Alex Carrega

Ph.D. IT & Network Engineer

Research


Main Activities


💻 Cloud and Edge Computing

Analysis, study and development of solutions, algorithms and criteria for the optimization and dynamic management of environments with a high level of virtualization and distributed computing.
  • The study and development of seamless process / data migration techniques with low overhead / cost.
  • The study of algorithms for the dynamic adaptation of service chains in highly distributed environments and criteria for managing the localization of data and processes.
  • The analysis of hardware offloading techniques for complex operations at the network and/or application level.
  • The creation of interfaces and related information models for the management and orchestration of large-scale fog computing systems.
  • The study of model-driven analytics techniques for anomaly and problem detection, or to optimize the consolidation of processes/data for mobile users.
  • The study of software-defined consolidation and adaptation techniques of virtual objects on heterogeneous computing platforms.
  • Development of energy optimization mechanisms for the dynamic allocation of resources in the cloud and edge computing.
  • Evolution of NFV and SDN techniques and paradigms.

💻 Green Networking

Study and development of technologies and solutions to reduce energy consumption in packet-switched telecommunication networks and equipment.
  • Study, development, analysis and verification of models for the representation of the consumption of software router devices in a multi-core environment.
  • Support for the integration of models defined within energy consumption optimization policies at single device and network level.
  • Analysis and study of prototype power management mechanisms capable of reducing energy consumption, adapting the processing capacity of the internal elements to a network devices to the volume of traffic offered and the established performance constraints.
  • Impact analysis of these technologies when applied to networks of real operators.
  • Use of virtualization and migration techniques for the efficient support of standby capacities.
  • Study of control mechanisms to ensure the best relationship between energy consumption and network performance in single- and multi-core network processors.
  • Mechanisms for sizing and dynamic allocation of resources (and therefore of consumption) in the modular network equipment.
  • Study and extension of standards for the certification of energy consumption of telecommunications equipment.
  • Study of the energy efficiency and potential impact of the universal charger for mobile phones.
  • Development of advanced experimental testbeds for the validation and performance analysis of prototype network solutions for energy efficiency.
  • Study and development of primitives for power-scaling (adaptation of power consumption) and ⌨️LPI in different contexts and within different building blocks of network equipment.
  • Design of mathematical models for the control and design of energy saving solutions in network equipment.
  • Development of software modules for the optimization of consumption and energy control of high- and hyper-capacity units.
  • Development of energy optimization mechanisms for the dynamic allocation of resources in the cloud and edge computing.
  • Evaluation of the mechanisms related to the reduction of energy consumption in the data center and dissemination of research results.

High-end Network Equipment Architecture

This set of activities includes the study, analysis and implementation of mechanisms for:
  • Synthetic generation of heterogeneous traffic in embedded Linux architectures built on general purpose network processors.
  • Design and prototype construction of distributed IP network equipment with high levels of resilience and autonomy.
  • Study and development of techniques and architectures based on the SDN and NFV paradigms.
  • Study and prototype development of software platforms for the optimization of SoC and to allow a high level of programmability.
  • Study and prototype development of software paradigms and architectures for user-space forwarding in many-core processors.
  • Definition of the requirements necessary for the implementation of the innovative development framework for distributed applications.
  • Study and development of energy efficient ICT architectures for the management of Smart Grids through the use of NCP.
  • Study and development of simulators for the performance analysis of high speed network devices.
  • Support for the study of software solutions for the development of Highly Distributed applications.

Cyber-Security

This set of activities includes the study, analysis and implementation of mechanisms for:
  • Study, analysis and development of distributed models and architectures to automate security management and response to threats, security incidents, attacks in cloud/edge environments.
  • Study and development of models for the definition of security graphs to be applied automatically to the service graph characterizing the cloud/edge infrastructure.
  • Implementation and configuration for centralized collection of distributed data log to be used for the automation of IDS processes.
  • Development and implementation of advanced centralized, distributed and hybrid ML and DL techniques to be used for the automatic identification of potential attacks and anomalies.
  • Development of a distributed framework for the management and configuration of agents, favoring the possibility of live deployment on distributed platforms.
  • Implementation and configuration of modules for the creation and management of eBPF programs aimed at data collection and automatic application of safety rules.
  • Design and development of a holistic framework for advanced protection of business service chains.