Building networked computer systems that are faster, bigger, and more resilient

Networked computer systems involve both computing hardware and software which is interconnected by a communication network. Therefore, networked computer systems are the underlying engines for solving computationally hard scientific problems and for supporting the large scale consumer and enterprise applications. Implications range from assembly of large genomes, seismic data analysis, medical image data mining, to online shopping, on-demand video streaming, and mobile applications.

Dr. T.S. Eugene Ng, of Rice University, aims to deeply understand the requirements and characteristics of applications, and then based on this understanding, develop new networked computer systems that run applications significantly faster, allow applications to expand significantly, and tolerate hardware and software failures in a graceful manner. Through his research, he discovers, proves, and demonstrates new and improved solutions for building networked computer systems thus, giving scientists and engineers the powerful platforms they need to tackle even more challenging problems. Because of the importance he places on a cross-cutting approach to his work, he is able to steer away from making incremental improvements to narrowly defined problems and rather, focus on large problems that are likely to impact the world for the better. His innovative research often leads to breakthroughs that are widely adopted by the industry including: the Linux operating system, Google's content distribution network, and Calient's optical switching solutions.

Current research projects include:

  • Studying Applications in the "Cloud" Environment: A Cloud is a massive computer cluster involving millions of computers, where the computer and communication resources are consolidated and fractions of the resources are rented-on-demand to millions of users. Amazon's Web Services and Google's App Engine are prime examples of today's Clouds. Based on these application characteristics and the Cloud's resource characteristics, Dr. Ng is developing a distributed system to provide intelligence to Cloud users so that they can best architect their applications and achieve the best performance cost ratio.

  • Studying "Big Data" Applications: Based on the characteristics of data-intensive applications, Dr. Ng is developing a revolutionary communication network that leverages state-of-the-art photonic switching technologies to dramatically improve the performance of these Big Data applications. Moreover, he is developing distributed software systems that enable the rapid and failure resistant execution of these Big Data applications over the underlying computer and networking hardware. Furthermore, he is developing network control software that can learn the communication needs of applications and efficiently deploy network communication bandwidth to dramatically accelerate the progress of Big Data applications.

Website: http://www.cs.rice.edu/~eugeneng/

T. S. Eugene Ng is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Electrical & Computer Engineering at Rice University. He was selected as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow and received an IBM Faculty Awardin 2009. He also received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2005. He holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering with distinction and magna cum laude from University of Washington, a M.S. and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a holder of four U.S. patents.

His current research interest lies in developing new network models, network architectures, and holistic networked systems that enable a robust and manageable global networked infrastructure for the future.

When Dr. Ng first began working in the technology industry he had the opportunity to work for both a big technology company and also a small technology start-up company. What he found was that both companies were building quality products, but the work they did was also very incremental and constrained heavily by perceived market demands. These experiences motivated him to work with his professors at the University of Washington on research problems and he immediately realized how much university research was driven by solving problems in the best and most scientifically rigorous way possible. This desire to innovate beyond conventional wisdom and to search for scientific truth has lead him to become a university researcher.

Dr. Ng works closely with his team of energetic graduate students. He is very proud of the fact that he has made a real effort to train under-represented students in STEM. Of his six graduate students, three are women and one male student is from Africa.

Eugene grew up in Hong Kong and can never resist good "dim sum" or soup. When he is not working, he is most likely to be found speeding down the road on his race bike.

BM Faculty Award, 2009

Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, 2009

NSF Career Award, 2005