Wonook SONG, Ph.D.

Researcher in Distributed Computer Systems for AI and Big Data

About Me



Hi πŸ‘‹, I’m Wonook and my research interests reside in distributed systems for efficiently processing big data (batch & stream) and performing large-scale AI (training & serving). My recent focuses are on topics regarding efficient systems for data processing (e.g., resource optimization in diverse settings) and generative AI (e.g., parallelization, batching, caching, kernel optimization, and quantization). My works are presented at top-level computer science conferences and journals including USENIX ATC, ACM EuroSys, and ACM TOCS.

I finished my Ph.D. in computer science at Seoul National University in 2023, under the supervision of Professor Byung-Gon Chun. My dissertation title is β€œEfficient and Adaptive Resource Management for Dynamically Optimizing Distributed Data Processing Systems”. I also received my B.S. degree in computer science from Seoul National University in 2017. You can check out my list of works on Google Scholar as well.

Apart from work, I do a lot of sports (mainly tennis, golf, and BJJ nowadays), learn new languages, and meet new people. Due to my experience living around the world, I happen to be a motivation-driven, multicultural person with a flexible mind, who is open, adaptive, and a fast learner for new knowledge and people.

Education

Seoul National University, Republic of Korea πŸ‡°πŸ‡·

Ph.D., Computer Science

2017 - 2023
Dissertation: Efficient and Adaptive Resource Management for Dynamically Optimizing Distributed Data Processing Systems

https://en.snu.ac.kr
SNU logo SNU logo
SNU logo SNU logo

Seoul National University, Republic of Korea πŸ‡°πŸ‡·

B.S., Computer Science

2013 - 2017

https://en.snu.ac.kr
SNU logo SNU logo
SNU logo SNU logo

Γ‰cole Polytechnique FΓ©dΓ©rale de Lausanne, Switzerland πŸ‡¨πŸ‡­

Exchange program, Informatiques (Computer Science)

2015 - 2016

https://www.epfl.ch
EPFL logo
EPFL logo

Hana Academy Seoul, Republic of Korea πŸ‡°πŸ‡·

Honors High School/Secondary Diploma Program

2010 - 2013

http://eng.hana.hs.kr
HAS logo
HAS logo

American School of Paris, France πŸ‡«πŸ‡·πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ

International School

2003 - 2009

https://www.asparis.org
ASP logo
ASP logo

International Publications

*Blaze: Holistic Caching for Iterative Data Processing

2024. European Conference on Computer Systems (EuroSys '24). ACM. DOI https://doi.org/10.1145/3627703.3629558

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Won Wook Song, Jeongyoon Eo, Taegeon Um, Myeongjae Jeon, and Byung-Gon Chun

*Sponge: Fast Reactive Scaling for Stream Processing with Serverless Frameworks

2023. USENIX Annual Technical Conference (ATC) β€˜23. USENIX Association. ISBN 978-1-939133-35-9

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Won Wook Song, Taegeon Um, Sameh Elnikety, Myeongjae Jeon, and Byung-Gon Chun

SWAN: WAN-aware Stream Processing on Geographically-distributed Clusters

2022. APSys (Asia-Pacific Workshop on Systems). ACM SIGOPS. ISBN 978-1-4503-9441-3. DOI https://doi.org/10.1145/3546591.3547524

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Won Wook Song, Myeongjae Jeon, and Byung-Gon Chun

*Apache Nemo: A Framework for Optimizing Distributed Data Processing

2021. Transactions on Computer Systems (TOCS). ACM. DOI https://doi.org/10.1145/3468144

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Won Wook Song, Youngseok Yang, Jeongyoon Eo, Jangho Seo, Joo Yeon Kim, Sanha Lee, Gyewon Lee, Taegeon Um, Haeyoon Cho, and Byung-Gon Chun

Harmony: A Scheduling Framework Optimized for Multiple Distributed Machine Learning Jobs

2021. International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS) β€˜21. IEEE. DOI https://doi.org/10.1109/ICDCS51616.2021.00085

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Woo-Yeon Lee, Yunseong Lee, Won Wook Song, Youngseok Yang, Joo Yeon Kim and Byung-Gon Chun

Apache Nemo: A Framework for Building Distributed Dataflow Optimization Policies

2019. USENIX Annual Technical Conference (ATC) β€˜19. USENIX Association. ISBN 978-1-939133-03-8. DOI https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3358807.3358824

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Youngseok Yang, Jeongyoon Eo, Geon-Woo Kim, Joo Yeon Kim, Sanha Lee, Jangho Seo, Won Wook Song, and Byung-Gon Chun.

Automating System Configuration of Distributed Machine Learning

2019. International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS) β€˜19. IEEE. ISBN 978-1-7281-2520-6. DOI https://doi.org/10.1109/ICDCS.2019.00203

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Woo-Yeon Lee, Yunseong Lee, Joo Seong Jeong, Gyeong-In Yu, Joo Yeon Kim, Ho Jin Park, Beomyeol Jeon, Won Wook Song, Gunhee Kim, Markus Weimer, Brian Cho, Byung-Gon Chun.

Pado: A Data Processing Engine for Harnessing Transient Resources in Datacenters

2017. European Conference on Computer Systems (EuroSys '17). ACM. ISBN 978-1-4503-4938-3. DOI https://doi.org/10.1145/3064176.3064181

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Youngseok Yang, Geon-Woo Kim, Won Wook Song, Yunseong Lee, Andrew Chung, Zhengping Qian, Brian Cho, and Byung-Gon Chun.

Experiences

FriendliAI

Researcher.

SEPT 2023 - PRESENT

https://friendli.ai
friendliai logo
  • Start-up experience in building a resource-efficient system for serving AI and large language models (LLM) on GPGPUs (i.e., a closed-source system similar to vLLM/TensorRT-LLM).
  • Our team built support for: continuous batching, KV caching, adaptive & dynamic inference / tensor & pipeline parallelization, kernel optimization (e.g., FlashAttn) / quantization, MoE / agents & tools (e.g., structured outputs), RAG (e.g., vector stores), and fine-tuning (e.g., (multi) LoRA and PEFT).
  • Experience in scalable large-scale cluster management through K8s and Docker (w/ various tools).
  • Also the main author and editor-in-chief of the company’s technical publications.

Software Platform Lab

PhD Candidate.

MAY 2016 - AUG 2023

https://spl.snu.ac.kr
SPL logo
  • Dissertation: Efficient and Adaptive Resource Management for Dynamically Optimizing Distributed Data Processing Systems
  • My research records demonstrate that I can conduct researches and publish papers in top-level conferences and journals as the first author, as well as collaborate with others as a co-author. Below are the brief explanations for each of the works.
  • First-authored papers (in USENIX ATC, ACM EuroSys, TOCS, APSys)
    • Blaze is a data processing system that optimizes caching for iterative workloads (i.e. ML, graph processing) by coordinating separate layers in a holistic manner to use memory resources effectively.
    • Sponge is an adaptive and scalable stream processing system to handle bursty inputs by leveraging benefits of powerful stable VMs and fast-scaling serverless frameworks with special operators.
    • SWAN is a stream processing system that adaptively utilizes optimal network connections under low-bandwidth high-latency globally distributed computing clusters.
    • Published a journal paper (first-authored) and a conference paper (co-authored) for the Apache Nemo project that flexibly builds dataflow optimization policies through customizable task scheduling and data communication.
  • Co-authored papers (in USENIX ATC, ACM EuroSys, IEEE ICDCS)
    • Cruise is a system for automatically adjusting system configurations for distributed ML jobs.
    • Harmony is a scheduling framework for optimizing the execution of multiple distributed ML jobs for high utilization of CPU, memory, and network resources.
    • Pado is a distributed data processing system that effectively uses preemptible spot (transient) resources while guaranteeing progress.
  • Apart from the papers, I’ve also led to a successful completion of an 8-year grant project funded by the Korean government (IITP of MSIT) (No.2015-0-00221)

Apache Software Foundation

Started as a GSoC student developer, mentor, and now a project committer and PMC.

MAY 2016 - PRESENT

https://www.apache.org
apache logo
  • Primary committer and a PMC member on the Apache Nemo incubator project.
  • Participated as a GSoC mentor in 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 for ASF to supervise student projects on top of Apache Nemo.
  • Contributing to other Apache projects as well, such as Apache Beam from 2018.
  • Experiences with open source contribution, and community activities, including preparing and launching releases.
  • Previously a Google Summer of Code student developer for the Apache REEF project and finished the development of a ssh-standalone mode for running REEF in 2016, a library from MS that facilitates building of distributed systems in cluster environments with a master and multiple workers.
  • Experience with tools like Apache Maven, JIRA, Git/GitHub, and many more.

Microsoft Research

Research Intern.

DEC. 2020 - JUNE 2021

https://www.microsoft.com/research
MS logo
  • Worked with the Network Research Group in MSRA, mentored by Yongqiang Xiong and Wenxue Cheng, centering on reinforcement learning (i.e., involving simulators and evaluators)
  • Worked with OpenNetLab: open platform for RL-based congestion control for real-time communication, using bandwidth estimation for optimizing congestion control in production RTC workloads.

Past Experiences

ButFitSeoul

Software Engineer

MAY 2018 - AUG. 2020

https://www.teambutfit.com
butfit logo
  • Part of the start-up team running the ButFitSeoul service, a platform for gathering people for group exercise workout programs, with many thousands of participants.
  • Used Django, VueJS, Fabric, Unicorn, and cooperated with web designers through Figma.
  • Used Git, GitHub, AWS, GCP (Compute/EC2, RDBMS, Storage/S3, VPC, etc.)

ArtMyn

Software Engineer
Lausanne, Switzerland (part-time)

OCT. 2015 - JAN. 2016

https://artmyn.com
artmyn logo
  • Used Django. Took care of the server-side materials (deployment and backend) for the start-up located in EPFL, Lausanne.
  • See https://artmyn.com

Systers, Anita Borg Institute

Google Summer of Code (GSoC) Student Developer

MAY 2015 - AUG. 2015

GSoC logo
  • Accepted as a Google Summer of Code student developer for a Rails application project.
  • Used Rails, PostgreSQL, ReactJS, minitest-rails, Capistrano, Passenger.
  • Used Slack, Travis CI, Git/GitHub, Agile for communication, CI, and development.
  • Experience with working with collaborators around the globe (Asia, America, and Europe)

YelloMobile

Software Engineer

JAN. 2015 - APRIL 2015

YelloMobile logo
  • Part of the team running the Dieter app, once ranked 4th on the health category in Google Play Market in Korea, with over 1.5 million users.
  • Used Rails, AngularJS, Capistrano, Unicorn, and cooperated with Android and iOS developers, as well as with web designers.
  • Used Git, GitHub, AWS (EC2, RDBMS, Load Balancing, CloudWatch and Route 53).

Talks

Sponge: Fast Reactive Scaling for Stream Processing with Serverless Frameworks

USENIX ATC 2023 (Annual Technical Conference).

JULY 2023

https://youtu.be/mhx0aWhzP6w?si=0LUHQL7rq4D5s-q5

Building a Distributed System for Batch & Stream Processing

Spotify Engineering Conference 2022 (SpEC 2022).

MAY 2022

Undisclosed talk

Flexible Optimizations and Efficient Execution of Data Processing on Apache Nemo

ApacheCon Asia 2021.

AUG. 2021

https://youtu.be/lFCuiL9ZRWk

Running Apache Beam Programs on Apache Nemo

Apache Beam Summit 2019, Berlin, Germany.

JUNE 2019

https://youtu.be/DKxYE8YWF_o

Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Seoul, South Korea.

NOV. 2020

Undisclosed talk

Fast and Efficient Data Processing with Apache Nemo. (Korean)

Naver Tech Talk 2020, Seoul, South Korea.

JULY 2020

https://youtu.be/Gc4-o8n762I?si=udAow673paGkDR0Q&t=1217

Executing Apache Beam Applications with Optimized Configurations on Specific Environments on Apache Nemo. (Korean)

KOSSCON 2018, Seoul, South Korea.

NOV. 2018

https://festa.io/events/152

A Flexible and an Extensible way of Big Data Processing. (Korean)

Naver DeView 2017, Seoul, South Korea.

NOV. 2017

https://tv.naver.com/v/2293702

Other Skills

Programming Languages

Python, Java, C++, Go, Scala, JavaScript, TypeScript, SQL, HTML/CSS, Ruby, Ocaml, Scheme

Tools, Frameworks & More

Kubernetes, Docker / vLLM, TensorRT-LLM / Hadoop, YARN, Spark, Flink, Beam / PyTorch, TensorFlow, Ray, Gym / CUDA / Git, Jenkins, GitHub, Jira, Notion, Figma / AWS, GCP, Azure, CoreWeave / FastAPI, Flask, Django, VueJS / Maven / PostgreSQL, Redis / Terraform, Helm, Traefik, Argo, Prometheus, gRPC, etcd

Visa Status

My US green card is to be issued in early 2025 via EB2-NIW.

A Little More About Me

Due to my experiences across the globeπŸ‡«πŸ‡·πŸ‡¨πŸ‡­πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡ΈπŸ‡°πŸ‡·, I happen to speak fluent English and Korean, and can socialize in French. I’m also learning Spanish and Mandarin. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test tells me that I have a personality of an ENFJ (protagonist)😊. Alongside my interests in computer systems πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’» some of my other interests are:

  • Skiing & Snowboarding β›·πŸ‚
  • Tennis 🎾
  • Golfing β›³οΈπŸŒοΈβ€β™‚οΈ
  • Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu πŸ€Έβ€β™‚οΈ
  • Running πŸƒβ€β™‚οΈ
  • Cycling πŸš΄β€β™‚οΈ
  • Swimming πŸŠβ€β™‚οΈ
  • My Italian motorbike πŸ›΅
  • Philosophy πŸ“–
  • Photography πŸ“·
  • Travelling πŸŽ’βœˆοΈ
  • Wine 🍷
  • Interior designing πŸ”¨
  • .. and a lot more