Redundancy can save you, when you control it smart: SDN Middlebox Architecture for Resilient Transfers

Recently we presented a poster on our work titled, "SDN Middlebox Architecture for Resilient Transfers" at IM 2017, Lisbon. You may find the abstract and the poster below. This paper discusses a core of my EMJD-DC PhD research.

Abstract: Leveraging Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and middleboxes, application-level policies can be propagated to the network. SMART is an SDN middlebox architecture that differentiates network flows based on tenant inputs. By leveraging FlowTags software middlebox in addition to the OpenFlow rules, it supports a larger scope of tenant preferences and rules from the application layer to alter the network flow behaviour. It thus ensures timely delivery of priority flows by dynamically diverting them to a less congested path or even cloning the packets of higher priority flows along with the original flow.

SDN Middlebox Architecture for Resilient Transfers from Pradeeban Kathiravelu

Predatory Recruiters and Where to Find Them

You may have seen many of those posts in LinkedIn with 1000s of likes: "Pls like this post if you are available to start working in Dubai, Doha, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi". These posts usually serve the purpose to increase the views and rankings of the recruiter. On the other hand, some of these posts are indeed partially genuine. They create a farm of potential recruits for the recruiter, to whom the recruiter will later send a mass email collecting CVs and personal information for a job that may or may not be relevant. Some of these jobs may not even exist.

I was recently contacted by a recruiter (Let's call him Tim) from such a predatory HR startup called ProvidePeople on the pretense of a job in an open source company, through LinkedIn. He sent me a connection request (by that time he was a 2nd-degree connection). He then messaged me to email him my CV. He referred to me as "Ganesh". This was the first warning that he was copy-pasting to a mass list. I was reluctant to reply to an email that was not even addressing my name properly. But he reminded me again. So I replied later.

Followed by that, he started asking personal questions such as "Current and expected salary, visa status". Further, he sent a coding challenge (or requested to share a link to a public code). I chose the latter. His SMS-style language ("u" instead of "you", no proper capitalization. Are we talking in SMS?) was the second warning. I did not pay too much attention to these warnings.

After a day or two, he replied that the company found that my CV does not have their required experience. I reminded him that it would be more appropriate to send the CV first and then find more personal information. He vigorously defended his stance, and CC'd the "co-founder" of his company so that the co-founder can support him. Interestingly the co-founder never replied to my email, defending his employee. Probably the co-founder is busy, fishing for the product (i.e., potential employees).

Part of the email communications are given below (omitting personal information):

Tim says:

[Quote]

Thank you…

What is your

Current salary:
Desired Salary:

Notice Period:
Visa Status:

Cheers
 

[/Quote]

---------------------------------------------

I shared with him in detail the notice period and visa status, though I explained to him why it is not relevant to discuss the salary right now.

I later indicated him:

[Quote]

A piece of suggestion: Pls consult the employer next time on getting the first reply before asking personal questions such as
Current salary:
Desired Salary:

Notice Period:
Visa Status:

These questions can be left  a later stage. Especially the salary details can be left to the final stages of the interview.

It wastes both of our time and invades my privacy unnecessarily. It did not reflect well on Provide. I will share my feedback with Provide later on this aspect.

Regards,
Pradeeban.

[/Quote]

----------------------------------------------------

Tim replies back sooner.

[Quote]

Hi Pradeeban,

Thanks for your thoughts. Unfortunately, I must whole heartedly disagree with: “These questions can be left at a latter stage. Specially the salary details can be left to the final stages of the interview”. We need to know this information prior to submitting your CV… this is basic information all clients ask for prior to submission, it is part of our SLA agreement. It saves wasting time with potential candidates who’s salaries not online with client budgets budgets, have maybe inflated salary expectations, visa issues that we cannot support or too long a notice period if we need a hire to start within a month.

This might be the difference between the research and commercial worlds, but the R&D organizations I work for also request this basic information upfront. Image investing 4 hours of you time in interviews, just to get to the final stages and realise the salary we have is too low for you? For a client also, that could be up to 11 man hours wasted in interviews.

I have cc’d one of our founders, ***** ******,  into the email so you can talk openly. I am sure he will voice a similar stance to myself.

Kindest Regards

[/Quote]

--------------------------------------------------------------

I reply back now addressing the "co-founder". Let's call him Stephan:

[Quote]

Hi Stephan,

Probably Tim misunderstood or misrepresented my comment (that is in the email).

"These questions can be left at a latter stage"

A quick overlook of the CV to find the match requires just 2 minutes, specially for a rejection. You may ask further personal questions when there is a match based on CV, and when the employer showed the first interest (as in, "the CV looks good. I need more information").

The same can be mentioned about asking to do the coding challenge (defer it after to the first reply from the employer. I did not do the coding challenge. I just shared a link to my work. But if someone did a coding challenge before the CV screening, this is a waste of time for the prospective employee. I estimate it may take up to an hour for this coding challenge).

I stand by my stance on asking the salary details early on is a no-no. It should be left to the employer. It is better if the employer is transparent on potential offering instead. It is a win - win. But that is a separate topic/discussion.

I have interviewed myself candidates for junior roles for my previous employers in the US and Sri Lanka. Also in my experience, I had zero instance where a recruiter (those who represent companies and research labs) asked for my salary and visa details when the CV is not even shared with the employer. This is somewhat a predatory practice.

I would rather prefer if you contact the potential employees with more personal questions when there is some interest and match from the employer's perspective. But if this is your business model, I have no say on that. But feel free to reflect upon these comments during an internal discussion.

Regards,

Pradeeban.

[/Quote]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No replies from Stephan. Probably Stephan's email address is not even valid. Or may be he does not care about us - we are his product. His customers are the employers.

What is next? Provide People and similar companies will ask questions such as "Are you pregnant? Do you have any life-challenging diseases?" to help the companies weed out these "anomalies" earlier? It is not just me. Someone else has observed that Providepeople.com are scammers/spammers and included them in a spam list. These are predatory companies that discriminate based on nationality, gender, and sexuality, I learned later. Meaningless expect fairness from them, although they may be functioning borderline illegal and outright immoral in their predatory/shady hiring practices. Online reviews mentioned mandatory 8 am - 6 pm work hours. We are in a weird situation where employees are brain-washed to believe their founders. I believe Tim is one of them who "must whole heartedly disagree with" me.

SD-CPS: Taming the Challenges of Cyber-Physical Systems with a Software-Defined Approach

Today I presented my paper at SDS 2017. You may find the abstract and the presentation below.

Abstract: Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) revolutionize various application domains with integration and interoperability of networking, computing systems, and mechanical devices. Due to its scale and variety, CPS faces a number of challenges and opens up a few research questions in terms of management, fault-tolerance, and scalability. We propose a software-defined approach inspired by Software-Defined Networking (SDN), to address the challenges for a wider CPS adoption. We thus design a middleware architecture for the correct and resilient operation of CPS, to manage and coordinate the interacting devices centrally in the cyberspace whilst not sacrificing the functionality and performance benefits inherent to a distributed execution.

SD-CPS: Taming the Challenges of Cyber-Physical Systems with a Software-Defined Approach from Pradeeban Kathiravelu

Spring 2017

Flowers of Keukenhof

Finally the spring is here and the trees and weeds are full of flowers in Louvan-la-Neuve. Paid a visit to Keukenhof to witness more flowers.

We bought the 10 train pass ticket  for 77 Euros. It covers the journey inside Belgium, Louvain-la-Nueve to Essen. The remaining international train journey (Essen -> Leiden) is separately bought. There was no need to get down at Essen though. The journey was Louvain-la-Neuve -> Ottignies -> Brussels Nord -> Rotterdam -> Leiden.

From Leiden, the combination ticket costs 24 Euro, which covers the return bus journey from Leiden to/from Lisse (Keukenhof), in the bus 854. It takes 32 mins each way. If you just buy the entrance pass to Keukenhof without the bus pass, it would cost 16 Euro/person. The combination ticket can be bought from the AKO bookstore in Leiden train station.

Leiden is a beautiful university town, located conveniently on the way to Keukenhof. The bus stop is just in front of the train station. So it is best to stay close to the train station.

Why I would not give up my seat for 800 $

A weekend trip to NYC.

It might sound reasonable for someone to assume that 800 $ or the advertised maximum (of United) 1350 $, a reasonable deal for someone to voluntarily give up their flight seat. If you think about it, 800 $ is way too little to even consider that.

I am trying to recall voluntary reboarding of passengers by United Airways in the recent past. If I remember correct, they started with 400 $ and increased to 800 $ to find volunteers to give up their seat in a flight bound to Newark from Atlanta. They managed to find volunteers. 

I would not give up my seat for 800$ for many reasons. First, that trip was a long-weekend trip to NYC. Any delay would make us lose one day out of our 3 days in NYC. We have a hotel booked. If our flight is delayed by a day, they are not going to return the money we paid (400 $ / day). If the delay is beyond 2 days, the 800$ is already below the mark, and we would basically have to cancel our long-planned vacation.

Now the second situation. Mostly I travel for conferences. Many times I had to present a paper on the arrival day (or the day following that if arrived on a Sunday evening). If I am delayed (unless by a few hours), I would lose the chance to present my paper. As a PhD student, presenting my research is very important for me. I am not going to give up this opportunity even if I do not lose anything monetary if I am delayed. Don't expect me to give up even for a very high bribe.

Third, on my way back home, I often have other important tasks to handle. For example, after I returned from Croatia to Lisboa in 2015 summer, I immediately had to go to San Jose for OpenDaylight Conference. If my flight is delayed, my onward travel plans will be affected. Cannot volunteer. I may give up my seat in fear of United Airways style cop-violence though.

(News: United Airlines passenger violently dragged from seat on overbooked flight).

Conch Salad in the Bahamas

Usually flights define a crucial point in most of our lives. We don't fly every day. When we fly, it is usually for an important event - a conference, a long-planned vacation, or meeting family after a long time. Our days during the flights are usually more valuable than the other days. It is childish to assume 800 $ for the delay is sufficient for the distress caused to the economy class passenger (since it is highly unlikely someone who earns more than 800$ ends up in the economy class, which is also fondly called "cattle class").

It does not mean I would not give up my seat for 800 $ at all. There are certain situations that I would be more than happy to volunteer. We were in our way back home from Nassau after a long weekend in the Bahamas. It was a Delta flight. It was not overbooked. So no one was asked to give up their seat. But think of it. If they give us 400 or 800 $ each for the inconvenience caused by the travel plan change and give us a hotel stay for the delayed day with vouchers for the dinner, why not? We would be happy to extend our holiday by one more day. But it did not happen, of course.

I will be more willing to volunteer if I am returning home from a week-long trip. But if I am on my way to my destination, unlikely that I give up. It will screw up my travel plans - conferences, booked hotels, and important vacation time. Airlines need to come up with better compensation packages than the involuntary inhumane "re-accommodating" process. 

(News: ‘Just kill me’: Bloodied United Airlines passenger begs to go home in disturbing new video.)

You should also read the cruel response from the CEO of United, Oscar Munoz. I hope justice will be served eventually.