R. Sean Borgstrom

Doctoral Graduate, The Johns Hopkins University


The Johns Hopkins University		 Madouc considered. "I would like a wand to do transformations, a cap of invisibility,
swift slippers to walk the air, a purse of boundless wealth, a talisman to compel
the love of all, a mirror--"
"Stop!" cried Twisk. "Your needs are excessive!"
"It does no harm to ask," said Madouc.
--"Madouc," by Jack Vance

General Information:
R. Sean Borgstrom
Center for Networking and Distributed Systems
Department of Computer Science
The Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD 21218

email: rsean@cs.jhu.edu
http://www.cnds.jhu.edu/~rsean

Education:
Doctor of Philosophy, The Johns Hopkins University
Thesis Successfully Defended, August 2000.

Bachelor of Science, Georgetown University
Graduated with honors
Recipient: 1988 Computer Science Award

Current Interests: Resource Allocation in Metacomputers, Real Time Constraints, Web Replication, Data Mining, Distributed Databases

Highlights of my work include:
Development of four advanced strategies for resource allocation in networks:

  • The Enhanced PVM Strategy for job assignment, which can complete the average job in about 62% of the time round robin requires and provides a hard bound on worst-case system inefficiency in both CPU load and memory use;
  • The Enhanced Mosix Strategy for job assignment and reassignment on clusters that can transparently relocate a job during its execution;
  • The Differential PVM Strategy for job assignment in settings where the system knows little about arriving jobs; and
  • The Approximate Opportunity Cost Strategy for job assignment in settings with stale load information.
Development of the Java Market, a platform for Internet-wide resource allocation.

Development of the Frugal System, a complete metacomputing platform based on the Differential PVM Strategy.

 Current resume: HTML, Rich Text Format
Thesis Presentation: A Cost-Benefit Approach to Resource Allocation in Scalable Metacomputers
Dissertation Postscript: Library Formatting, Single-Spaced

Metacomputing Publications:

Journal Publications

  • An Opportunity Cost Approach for Job Assignment and Reassignment in a Scalable Computing Cluster,
    Yair Amir, Baruch Awerbuch, Amnon Barak, R. Sean Borgstrom, Arie Keren
    Accepted for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems.
    ps, ps.Z, ps.gz.
  • A Cost-Benefit Framework for Online Management of a Metacomputing System,
    Yair Amir, Baruch Awerbuch, R. Sean Borgstrom
    The International Journal for Decision Support Systems, Elsevier Science, 28(1-2), pages 155-164, April 2000.
    ps, ps.Z, ps.gz.

Refereed Conferences

  • Estimating Opportunity Costs for Distributed Load Balancing on Multi-Resource Systems,
    R. Sean Borgstrom and Baruch Awerbuch,
    2001 International Conference on Advances in Infrastructure for Electronic Business, Science, and Education on the Internet (SSGRR-2001), L'Aquila, Italy, August 2001.
    ps, ps.gz.
  • An Opportunity Cost Approach for Job Assignment and Reassignment in a Scalable Computing Cluster,
    Yair Amir, Baruch Awerbuch, Amnon Barak, R. Sean Borgstrom, Arie Keren
    The 10th International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing and Systems (PDCS'98), Las Vegas, October 1998.
    ps, ps.Z, ps.gz.
  • A Cost-Benefit Framework for Online Management of a Metacomputing System,
    Yair Amir, Baruch Awerbuch, R. Sean Borgstrom
    The 1st International Conference on Information and Computation Economies (ICE-98), pages 140-147, Charleston, October 1998.
    ps, ps.Z, ps.gz.

Non-Metacomputing Publications:

  • Comparison-Based Search in the Presence of Errors,
    R. Sean Borgstrom, S. Rao Kosaraju
    STOC '93 pp. 130-136
  • On an Optimal Split Tree Problem,
    S. Rao Kosaraju, Teresa M. Przytycka, R. Sean Borgstrom
    WADS 1999, pp. 157-168