Paolo Costa

I am a principal researcher in the Systems and Networking Group of the Microsoft Research Lab in Cambridge and an honorary lecturer with the Department of Computing of Imperial College London.

In the past, I had been a research faculty at Imperial College London and, prior to that, a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Computer Systems group at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. I hold a M. Sc. and Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano.

I am an experimental computer scientist. I validated my ideas through prototypes to understand, model, and verify observations. My research interests lie at the intersection of distributed systems and networking with particular emphasis on large-scale networked systems, ranging from sensor and mobile networks to overlay networks and data centers.

In the past, among other things, I have been working on the CamCube and Predictable Datacenters projects, aiming to providing a better integration and synergy between applications and networks in data centers to improve performance and reduce complexity. More details can be found here.

My current research investigates how to improve data center networks through a deep rethinking of the way these networks are built and operated, leveraging the availability of new hardware technologies such as systems-on-chip (SoCs), distributed switching fabrics, and optical networks.