tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9186457242428335144.post5205194908546876365..comments2024-03-28T00:36:13.790-07:00Comments on Volatile and Decentralized: All pain, all gainMatt Welshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04255792550910131960noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9186457242428335144.post-49220043407808037142009-02-08T12:16:00.000-08:002009-02-08T12:16:00.000-08:00I agree with the post RE: the job market. Full sys...I agree with the post RE: the job market. Full system deployment papers, especially sensors, are time consuming and not good for the publications/time ratio. On the other hand, I think that hiring committees are really impressed by this style of top to bottom, solving real problems work in a job talk. So perhaps your students would be more appreciated once they get past the first stage and give the interview talk.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14936659851695940856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9186457242428335144.post-28310513824272728032009-02-08T11:52:00.000-08:002009-02-08T11:52:00.000-08:00Good point - it's true that Internet research tend...Good point - it's true that Internet research tends to take a more layered approach, and there is literally gobs (that is a technical term) of work that has never been deployed or tested in practice. We're fortunate in the sensor nets space that we can build a sensor net in a lab or a building and control all aspects of the system from soup to nuts. It's nice to be on the frontier without being tied to legacy components and applications.Matt Welshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04255792550910131960noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9186457242428335144.post-69931155695299568832009-02-08T10:19:00.000-08:002009-02-08T10:19:00.000-08:00I'll like to add a point of view. I agree with wha...I'll like to add a point of view. I agree with what you say with regards to additional services added to the basic Internet structure: you get a lot more resources, such as debuggers etc., to help with what you need to do. But I think there's a little of comparing apples to oranges: for sensor networks, you need to consider the infrastructure, which stretches from the radio hardware, MAC, routing protocol, all the way up till just below the application (e.g. temperature sensing). It's a complete system. But if you consider the equivalent for the case of the Internet, you need to consider the routers, the fibers, MPLS tunnels, DNS, all the way till, say, TCP.<BR/><BR/>If we consider the same type of environment, i.e. infrastructural, then the hurdle in the Internet reaches obscene levels, much much much higher than sensornets. For the same effect, i.e. people use it in everyday lives, you need to work with many constraints, such as routing protocols (we aren't going to change OSPF, not like we can change routing protocol in sensornets) etc. That's just the start of the issue, because for actual deployment, there are equally, obscenely high political barriers as well. For the equivalent effect (real-world usage) in the Internet, it'll take years, not weeks in the case of sensornets. Fortunately (yes fortunately) for sensornet folks, it's not that hard (comparatively) to get past this infrastructure barrier.<BR/><BR/>Because of this hurdle, the academic community has accepted "weaker" publications, "weaker" in the sense that we don't really know what happens if everyone decides to use the solutions, and simulations, analytical approaches are acceptable in its place. But it's different for sensornets because of the scale involved. If I need to monitor the temperature at different parts of a building, I buy some motes and deploy. I'm the only user, and the deployment is as complete as it needs to get. Thus, whether a sensornet idea works in real life or not can be determined much more easily. I mean, hey, it's right in front of our eyes :)<BR/><BR/>This acceptance of "weaker" work (this doesn't mean that the traditional Internet researchers do any less work, but that whether the solution works or not is less convincing) caused a rift between Internet infrastructure researchers (e.g. service provider research centers) and the pure academic community. You are absolutely right in that there are huge amounts of effort, a lot of blood and sweat, put into making the infrastructure work; unfortunately the pure academic community no longer acknowledges that. This community no longer treats "getting things to really, really work" as important, certainly not as important as the solution itself (which need not, or indeed, cannot be as convincingly shown as in sensornets).<BR/><BR/>This, I believe, is a main reason why GENI is proposed. Like Scott Shenker mentioned in one of his talks, Internet research has become "science fiction", not experimental research. Internet researchers have been publishing like crazy, but nobody knows if things really work when millions of people actually use the solution.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com