Duke Computer Science Colloquium
Putting the AI in AIOps: From Artificial Intelligence to Actionable Insights
Friday, April 17,
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Speaker(s): Vyas Sekar, Tan Family Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University
Lunch will be served at 11:45AM.
Bio
Vyas Sekar is the Tan Family Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of CMU CyLab, where he co-directs
the Future of Enterprise Security Initiative. He is also the co-founder and
Chief Technologist at Rockfish Data, and the Chief Scientist at Conviva. His
research sits at the intersection of networks, systems, and security. His work
has been recognized with the SIGCOMM Rising Star Award, the NSA Science of
Security prize, the Intel Outstanding Researcher Award, the SIGCOMM Test of
Time Award, and multiple Best Paper awards.
Abstract
As Dickens famously wrote, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of
times." We are entering an era where the ability to develop and deploy
cloud-scale applications has been democratized, yet our capacity to observe,
manage, and troubleshoot these environments has far outpaced human cognition.
In this landscape, AIOps—the automation of systems management—is critical for
transitioning from "human timescales" to the "machine timescales" at which
modern infrastructure operates. However, rather than blindly applying
"Artificial Intelligence" to the problem, we argue for a fundamental shift:
reframing the "AI" in AIOps to focus on Actionable Insights.
In this talk, we identify the foundational requirements for AIOps in
internet-scale applications—Expressivity, Efficiency, Explainability, and
Effort (the "4Es")—and present the design principles necessary to build the
next generation of these systems. Finally, we will share illustrative examples
from academic and industry collaborations that embody these principles to
achieve the 4E goals.