Fabián E. Bustamante (networking and distributed systems)

The principle of science, the definition, almost, is the following: The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific 'truth'. But what is the source of knowledge? Where do the laws that are to be tested come from? Experiment, itself, helps to produce these laws, in the sense that it gives us hints.

Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics

I am interested in large-scale, longitudinal experimental research on computer networks and distributed systems. The goals of my research is to understand networks and the distributed systems we build on them from the perspective of users at the edge of the network, and improve and design systems based on the gained insight.

What's New?

I am always looking for good students interested in networked systems (distributed systems, networking, wired and mobile systems).
From in flight to underwater, there's no place we don't go to understand the Internet! Check out our HotNets paper on the submarine cable network
Javier Bustos and I co-organized the 20th PAM (Passive and Active Measurements) anniversary conference in the Chilean Patagonia.
I gave a keynote at the TMA Conference in Vienna, Austria that I called "Network Research and Falling Trees"
I also took part of the TMA Experts Summit with a talk on our in-flight communication work.
More on our In-Flight Communication work - try ScaleUp to improve your Web quality of experience in-flight. This got quite a bit of press as well, including from sites like Travel + Leisure.

Oldies but goodies ...

A new Northwestern initiative for computer science with over 20 new faculty positions.
A great NSF/FCC workshop on tracking quality of experience in the Internet. The report from it is now available at the SIGCOMM CCR.
An op-ed in Pacific Standard on Cuban Internet connectivity
My op-ed on Forbes on the right to affordable broadband

Blog

Biography/Curriculum Vitae

Fabián E. Bustamante is a Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University and Lead Scientist at Phenix, a Chicago-baserd startup focused on real-time video streaming, at scale. Fabián completed his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2001. Before going to Georgia Tech, he studied and taught at the Universidad Nacional de La Patagonia San Juan Bosco (Argentina), from which he received both a 3-year and a 5-year-and-project degrees in computer science. His research interests span several areas of experimental systems, with a focus on networking and distributed systems. As part of their work, he and his research group have released tens of open-source systems that together have gained over 1.5 million users worldwide. Fabián is an ACM and IEEE senior member, a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award and the Science Foundation of Ireland E.T.S. Walton Visitor Award.

Curriculum Vitae

Recent and representative publications

AMP up your mobile web experience: Characterizing the impact of Google’s Accelerated Mobile Project,
Byungjin Jun, Fabián E. Bustamante, Sung Yoon Whang and Zachary S. Bischof. Mobicom 2019
The Value of First Impressions: The Impact of Ad-Blocking on Web QoE,
James Newman and Fabián E. Bustamante. PAM 2019
Scaling Up Your Experience, Everywhere,
James Newman, Robert H. Belson and Fabián E. Bustamante. HotMobile 2019
Untangling the world-wide mesh of undersea cables,
Zachary S. Bischof, Romain Fontugne and Fabián E. Bustamante. HotNets 2018
The Growing Importance of Being Always On -- A first look at the reliability of broadband Internet access,
Zachary S. Bischof, Fabián E. Bustamante and Nick Feamster. TPRC46 2018
Anycast on the Move: A Look at Mobile Anycast Performance,
Sarah Wassermann, John P. Rula, Fabián E. Bustamante, Pedro Casas. Anycast on the Move: A Look at Mobile Anycast Performance. TMA 2018.
Mile High WiFI: A First Look At In-Flight Internet Connectivity,
John P. Rula, Fabián E. Bustamante, James Newman, Arash Molavi Khaki and Dave Choffnes. WWW 2018
Cell Spotting -- Studying the Role of Cellular Networks in the Internet,
John P. Rula, Fabián E. Bustamante and Moritz Steiner. IMC 2017
The utility argument — Making a case for broadband SLAs,
Zachary S. Bischof, Fabián E. Bustamante and Rade Stanojevic. PAM 2017
A Measurement Experimentation Platform at the Internet's Edge,
Mario A. Sánchez, John S. Otto, Zachary S. Bischof, David R. Choffnes, Fabián E. Bustamante, Blachander Krishnamurthy and Walter Willinger. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (ToN), 23(6), December 2015.
In and Out of Cuba: Characterizing Cuba's Connectivity,
Zachary S. Bischof, John P. Rula, Fabián E. Bustamante. IMC 2015
Impact of heterogeneity and socio-economic factors on individual behavior in decentralized sharing ecosystems,
A. Gavalda-Miralles, David Choffnes, John Otto, Mario Sanchez, Fabián E. Bustamante, Luis A. N. Amaral, Jordi Duch and Roger Guimera. Proc. of the National Academy of Sciences, September 2014
Internet Inter-Domain Traffic Estimation for the Outsider,
Mario A. Sánchez, Fabián E. Bustamante, Blachander Krishnamurthy, Walter Willinger, Georgios Smaragdakis and Jeffrey Erman. IMC 2014
Need, Want, or Can Afford - Broadband Markets and the Behavior of Users,
Zachary S. Bischof, Fabián E. Bustamante and Rade Stanojevic. IMC 2014
Runner-up for Best Paper Award
Behind the Curtain - Cellular DNS and Content Replica Selection,
John P. Rula and Fabián E. Bustamante. IMC 2014

All publications

Teaching

FALL 2019
CS-449 Introduction to Graduate Studies in Computer Science: The first course of its kind at NU
Mon/Wed 9:00-10:00 AM
FALL 2019
CS-340 Introduction to Computer Networking: A top-down exploration of networking using the 5-layer model and the TCP/IP stack.
Mon/Wed 11:00-12:20AM
SPRING 2020
CS-345 Distributed Systems (old link): An introduction to distributed systems
Mon/Wed 11-12:20AM

Previous Courses

Graduate Students

Undergraduates

Robert H. Belson

Alumni

Stefan Birrer (Ph.D., 2008) - CEO At PhenixP2P
David Choffnes (Ph.D., 2010) - Assistant Professor at Northestern U.
John Otto (Ph.D., 2013/14) - At Google
Mario Sánchez (Ph.D., 2014) - At Facebook
Zach Bischof (Ph.D. 2017) - At IIJ, in Tokyo, Japan
John Rula (Ph.D. 2017) - At Akamai
Andrew Weiner (MS 2017) -- At PhenixP2P
James Whang (BS/MS 2017) -- At Microsoft
Nathan A. Lindquist (BS/MS 2018) - At TIBCO
Prashanth Vsanthakrisnan - At TIBCO
...

The complete list ...

Selected Professional Activities

Program Committees

Past: NSDI 2017 | PAM 2017 | ACM SIGCOMM Internet QoE 2017 | IMC 2016 | SIGCOMM 2016 | ACM SIGCOMM Internet QoE 2016 | ACM SIGCOMM LANCOMM 2016 | CoNEXT 2015 | IMC 2015 | EuroSys 2014 | ICDCS 2014 | IEEE P2P 2014 | CoNEXT 2013 | Networking 2013 | ICDCS 2013 | ACM SIGCOMM 2012 | ACM SIGCOMM Poster/Demos 2013 | IEEE ICNP 2013 | ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Measurements Up and Down the STack (W-MUST) 2012 | ACM/USENIX IMC 2011 | ACM SIGCOMM Poster/Demos 2011 | ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Home Networks (HomeNets) 2011 ... (A complete list can be found in my CV)

Other Professional Service

General Co-Chair for PAM 2019
Co-organizer of the first NSF/FCC Workshop on Tracking Quality of Experience in the Internet, held in Princeton in October 2015
Co-founder/organizer of ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Crowdsourcing and crowdsharing of Big (Internet) Data (C2B(I)D)
General Co-Chair for SIGCOMM 2014
Editorial board of IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking - 2014 -- 2018
Chair Steering Committee for IEEE International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Computing - 2013 -- 2015 (member from 2012 -- 2015)
Editorial board of IEEE Internet Computing - 2012 -- Present
Editorial board of SIGCOMM CCR - 2013 -- 2018

(A complete list can be found in my CV)

Affiliations

Adjunct Associate Professor School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) - 2012 -- Present
Affiliated Faculty - Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems - founded in 2004 with the goals of uncovering fundamental principles governing complex systems in science, technology, and human behavior and applying these principles to solve societally relevant problems through the analysis, design, and control of complex systems.
Affiliated Faculty - Northwestern Universtiy Transportation Center - a leading interdisciplinary education and research institution dedicated, since 1954, to the long-term improvement of domestic and international systems for the movements of materials, people, energy, and information.

Random Bits

I'm originally from Patagonia, Argentina ...
Jeanine and I run long distance (marathons, half-marathons, and 10k). I train using the advanced plan from Hansons Brothers, which I highly recommend. For years I used a program that closely follows Pfitzinger and Douglas in Advanced marathoning and one season I tried the Furman's FIRST three-days+cross marathon plan, but had to go back to the old approach -- long quality miles.
Luca waiting for the ferry in Inis Meain (Aran Islands, Ireland).
Pretty little thing Sofia, 1-month old, somewhere in Portugal
Astor Piazzolla - my favorite musician and one of his best-ever compositions, Adios Nonino.
I played Lock/2nd Row for Chenque Rugby Club, between 1984 and 1993. Many good friends and family still play for the club or for the veteran rugby team Los Alacranes.
Los Pumas' passion - a great video of the toughest guys in the IRB.
Academically (genealogy) ...

Borges y Yo | Borges and I