available bandwidth measurement module to provide network performance information to the system. This work is published in HPDC 02 and ARCS 02.

Network Performance Middleware
 09/2000-04/2001
Member the Remos group, which focused on designing and implementing a network middleware that allows network-aware applications to obtain network performance information. Designed a model for determining when to compress data before transmission.

Nanjing University
 Nanjing, China
Interconnection Networks
03/1999 05/2000
Designed a new structure for interconnection network Cube Tailed Shu e Network (CTSN) to improve the fault-tolerance of shu e networks. CTSN can emulate hypercubes and its fault-tolerance is no worse than that of the cubes embedded within.

Distributed Real-Time Simulation
09/1998-05/2000
Participated in the design and implementation of a distributed simulation system to emulate the behavior of a real-time system where multiple tasks execute in parallel. Developed a synchronization model to reduce the difference between the event execution time in the simulation system and that in the physical system.

Book Translation
 03/1999-05/1999
Translated an on-line book The Linux Kernel from English to Chinese, responsible for the chapters  "Networks"  and  "The Alpha Processor".

TCP/IP Kernel Stack Development
09/1996-06/1998
Member of the Distributed System Laboratory, a national key laboratory. Participated in the development of a TCP/IP kernel stack, implemented the socket interface.

[goto top]
Intern Experience
AT&T Labs-Research
Florham Park, NJ
Summer Intern, Mentor: Albert Greenberg  06/2005-08/2005
Worked on VoIP performance monitoring and diagnosis using a large-scale network measurement infrastructure. Designed a diagnosis algorithm to identify VoIP device mis-configurations. Also worked with Oliver Spatscheck and Jia Wang on the problem of identifying MPLS deployment.

Summer Intern, Mentor: Jia Wang & Oliver Spatscheck
 07/2004-08/2004
Studied how to use bandwidth and bottleneck information to improve the performance of replicated hosting. This work is published in WCW 05.

Summer Intern, Mentor: Jennifer Yates
 06/2003-08/2003
Studied how to e ectively detect and predict backbone network events by correlating both physical-layer and IP-layer measurement data. Developed an OSPF routing infor- mation server that maintains end-to-end route history information for the core backbone network.

[goto top]
Teaching Experience
Master Thesis Project
Spring 2004-Fall 2004
Helped my advisor Professor Peter Steenkiste in advising a master student Mazhar Memon. The topic was to study the confidence of IGI/PTR available-bandwidth measurement. Helped Mazhar get familiar with the source code, and regularly discussed with him and evaluated his progress. Mazhar is now working at Intel Oregon Lab.

15-213: Introduction to Computer Systems
 Spring 2003
Teaching Assistant.  Taught recitation class and held office hours each week, designed homeworks and exam problems.

15-441: Computer Networking
 Spring 2002
Teaching Assistant. Created and graded course projects and homework problems, held office hours each week and designed exam problems.

15-441: Computer Networking
 Fall 2001
Tutor. Volunteered as an one-to-one tutor for a student who had difficulties following this course. Worked side-by-side with the student on both homeworks and course projects. The student successfully passed the course.

[goto top]
Publications
Network Measurement Infrastructure
[1] Ningning Hu and Peter Steenkiste.  TAMI---Topology-Aware Measurement Infrastructure for Network Monitoring and Diagnosis, under submission.

[2] Ningning Hu and Peter Steenkiste.  Quantifying Internet End-to-End Route Similarity, to appear in Passive and Active Measurement Conference (PAM), March 2006.

[3] Ningning Hu and Peter Steenkiste. Exploiting Internet Route Sharing for Large Scale Available Bandwidth Estimation, in ACM/USENIX Internet Measurement Conference (IMC), October 2005.

Available Bandwidth Estimation and Bottleneck Detection
[4] Ningning Hu, Oliver Spatscheck, Jia Wang, and Peter Steenkiste. Optimizing Network Performance in Replicated Hosting, in the Tenth International Workshop on Web Caching and Content Distribution (WCW), September 2005.

[5] Ningning Hu, Li Li, Zhuoqing Morley Mao, Peter Steenkiste, and Jia Wang. A Measurement Study of Internet Bottlenecks, in INFOCOM, March 2005.

[6] Ningning Hu, Li Li, Zhuoqing Morley Mao, Peter Steenkiste, and Jia Wang. Locating Internet Bottlenecks: Algorithms, Measurements, and Implications, in SIGCOMM, August 2004.

[7] Ningning Hu, Peter Steenkiste. Improving TCP Startup Algorithm using Active Measurements: Algorithm and Evaluation, in the International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP), November 2003.

[8] Ningning Hu, Peter Steenkiste. Evaluation and Characterization of Available Bandwidth Probing Techniques, in the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC), Vol. 21(6), 2003.

[9] Ningning Hu. Network Aware Data Transmission with Compression, in The 4th Annual CMU Symposium on Computer Systems (SOCS), October 2001.

Networking Software Architecture
[10] Shang-Wen Cheng, David Garlan, Bradley Schmerl, Peter Steenkiste, and Ningning Hu. Software Architecture-based Adaptation for Grid Computing, in the IEEE Conference on High Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC), July 2002.

[11] Shang-Wen Cheng, David Garlan, Bradley Schmerl, Joao Pedro Sousa, Bridget Spitznagel, Peter Steenkiste, and Ningning Hu. Software Architecture-based Adaptation for Pervasive Systems, in the International Conference on Architecture of Computing Systems (ARCS), April 2002. Also published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 2299.

Interconnection Networks and Neworking Systems (in Nanjing University)
[12] Jianfeng Xu, Qingbo Zhu, Ningning Hu, and Li Xie.  Study of Synchronization in Periodic Distributed Simulation System , in Acta Electronica Sinica, Vol.30, No.5, May 2002.

[13] Guihai Chen, Ningning Hu, F.C.M. Lau and Li Xie. CTSN: A New Fault-Tolerant Network, in the International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing Systems (PDCS), August 2000.

[14] Ningning Hu, Daoxu Chen, Li Xie. Intelligent Broadcasting Model, in Chinese Journal of Computers, August 1999.

[15] Ningning Hu, Zhiquan Jin, Li Xie. Implementation of Interface for Microkernel Based Network System, in Journal of Software, Vol. 10, No. 6, 1999.

[16] Ningning Hu, Zhiquan Jin, Li Xie. Design of SOCKET in CONET V2.0, in the 10th Chinese Conference on Computer Networks and Data Communication, 1998.

[goto top]
Talks
[1] Exploiting Internet Route Sharing for Large Scale Available Bandwidth Estimation. Presented at ACM/USENIX IMC, Berkeley, CA, October 2005.

[2] A Measurement Study of Internet Bottlenecks. Presented at INFOCOM, Miami, FL, March 2005.

[3] Locating Internet Bottlenecks. Presented at SIGCOMM, Portland, OR, August 2004.

[4] Towards Tunable Measurement Techniques for Available Bandwidth. Presented at the Bandwidth Estimation Workshop (BEst), La Jolla, CA, December 2003.

[5] Improving TCP Startup Algorithm using Active Measurements: Algorithm and Evaluation. Presented at ICNP, Atlanta, GA, November 2003.

[6] Network Aware Data Transmission with Compression. Presented at the 4th Annual CMU Symposium on Computer Systems (CMU SOCS), Pittsburgh, PA, October 2001.

[goto top]
Professional Service
External Reviewer for: SIGCOMM 2005, INFOCOM 2003-2006, VTC'F05, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (TON), IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS), IEEE Transaction on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology (TCSVT), IEEE Communications Letters, Computer Networks Journal (COMNET), Journal of Signal Processing: Image Communication.

Tutorial Organization Volunteer for SIGCOMM 2002 held in Pittsburgh, PA.
Conference Note Volunteer for NSDI 2005 held in Boston, MA.

Student Member of ACM and IEEE

[goto top]
Software Maintained
IGI/PTR:  An end-to-end bandwidth measurement tool. Source code: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~hnn/igi. [Downloaded by 593 distinct IPs.]

Pathneck: An Internet bandwidth bottleneck location tool. It is now used by a Tier-1 ISP for data-center and VoIP customer performance monitoring. Source code: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~hnn/pathneck. [Downloaded by 245 distinct IPs.]

TAMI: A topology-aware measurement infrastructure. To be released soon.

OSPF routing information server: A software that uses OSPF routing-change information to rebuild OSPF routing tables for all routers on a Tier-1 ISP backbone. It can get a complete routing snapshot for any pair of routers for any given time point or period. It is currently actively used by the ISP.

[goto top]
Programming Skill
Unix:
Networking system development experience on Linux and Solaris, using C, Perl, and Java as programming languages. Familiar with TCP/IP and socket programming. Kernel programming experience on Linux and Mach, using C as programming language. Familiar with C++ and Unix shell script language.

Windows:  
System programming experience on Windows 95 and NT, using VC, VB and Java as programming language.

[goto top]
Honors
Outstanding Undergraduate Student Fellowships, Nanjing University, 1994-1997.
Guanghua Fellowship, Nanjing University, 1997.
Fujitsu Fellowship, Nanjing University, 1995, 1996.
Luopu Fellowship, Nanjing University 1995.
First Prize in the National High-School Olympic Mathematics Competition, China, 1993.
Second Prize in the National High-School Olympic Physics Competition, China, 1992.

[goto top]
Citizenship
P.R. China, currently on F-1 visa.


[goto top]
References
Available upon request.


[goto top]