Highlights from Our NSDI'24 Attendance and EPVerifier Presentation

From April 16 to 18, 2024, the 21st USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI'24) was held in Santa Clara, USA.

NSDI is one of the top conferences in network systems design, listed alongside SIGCOMM in CSRankings and classified as a recommended A‑class conference by CCF, with 601 submissions and 112 papers accepted (18.6% acceptance rate).

The Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications Network Intelligence Research Center (NIRC) team had their paper "EPVerifier: Accelerating Update Storms Verification with Edge‑Predicate" accepted, and authors Zhao Chen‑yang and Guo Yue‑bin presented it in person.

The three‑day conference featured eight sessions per day across two parallel tracks, covering a wide range of topics in networking and distributed systems; the EPVerifier work was included in the Verification session.

On the morning of April 17, first author Zhao delivered an oral presentation, engaging with researchers and engineers in the networking community.

The research proposes an edge‑predicate (EP) data‑plane modeling method for efficiently handling update storms. By representing traffic information with a single predicate per edge, the approach avoids full‑model changes. A parallel acceleration scheme partitions verification tasks at the switch level, significantly speeding up data‑plane update processing and improving automated network‑error detection.

The conference also hosted a poster session combined with dinner on the evening of the 17th, providing a relaxed setting for attendees to discuss research progress and future directions.

During breaks, the authors explored San Francisco, visiting iconic sites such as the Golden Gate Bridge and riding the historic cable cars, which offered a vivid glimpse of the city’s culture and scenery.

In conclusion, presenting their work at this premier venue was a career highlight, affirming the team’s efforts and inspiring further research in network systems.

Authors: Guo Yue‑bin (Master student, research focus: software‑defined networking, network policy verification) and Zhao Chen‑yang (Master student, same focus).