Two Open Problems in Networking: Random Access Performance and P2P Streaming Capacity

Mung Chiang
Princeton University

Monday, December 1, 2008 at 1:00PM

54-134 Engineering IV Building
Refreshments Served

Abstract: We discuss recent progress on and answer variants of the following two open problems in networking, one on distributed scheduling in wireless networks and the other on content distribution in wireline networks. First, how good can random access protocols without any message passing be? We prove its optimality in long-term utility and tradeoff with short-term fairness. Second, what is the capacity of P2P streaming? We develop polynomial-time algorithms to compute the capacity region under various practical constraints. Interactions between distributed optimization and probability theory and combinatorics are highlighted. The results were obtained in collaboration with Microsoft Research.

Biography: Mung Chiang is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and an affiliated faculty of Applied and Computational Mathematics and of Computer Science at Princeton University. He received the B.S. (Honors) in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1999, 2000, and 2003, respectively. He conducts research in the areas of optimization, distributed algorithms, and stochastic models of communication networks, with applications to broadband access networks, wireless networks, the Internet, and content delivery and sharing. He received CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research, Howard B. Wentz Junior Faculty Award and Engineering School Teaching Commendation from Princeton University, School of Engineering Terman Award from Stanford University, and was selected as a participant in US NAE Frontier of Engineering Symposium in 2008 and a Hertz Foundation Fellow 2000-2003. For his work on broadband access networks and Internet traffic engineering, he was selected for the TR35 Young Technologist Award in 2007, a list of top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35. His monograph on Geometric Programming was selected by Mathematical Programming Society as one of the top 3 papers by young authors in the area of continuous optimization during 2004-2007. His work on Layering As Optimization Decomposition became a Fast Breaking Paper in Computer Science by ISI citation. He also co-authored papers that were IEEE Infocom best paper finalist and IEEE Globecom best student paper. He has served as guest or associate editor for IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory, IEEE/ACM Trans. Netw., IEEE J. Sel. Area Comm., IEEE Trans. Comm., IEEE Trans. Wireless Comm., Springer Journal of Optimization and Engineering, as a Program Co-Chair of the 38th Conference on Information Sciences and Systems, and a co-editor of the new Springer book series on "Optimization and Control of Communication Systems".