Available Theses

I have some theses available for well-motivated students (both Master and Bachelor) who are keen to work on topics related to networking. Depending on the student's interest, the thesis can focus on theoretical (e.g. definition of optimization problems and design of algorithms) or on practical aspects (e.g. network simulation and/or emulation).

In the following I report some of the possible high-level topics that can be investigated. Feel free to contact me if you want to get more detailed information and be aware that the list is not exhaustive!

 

1. SERVERLESS COMPUTING APPLIED TO NETWORKING

Serverless Computing is a novel cloud computing method where code is executed in a virtual environment and triggered by events. The advantages of adopting it for the execution of network functions (NFs) has not been thoroughly investigated yet, even though it is well-suited for those control-plane functions requiring the execution of simple and repetitive tasks (e.g. users' authentication). The student will explore the feasibility of such an approach to some existing NFs.

 

2. PRIVACY-PRESERVING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN MULTI-ACCESS EDGE COMPUTING

Multi-access edge computing (MEC) is a recent architecture pushing cloud computing capabilities to the edge of the network. Availability of computation at the edge enables the possibility to execute many Artificial Intelligence tasks in a distributed and privacy-preserving fashion, thanks to a paradigm called Federated Learning. The student will investigate the possibility to exploit Federated Learning in such a scenario to support innovative services while preserving users' privacy.

On these topics it is possible to do a stage and prepare the Master thesis in collaboration with Inria, in the group of Dr. Giovanni Neglia and at their premises at Sophia-Antipolis (France). The period will last at least 6 months and a partial reimbursement of expenses will be granted.

 

3. AUTOMATED SERVICE PROVISIONING IN SD-WAN

SD-WAN is a very promising technology to establish reliable and cost-effective connectivity across the different sites of a company, in substitution of existing (and expensive) MPLS tunnels. Many SD-WAN products are currently available on the market, but they rely on very simple strategies with respect to service creation and differentiation. The student will investigate novel approaches to improve existing SD-WAN solutions, with the goal of making them more flexible in the provisioning of heterogeneous services, by also exploiting techniques such as Network Tomography (i.e., ability to infer an underlay topology by collecting metrics from an overlay network).

 

4. PROGRAMMABLE DATA PLANES FOR ADVANCED NETWORK MONITORING

In Software-Defined Networking, programmable data planes enable switches to perform complex operations on packet headers and to collect advanced statistics on the network traffic, going beyond simple frame forwarding. One of the most adopted domain-specific programming languages in this context is the P4 language, which can be adopted to program the switches' data plane behavior to support novel protocols and features. The student will investigate novel strategies for an enhanced collection of network monitoring metrics (e.g. latency, packet loss, number of active network flows, etc.) in data-plane programmable networks, using the P4 language.

 

5. AI-BASED COMMODITY COST FORECASTING FOR PRICE FIXING (in collaboration with Energy Saving)

The student will create an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based system for short-term commodity (e.g. energy, gas, etc.) cost forecasting, with the goal of identifying the most opportune time window where to buy the commodity at fixed price, and alerting the system operator(s). The thesis will be done in collaboration with Energy Saving (Monza). The student will have the opportunity to spend some time in the Energy Savings' headquarter, and will have the chance to access real data, made available by the company.

 

6. RESEARCH ON 5G NETWORKS AND BEYOND (in collaboration with Athonet, currently not available)

A bunch of theses/stages is available. Especially, depending on the student’s skills and interest, we can offer:
- The possibility to experiment (hands on) with industry leading products (e.g. virtualized Evolved Packet Core, virtualized 5G Core, AWS etc.)
- The possibility to perform industrial and standardization-oriented research (e.g. 3GPP, ETSI MEC, ETSI MANO, etc.)