Tech Showcase: Optical Networking Innovation at Microsoft

A reliable, performant, and low-cost network is a critical part of the cloud infrastructure. Our research aims to re-invent the next-generation network via emerging optical technologies. This is challenging yet timely because network capacity and speed requirements are expected to increase at the same time as prevalent network technologies become hard to scale. We will demonstrate new low-power and low-cost transceivers developed at Microsoft that are currently being deployed in our data centers, and ongoing research towards new switching systems and network architectures that could, in the future, enable new cloud applications and scenarios.

Speaker Details

Thomas Karagiannis is a researcher with the Systems and Networking group of Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK since 2006. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Riverside and his B.S at the Applied Informatics department of the University of Macedonia, in Thessaloniki, Greece. Before joining Microsoft, he has also been with Intel Research and the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA). Thomas received the 2011 ACM SIGCOMM Honorable Mention award, and has several publications in the top conferences for computer networks. His research interests include data center networks, Internet measurements and modelling, and social networks.

Series: Microsoft Research Faculty Summit