Quicksand: Harnessing Stranded Datacenter Resources with Granular Computing#
NSDI '25 digest Program Wildcard pick 28–30 April 2025
- Authors / tier: Zhenyuan Ruan, Kaiyan Fan, Adam Belay (MIT CSAIL); Shihang Li, Malte Schwarzkopf (Brown); Seo Jin Park (USC); Marcos K. Aguilera (VMware Research by Broadcom). Wildcard.
- Why: Stranded resources (memory/CPU that exist but can't be allocated) are a real efficiency drain in datacenters. The granular-computing angle is an emerging subfield a DC-infra PM wouldn't necessarily search for but should see.
- What: A runtime that reclaims stranded datacenter resources by exposing computation at fine (granular) units that can be packed into otherwise-unusable capacity. (Detailed mechanism not captured in this digest pass; confirm from the paper.)
- Where applicable: Datacenter resource scheduling; research-grade, but points at where utilization-efficiency work is heading.