Future Computer Systems and Networking Research in the Netherlands: A Manifesto (preprint)

Our modern society and competitive economy depend on a strong digital foundation and, in turn, on sustained research and innovation in computer systems and networks (CompSys). With this manifesto, we draw attention to CompSys as a vital part of ICT. Among ICT technologies, CompSys covers all the hardware and all the operational software layers that enable applications; only application-specific details, and often only application-specific algorithms, are not part of CompSys. Each of the Top Sectors of the Dutch Economy, each route in the National Research Agenda, and each of the UN Sustainable Development Goals pose challenges that cannot be addressed without groundbreaking CompSys advances. Looking at the 2030-2035 horizon, important new applications will emerge only when enabled by CompSys developments. Triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, millions moved abruptly online, raising infrastructure scalability and data sovereignty issues; but governments processing social data and responsible social networks still require a paradigm shift in data sovereignty and sharing. AI already requires massive computer systems which can cost millions per training task, but the current technology leaves an unsustainable energy footprint including large carbon emissions. Computational sciences such as bioinformatics, and "Humanities for all" and "citizen data science", cannot become affordable and efficient until computer systems take a generational leap. Similarly, the emerging quantum internet depends on (traditional) CompSys to bootstrap operation for the foreseeable future. Large commercial sectors, including finance and manufacturing, require specialized computing and networking or risk becoming uncompetitive. And, at the core of Dutch innovation, promising technology hubs, deltas, ports, and smart cities, could see their promise stagger due to critical dependency on non-European technology.

Heads in the Clouds: Measuring the Implications of Universities Migrating to Public Clouds (preprint)

With the emergence of mandatory remote education and work in universities due to COVID-19, the `zoomification' of higher education, i.e., the migration of universities to the clouds, reached the public discourse. Ongoing discussions reason about how this shift will take control over students' data away from universities, and may ultimately prevent privacy from being an attainable goal for researchers and students alike. However, there has been no comprehensive measurement of universities' use of public clouds and reliance on Software-as-a-Service offerings to assess how far this migration has already progressed. In this paper, we perform a longitudinal study of the migration to public clouds among universities in the U.S. and Europe, as well as institutions listed in the Times Higher Education (THE) Top100 between January 2015 and June 2021. We find that cloud-adoption differs between countries, with one cluster (Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland) showing a limited move to clouds, while the other cluster (U.S., U.K., the Netherlands, THE Top100) frequently migrates universities' core functions and services to public clouds -- starting long before the COVID-19 pandemic. We attribute this clustering to several socio-economic factors in the respective countries, including the general culture of higher education and the administrative paradigm taken towards running universities. We then analyze and interpret our results, finding that the implications reach beyond individuals' privacy towards questions of academic independence and integrity.