Tom Barbette

Tom Barbette founded the Efficiency of Networked Systems Group when joining the UCLouvain in 2022. The group is working on high-speed software packet processing to enable lightning in-network processing and provide responsive – and secure – Internet services. To sustain packet rates at the nanosecond scale, avoiding inter-core communications and careful low-level considerations are of the essence. FastClick[www.fastclick.dev], an open-source project to prototype software network functions like firewalls, intrusion detection systems or load balancers scaling beyond 100Gbps link speeds is maintained by the group. On top of software pipeline optimizations, Tom Barbette developed systems in the topics of intra-server and inter-server load-balancing techniques to exploit the full potential of modern hardware and maximize datacenter efficiency. This lead to publications in the most highly-praised conferences. The expertise of the group in high-speed packet processing in software or using programmable networks like SmartNICs and P4 switches, will be of interest for partners in CyberExcellence looking to build efficient, production-ready systems for project involving movements of data at 100GbE+ speeds. Particularly in the design and development of critical network components, especially in the context of multi-core software systems or the relation to high-speed interconnects. Such experiences also extends to passive network analysis and active network interposition.