Disseminate: The Computer Science Research Podcast

In this episode, we sit down with Marco Costa to discuss the fascinating world of range filters, focusing on how they help optimize queries in databases by determining whether a range intersects with a given set of keys. Marco explains how traditional range filters, like Bloom filters, often result in high false positives and slow query times, especially when dealing with adversarial inputs where...

In this High Impact episode we talk to Ali Dasdan, CTO at Zoominfo . Tune in to hear Ali's story and learn about some of his most impactful work such as his work on "Map-Reduce-Merge". The podcast is proudly sponsored by Pometry the developers behind Raphtory , the open source temporal graph analytics engine for Python and Rust. Materials mentioned on this episode: Map-Reduce-Merge: Simplified Rel...

In this episode, we dive deep into the complexities of managing analytical query workloads with our guest, Matt Perron. Matt explains how the rapid and unpredictable fluctuations in resource demands present a significant challenge for provisioning. Traditional methods often lead to either over-provisioning, resulting in excessive costs, or under-provisioning, which causes poor query latency during...

In this High Impact episode we talk to Andreas Kipf about his work on "Learned Cardinalities". Andreas is the Professor of Data Systems at Technische Universität Nürnberg (UTN). Tune in to hear Andreas's story and learn about some of his most impactful work. The podcast is proudly sponsored by Pometry the developers behind Raphtory , the open source temporal graph analytics engine for Python and R...

In this episode, we delve into the intersection of software engineering (SE) research and professional practice with experts Marvin Wyrich and Justus Bogner. As LinkedIn stands as the largest professional network globally, it serves as a critical platform for bridging the gap between SE researchers and practitioners. Marvin and Justus explore the dynamics of how research findings are shared and di...

In this High Impact episode we talk to Joe Hellerstein . Joe is the Jim Gray Professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley. Tune in to hear Joe's story and learn about some of his most impactful work. The podcast is proudly sponsored by Pometry the developers behind Raphtory , the open source temporal graph analytics engine for Python and Rust. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more inform...

In this episode, we chat with Harry Goldstein about Property-Based Testing (PBT). Harry shares insights from interviews with PBT users at Jane Street, highlighting PBT's strengths in testing complex code and boosting developer confidence. Harry also discusses the challenges of writing properties and generating random data, and the difficulties in assessing test effectiveness. He identifies key are...

In this High Impact episode we talk to Raghu Ramakrishnan . Raghu is CTO for Data and a Technical Fellow at Microsoft. Tune in to hear Raghu's story and learn about some of his most impactful work. The podcast is proudly sponsored by Pometry the developers behind Raphtory , the open source temporal graph analytics engine for Python and Rust. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more inf...

Join us as we chat with Gina Yuan about her pioneering work on sidekick protocols, designed to enhance the performance of encrypted transport protocols like QUIC and WebRTC. These protocols ensure privacy but limit in-network innovations. Gina explains how sidekick protocols allow intermediaries to assist endpoints without compromising encryption. Discover how Gina tackles the challenge of referen...

Welcome to another episode of the High Impact series - today we talk with Moshe Vardi! Moshe is the Karen George Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering at Rice University where his research focuses on automated reasoning. Tune in to hear Moshe's story and learn about some of his most impactful work. The podcast is proudly sponsored by Pometry the developers behind Raphtory ,...

In this episode, we dip our toes into the world of sustainable computing and interview Tammy Sukprasert about her research on reducing carbon emissions in cloud computing through workload scheduling. Tammy explores the concept of shifting cloud workloads across different times and locations to coincide with low-carbon energy availability. Unlike previous studies that focused on specific regions or...

Welcome to the first episode of the High Impact series! The High Impact series is inspired by a blog post “ Most Influential Database Papers " by Ryan Marcus and today we talk to Ryan! Tune in to hear about Ryan's story so far. We chat about his current work before moving on to discuss his most impactful work. We also dig into what motivates him and how he handles setbacks, as well as getting his...

In this episode, we explore the world of caching with Yazhuo Zhang, who introduces the game-changing SIEVE algorithm. Traditional eviction algorithms have long struggled with a trade-off between efficiency, throughput, and simplicity. However, SIEVE disrupts this balance by offering a simpler alternative to LRU while outperforming state-of-the-art algorithms in both efficiency and scalability for...

Introducing the High Impact Series! Hey folks, we have a new series coming soon inspired by a blog post “ Most Influential Database Papers " by Ryan Marcus . The series will feature interviews with the authors of some of the most impactful work in the field of databases. We will talk about the story behind some of their most impactful work, getting them to reflect on the impact it has had over yea...

In this episode, we talk to Eleni Zapridou and delve into the challenges of data processing within enterprises, where multiple applications operate concurrently on shared resources. Traditional resource boundaries between applications often lead to increased costs and resource consumption. However, as Eleni explains the principle of functional isolation offers a solution by combining cross-task op...

In this thought-provoking podcast episode, we dive into the world of scalable OLTP (OnLine Transaction Processing) systems with the insightful Pat Helland. As a seasoned expert in the field, Pat shares his insights on the critical role of isolation semantics in the scalability of OLTP systems, emphasizing its significance as the "BIG DEAL." By examining the interface between OLTP databases and app...

In this episode, we talk to Rui Liu and explore the transformative potential of Ratchet, a groundbreaking resource-adaptive query execution framework. We delve into the challenges posed by ephemeral resources in modern cloud environments and the innovative solutions offered by Ratchet. Rui guides us through the intricacies of Ratchet's design, highlighting its ability to enable adaptive query susp...

In this episode, Yifei Yang introduces predicate transfer, a revolutionary method for optimizing join performance in databases. Predicate transfer builds on Bloom joins, extending its benefits to multi-table joins. Inspired by Yannakakis's theoretical insights, predicate transfer leverages Bloom filters to achieve significant speed improvements. Yang's evaluation shows an average 3.3× performance...

In this episode, Vikramank Singh introduces the Panda framework, aimed at refining Large Language Models' (LLMs) capability to address database performance issues. Vikramank elaborates on Panda's four components—Grounding, Verification, Affordance, and Feedback—illustrating how they collaborate to contextualize LLM responses and deliver actionable recommendations. By bridging the divide between te...

In this episode, Tamer Eldeeb sheds light on the challenges faced by geo-distributed database management systems (DBMSes) in supporting strictly-serializable transactions across multiple regions. He discusses the compromises often made between low-latency regional writes and restricted programming models in existing DBMS solutions. Tamer introduces Chablis, a groundbreaking geo-distributed, multi-...

Summary: In this episode, we chat to Matt Butrovich about his research on database proxies. We discuss the inefficiencies of traditional database proxies, which operate in user-space, causing overhead due to buffer copying and system calls. Matt introduces "user-bypass" which leverages Linux's eBPF infrastructure to move application logic into kernel-space. Matt then tells us about Tigger, a Postg...

Summary: In this episode, Gábor Szárnyas takes us on a journey through the LDBC Social Network Benchmark's Business Intelligence workload (SNB BI). Developed through collaboration between academia and industry the SNB BI is a comprehensive graph OLAP benchmark. It pushes the boundaries of synthetic and scalable analytical database benchmarks, featuring a sophisticated data generator and a temporal...

Summary: In this week's episode, we talk with Thaleia Doudali and explore the realm of cloud resource forecasting, focusing on the use of Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) neural networks, a popular machine learning model. Drawing from her research, Thaleia discusses the surprising discovery that, despite the complexity of ML models, accurate predictions often boil down to a simple shift of values by...

Summary: In this episode Jinkun Geng talks to us about Nezha, a high-performance consensus protocol. Nezha can be deployed by cloud tenants without support from cloud providers. Nezha bridges the gap between protocols such as MultiPaxos and Raft, which can be readily deployed, and protocols such as NOPaxos and Speculative Paxos, that provide better performance, but require access to technologies s...

Summary: In this episode, Dimitris Koutsoukos talks to us about Persistent or Non Volatile Memory (PMEM) and we answer the question: Is it Not Very Meaningful for Databases?  PMEM offers expanded memory capacity and faster access to persistent storage. However, (before Dimitris's work) there was no comprehensive empirical analysis of existing database engines under diferent PMEM modes, to und...