Zijun Ma

About Me

I am currently a second-year master student of Department of Computer Sciences in University of Wisconsin-Madison. My advisor is Prof. Aditya Akella.

My research interest lies in the programmable data plane of software defined networking. In recent years, there is a trend to use the programmable data plane to offload services that traditionally reside in the network edge. Such a trend could lead to a more innovative network architecture and customized protocol design.

Education

University of Wisconsin-Madison

M.S. in Computer Science • August 2018 — May 2020 (Expected)

Tsinghua University

B.E. in Software Engineering • September 2014 — July 2018

Knowledge and Skills

• Computer Networking

• Linux Administration (with RHCE certification)

• C/C++/Python/P4

Experience

Network Security Business Unit, VMware, Inc

Product Development Intern • 05/2019 — 08/2019 • Palo Alto, USA

Supervised by manager Pradeep Singh. Responsible for centralizing cloud abstraction layer in VMware SDDC solution.

Programed a Remote Procedure Call channel between Layer 3 Update Daemon on ESX datapath and NSX management plane for VMotion message communication.
Configured virtual switches and routers on ESX datapath to build a broadcast domain to enhance the reachability of NSX manager under VMotion.
Adopted GraphQL to fix over-fetching and under-fetching problem in vCenter API during VMware 2019 Hackathon.

Dpt. of Computer Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Research Assistant • 09/2018 — Present • WI, USA

Supervised by Prof. Aditya Akella for Software Defined Networking research.

Analyzed performance loss of implementing complicated network protocols (e.g. RCP, pFabric) approximately on programmable switches through NS-3 simulations.
Exploring the mechanism of implementing complicated network protocols accurately by dividing labor on both CPUs and ASIC in Barefoot Tofino Switches.

Baidu, Inc

Cloud Operation Engineer Intern • 05/2018 — 07/2018 • Beijing, China

Supervised by manager Xibei Jia. Responsible for private cloud service monitoring and alert.

Extracted performance metrics from cloud servers to monitor via configuration file in JSON.
Visualized metric data for clusters via internal platform - Sia and Noah.
Added new performance alerts for cloud services (e.g., speech-to-text service).

INST of Network Sciences & Cyberspace of Tsinghua University

Research Assistant • 03/2017 — 11/2017 • Beijing, China

Supervised by Prof. Jun Bi for Software Defined Networking research.

Designed a behavior-level caching mechanism for P4 programmable data plane.
Implemented typical network functions (e.g., forwarding, routing and ACL) using P4 programming language.
Evaluated the caching mechanism with typical network functions on two software targets - BMv2 and DPDK.

UNI NOVA LIMITED, Inc

Front End Developer Intern • 07/2016 — 09/2016 • Beijing, China

Supervised by CTO Peng Jiang. Responsible for front-end development of its official website.

Cooperated with Django CMS (Content Management System) to refactor the 'About us' and 'Help' pages.
Accomplished 'Frequently Asked Questions' page using Ajax.
Implemented the housing source selection mechanism based on check in or check out date using JavaScript.
Used front-end test package — Nightwatch.js to test key pages of the website.