Ronald Bianchini

Adjunct Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Bio

Education

PhD, 1989 
Electrical and Computer Engineering 
Carnegie Mellon University

MS, 1986 
Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering 
Carnegie Mellon University

BS, 1983 
Electrical Engineering 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Research

Distributed Systems

This research area addresses the fundamental issues required for practical peer-to-peer coordination in large-scale distributed systems. Algorithm development pursues the capability for each node in a distributed system to correctly diagnose, or identify the fault state of, all system resources. System-level diagnosis is the foundation for constructing other distributed applications; once correct diagnosis is obtained, a node in the system can rely on other fault-free components, yielding truly distributed operation. The DSM (Distributed System Monitor) is one such application that was implemented in the ECE Department to monitor workstation and network usage using Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) variables.

Network Architectures

Due to increasing user bandwidth requirements, next-generation computer and telecommunication networks will be based on switched-media, rather than shared-media, architectures. Significant architectural issues must be addressed to facilitate the construction and deployment of scalable high -performance switched networks. A major contribution of this work is the Tera switch, a novel architecture for switching cells, or fixed-length packets, in an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) network. The major advantages of the Tera switch are its robust performance under bursty and unbalanced traffics, and its scalability to large networks.