CNS Core: Medium: Collaborative: Exploring and Exploiting Learning for Efficient Network Control: Non-Stationarity, Inter-Dependence, and Domain-Knowledge

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Traditionally, computer network protocols and control mechanisms are designed and engineered in accordance with certain theoretical models or design principles, under (often simplifying) assumptions about the network environment in which they operate. Network operations are mostly performed by operators through manual configurations of control parameters and resources, sometimes guided by measurement analysis and performance optimization. With the increasingly wide range of applications and complex network scenarios, traditional methods do not always perform well. To address this challenge, machine learning (ML) techniques have been applied to a wide range of networking and distributed systems problems, from reducing data center cooling costs to traffic optimization and application management. While preliminary results are promising, applying machine learning techniques to networking pose many important research questions that must be explored systematically and in depth. The proposed research constitutes an important first step toward providing a principled understanding of the fundamental limitations and promising new opportunities in learning-based network control from both theoretical and practical perspectives. It will help advance the emerging visions of self-driving networks and AIOps (Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations), and bring benefits to network operators, users, and the society at large. This project also integrates research with education and broadens participation in computing, especially with recruitment and training of female and under-represented students and outreach activities to K-12. Networks are a collection of control and (distributed) data plane elements that operate at different time scales on diverse types of data, respond and adapt to changes in traffic demands and the network state to achieve disparate objectives. The networking environments are highly dynamic and uncertain, with non-stationarity caused by surges and time-of-day changes in traffic demands, and unpredictable network failures; they are also inherently correlated, inter-dependent and constrained, in part due to complex interactions of various network entities. Moreover, networks are engineered systems -- there are basic principles that govern their designs and operations, with constraints that cannot be violated and inherent relations that could yield substantial performance gains. The proposed research focuses on learning-based network control problems to address these challenges along the following inter-related research thrusts. In Thrust 1, Network-Centric Learning Techniques, this project will explore the fundamental limits (from a theoretical perspective) and advance new network-centric ML techniques for non-stationary, correlated and constrained environments. In Thrust 2, Network-wide Learning-based Control and Horizontal/Vertical Interactions, this project will study and develop innovative learning-based network control algorithms in a network-wide framework by exploiting the (horizontal and vertical) interactions and leveraging shared learning. Last but not the least, in the Evaluation Thrust, this project will evaluate the proposed learning-based network control algorithms and compare them with conventional optimization and other ML based approaches.The project information such as publications, algorithms developed, data collected and personnel, will be made publicly available at https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~liu/Research/Holistic.htm during the entire project duration and for five years after the completion of this project.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.