Balázs Vass

CV: I am an Associate Professor at the University Babeș-Bolyai, Cluj Napoca, Romania, while keeping formal ties with my alma mater, the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary. Right now, I am working as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at UBB, on my project QoSeRM. I obtained my BSc and MSc in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, respectively, at the ELTE University in Hungary (minor: operations research) and did my PhD in the Future Internet Research Group led by Prof. János Tapolcai at the High-Speed Networks Laboratory (HSNLab), at BME, Hungary. As a postdoc, I was fortunate to work with Senior Research Fellow Gábor Rétvári, also at HSNLab, BME. In 2019, I spent six months visiting Stefan Schmid at the University of Vienna, Austria, David Hay at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and Costin Raiciu at the University Politechnica, Bucharest, Romania. Since IEEE INFOCOM 2023, I serve as a TPC member of the conference. In 2024, I received the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship, and a Romanian national research grant called Young Teams (Tinere Echipe). A more detailed CV can be found here, and some photos here: 1, 2.

Research interests: My research interests revolve around the fundamental and algorithmic problems in networked systems, with an accent to resilience, programmable packet scheduling, and applications of discrete optimization.

News

• I have won a Young Teams grant funded by the Romanian Executive Unit for the Financing of Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation (UEFISCDI). The project is starting in January 2025. Exciting!

• My Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship starts in September 2024 at UBB Cluj. Wonderful two years ahead!

Publications

Journal, Conference, and Workshop articles in chronological order. Author-versions only! For a BibTeX file, see here, for a version sorted by category (journals, conferences, workshops), see my CV.

• Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm for Safest Path Computation in Presence of Correlated Failures in Backbone Networks
  Zoltán Tasnádi, Balázs Vass, Noémi Gaskó.
  ACM Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO), Málaga, Spain, July 2025.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Programmable Real-time Scheduling of Disaggregated Network Functions: A Theoretical Model
  Tamás Lévai, Balázs Vass, and Gábor Rétvári.
  IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management (TNSM), 2025.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• DateLine: Efficient Algorithm for Computing Region Disjoint Paths in Backbone Networks
  Erika Bérczi-Kovács, Péter Gyimesi, Balázs Vass, and János Tapolcai.
  IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC), 2025.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Everything Matters in Programmable Packet Scheduling
  Albert Gran Alcoz, Balázs Vass, Pooria Namyar, Behnaz Arzani, Gábor Rétvári, and Laurent Vanbever.
  22nd USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, April 2025.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Efficient Algorithm for Computing Region Disjoint Paths in Backbone Networks
  Erika Bérczi-Kovács, Péter Gyimesi, Balázs Vass, and János Tapolcai.
  IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), Vancouver, BC, Canada, May 2024.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Programmable Real-time Scheduling of Disaggregated Network Functions
  Tamás Lévai, Balázs Vass, and Gábor Rétvári.
  IFIP Networking Conference (IFIP Networking), Thessaloniki, Greece, June 2024.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Charting the Complexity Landscape of Compiling Packet Programs to Reconfigurable Switches
  Balázs Vass, Erika Bérczi-Kovács, Ádám Fraknói, Costin Raiciu, and Gábor Rétvári.
  IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (ToN), 2024.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Computing Safest 𝑠𝑡-paths in Backbone Networks: Efficiently Solvable Cases and Fast Heuristics
  Balázs Vass, Péter Revisnyei, Alija Pašić.
  IEEE International Workshop on Resilient Networks Design and Modeling (RNDM), Pompeii, Italy, November 2024.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• The Complexity Landscape of Disaster-Aware Network Extension Problems
  Balázs Vass, Beáta Éva Nagy, Balázs Brányi, and János Tapolcai.
  Wiley Networks (Networks), 2023.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• A Whirling Dervish: Polynomial-Time Algorithm for the Regional SRLG-disjoint Paths Problem
  Balázs Vass, Erika Bérczi-Kovács, Ábel Barabás, Zsombor László Hajdú, and János Tapolcai.
  IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (ToN), 2023.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Compiling Packet Programs to dRMT Switches: Theory and Algorithms
  Balázs Vass, Ádám Fraknói, Erika Bérczi-Kovács, and Gábor Rétvári.
  European P4 Workshop (EuroP4), Rome, Italy, December 2022.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• On the Complexity of Disaster-Aware Network Extension Problems
  Balázs Vass and Balázs Brányi and Beáta Éva Nagy and János Tapolcai.
  IEEE International Workshop on Resilient Networks Design and Modeling (RNDM), Compiegne, France, September 2022.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Essence of Geographically Correlated Failure Events in Communication Networks
  Balázs Vass and János Tapolcai.
  IEEE/IFIP Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS), Budapest, Hungary, April, 2022.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Polynomial-Time Algorithm for the Regional SRLG-disjoint Paths Problem
  Balázs Vass, Erika Bérczi-Kovács, Ábel Barabás, Zsombor László Hajdú, and János Tapolcai.
  IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), London, UK, May, 2022.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Programmable Packet Scheduling With SP-PIFO: Theory, Algorithms and Evaluation
  Balázs Vass, Csaba Sarkadi and Gábor Rétvári.
  IEEE Conference on Computer Communications Workshop on Networking Algorithms (INFOCOM WKSHPS WNA), London, UK, May, 2022.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• eFRADIR: An Enhanced FRAmework for DIsaster Resilience
  Alija Pašić, Rita Girão-Silva, Ferenc Mogyorósi, Balázs Vass, Teresa Gomes, Péter Babarczi, Péter Revisnyei, János Tapolcai, and Jacek Rak.
  (IEEE Access), 2021.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Enumerating Maximal Shared Risk Link Groups of Circular Disk Failures Hitting $k$ Nodes
  Balázs Vass, János Tapolcai, and Erika Bérczi-Kovács.
  IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (ToN), 2021.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Probabilistic Shared Risk Link Groups Modelling Correlated Resource Failures Caused by Disasters
  Balázs Vass, János Tapolcai, Zalán Heszberger, József Bíró, David Hay, Fernando Kuipers, Jorik Oostenbrink, Alessandro Valentini, and Lajos Rónyai.
  IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications - issue on Latest Advances in Optical Networks for 5G Communications and Beyond (JSAC), 2021.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Cost-Efficient Embedding of Virtual Networks With and Without Routing Flexibility
  Balázs Németh, Yvonne-Anne Pignolet, Matthias Rost, Stefan Schmid, and Balázs Vass.
  IFIP Networking Conference (IFIP Networking), Paris, France, 2020.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Fast enumeration of regional link failures caused by disasters with limited size
  János Tapolcai, Lajos Rónyai, Balázs Vass, and László Gyimóthi.
  IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (ToN), 2020.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Compiling Packet Programs to Reconfigurable Switches: Theory and Algorithms,
  Balázs Vass, Erika Bérczi-Kovács, Costin Raiciu, and Gábor Rétvári.
  European Workshop on P4 (EuroP4), Barcelona, Spain, December 2020.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• The Earth is Nearly Flat: Precise and Approximate Algorithms for Detecting Vulnerable Regions of Networks in Plane and on Sphere,
  Balázs Vass, László Németh, and János Tapolcai.
  Wiley Netwotking (Networking), 2020.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Improving Big Data Application Performance in Edge-Cloud Systems,,
  Dávid Haja, Balázs Vass, and László Toka.
  IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing (CLOUD), Milan, Italy, July 2019.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Towards making big data applications network-aware in edge-cloud systems,
  Dávid Haja, Balázs Vass, and László Toka.
  IEEE Towards making big data applications network-aware in edge-cloud systems (CloudNet), Coimbra, Portigal, December 2019.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• FRADIR-II: An Improved Framework for Disaster Resilience,
  Alija Pašić, Rita Girao-Silva, Balázs Vass, Teresa Gomes, Ferenc Mogyorósi, Péter Babarczi, and János Tapolcai.
  IEEE International Workshop on Resilient Networks Design and Modeling (RNDM), Nicosia, Cyprus, October 2019.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Network Resiliency Against Earthquakes,
  Alessandro Valentini, Balázs Vass, Jorik Oostenbrink, Levente Csák, Fernando Kuipers, Bruno Pace, David Hay, and János Tapolcai.
  IEEE International Workshop on Resilient Networks Design and Modeling (RNDM), Nicosia, Cyprus, October 2019.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• FRADIR: A Novel Framework for Disaster Resilience,
  Alija Pašić, Rita Girão-Silva, Balázs Vass, Teresa Gomes, and Péter Babarczi.
  IEEE International Workshop on Resilient Networks Design and Modeling (RNDM), Longyearbyen (Svalbard), Norway, August 2018.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Vulnerable Regions of Networks on Sphere,
  Balázs Vass, László Németh, Amaro de Sousa, Martin Zachariasen, and János Tapolcai.
  IEEE International Workshop on Resilient Networks Design and Modeling (RNDM), Longyearbyen (Svalbard), Norway, August 2018.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• A Tractable Stochastic Model of Correlated Link Failures Caused by Disasters,
  János Tapolcai, Balázs Vass, Zalán Heszberger, József Biró, David Hay, Fernando Kuipers, and Lajos Rónyai.
  IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), Honolulu, HI, USA, April 2018.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Enumerating Shared Risk Link Groups of Circular Disk Failures Hitting k nodes,
  Balázs Vass, Erika Bérczi-Kovács, and János Tapolcai.
  IEEE International Workshop on Design Of Reliable Communication Networks (DRCN), Munich, Germany, March 2017.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• List of Shared Risk Link Groups Representing Regional Failures with Limited Size,
  János Tapolcai, Lajos Rónyai, Balázs Vass, and László Gyimóthi.
  IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), Atlanta, GA, USA, May 2017.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Enumerating Circular Disk Failures Covering a Single Node,
  Balázs Vass, Erika Bérczi-Kovács, János Tapolcai.
  IEEE International Workshop on Design Of Reliable Communication Networks (DRCN), Halmstad, Sweden, September 2016.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

• Shared Risk Link Group Enumeration of Node Excluding Disaster Failures,
  Shared Risk Link Group Enumeration of Node Excluding Disaster Failures.
  IEEE International Conference on Networking and Network Applications (NaNA), Hakodate City, Hokkaido, Japan, July 2016.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

Shorts: Short papers and poster/demo papers

• Efficient Computing of Disaster-Disjoint Paths: Greedy and Beyond
  Balázs Vass, Erika Bérczi-Kovács, Péter Gyimesi, and János Tapolcai.
  2024 IEEE Conference on Computer Communications Workshops (INFOCOM WKSHPS), May 2024.
  Documents: paper pdf, poster pdf, bibtex bib

• Shared Risk Link Groups of Disaster Failures,
  Balázs Vass.
  IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications Student Poster (INFOCOM WKSHPS), San Francisco, CA, USA, April 2016.
  Documents: paper pdf, bibtex bib

Dissertation

• Modeling and Enumerating Geographically Correlated Failure Events in Communication Networks
  Balázs Vass
  (Advisor: János Tapolcai, Referees: Long Tran-Thanh, University of Warwick, and Dömötör Pálvölgyi, Eötvös Loránd University)
  Documents: thesis pdf, thesis booklet (en) pdf, thesis booklet (hu) pdf, defense slides (hu) pdf

Books and Chapters

• Regional Failure Events in Communication Networks: Modeling, Algorithms, and Applications
  Balázs Vass,
  (Springer Theses), August 2022.
  Documents: book pdf, bibtex bib

• Chapter 4: How to Model and Enumerate Geographically Correlated Failure Events in Communication Networks
  Balázs Vass, János Tapolcai, David Hay, Jorik Oostenbrink, and Fernando Kuipers
  Guide to Disaster-Resilient Communication Networks, in Computer Communications and Networks series, Springer, 2020.
  Documents: chapter pdf, bibtex bib

• Chapter 19: Disaster-Resilient Routing Schemes for Regional Failures
  Teresa Gomes, Lúcia Martins, Rita Girão-Silva, David Tipper,Alija Pašić, Balázs Vass, Luís Garrote, Urbano J Nunes, Martin Zachariasen, and Jacek Raks
  Guide to Disaster-Resilient Communication Networks, in Computer Communications and Networks series, Springer, 2020.
  Documents: chapter pdf, bibtex bib

• Chapter 22: Enhancing Availability for Critical Services
  Teresa Gomes, Lúcia Martins, Rita Girão-Silva, David Tipper, Alija Pašić, Balázs Vass, Luís Garrote, Urbano J Nunes, Martin Zachariasen, and Jacek Rak
  Guide to Disaster-Resilient Communication Networks, in Computer Communications and Networks series, Springer, 2020.
  Documents: chapter pdf, bibtex bib

In the Press

Comming soon (page under construction).

Some Projects received as PI

Ongoing:

• Young Teams (Tinere Echipe) project, Scalable Multipath Routing Algorithms for Disaster Resilient Telecommunications (SMR-A-DRT), grant agreement No. PN-IV-P2-2.1-TE-2023-1977, Romanian Executive Unit for the Financing of Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation (UEFISCDI), 2025-2026. Group photos: 1

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship project, Quality of Service enhancement with Resilient routing and Machine learning (QoSeRM), grant agreement No. 101155116, Horizon Europe, 2024-2026

Past:

• New National Excellence Program (ÚNKP) 2023 Hungarian national scholarship dedicated for excellent young researchers. Topic: Program embedding to reconfigurable switches. 2023-2024

• New National Excellence Program (ÚNKP) 2022 Hungarian national scholarship dedicated for excellent young researchers. Topic: Resilient routing. 2022-2023

• New National Excellence Program (ÚNKP) 2021 Hungarian national scholarship dedicated for excellent young researchers. Topic: Programmable packet scheduling. 2021-2022

Talks and Panels

Some talks and slides:

• On Training School on Design of Disaster-resilient Communication Networks, in Brussels, Belgium (Premises of COST Association), December 10-11, 2019:
  1. How to Model and Enumerate Geographically Correlated Failure Events in Communication Networks [slides].
  2. A Framework for Disaster Resilience. [slides].
  

For conference talks, see publications above.

Tech Reports and Miscellany

Note that the following documents are sometimes drafts only or work in progress.

Comming soon (page under construction).

Teaching

Courses:

• Algorithms and programming (theoretical lecture and practical course), UBB Cluj, 2023,2024.

• Data structures and algorithms (theoretical lecture and practical course), UBB Cluj, 2023.

• Mathematical and Computational logic (practical course), UBB Cluj, 2023.

• Communication Networks II (practical course), BME, 2021-2023.

• Modeling Seminar for Engineers (practical course), BME, 2016-2023.

• University Experience (practical course), BME, 2016-2023.

Community, Boards, and Services

TPCs:

• IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (IEEE INFOCOM), 2023, 2024, 2025.

Reviewer (Conferences):

WINS 2025, etc.

Reviewer (Journals):

IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management (TNSM), IEEE Transactions on Networking (ToN), IEEE Access, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC), HTE Infocommunications, etc.

Postdocs and Students

I am fortunate to be working on my grants with very talented researchers and students, in particular:

Postdocs:

• Noémi Gaskó

• Tamás Képes

PhD students:

• Zoltán Tasnádi

• Nándor Bándi

Student workers: Attila Dobai-Pataky, etc.

Student awards under my supervision at the Scientific Students' Contest (TDK/OTDK):

• Péter Gyimesi - prize I on the ELTE IK Informatics institutional, and prize I on the Hungarian national conference, 2025

• Gergely Becsó - prize I on the ELTE IK Informatics institutional, and prize II on the Hungarian national conference, 2025

• Ádám Fraknói - prize I on the ELTE IK Informatics institutional, and prize I on the Hungarian national conference, 2023

• Zsombor Hajdú and Ábel Barabás (joint work) - prize I on the ELTE IK Informatics institutional, and prize II on the Hungarian national conference, 2023

• Csaba Sarkadi - prize II on the BME VIK Informatics institutional conference, 2021

Hobbies

Running, running, and hiking. Folk dancing and playing music is also fun. I am grateful we were able to record some oral history with my grandma Piroska (in Hungarian) [link]. With my friend Samu we published some of our recordings [link]. There is so much more. If only we had more time!