PPoPP 2026
Sat 31 January - Wed 4 February 2026 Sydney, Australia
co-located with HPCA/CGO/PPoPP/CC 2026
Tue 3 Feb 2026 11:50 - 12:10 at Pyrmont - Cluster and Cloud Computing Chair(s): Ruslan Nikolaev

This paper presents zBuffer, a zero-copy and metadata-free serialization library for high-performance and low-cost RPCs. At the core of zBuffer is scatter-gather reflection, a novel technique that collaboratively (i) leverages the NIC scatter-gather hardware feature to offload the costly data coalescing, and (ii) utilizes the static reflection mechanism of modern programming languages to enable type queries on complex data objects without requiring explicit metadata construction. We leverage C++ language features, mainly including template meta-programming and macros, to realize static reflection at compile time. Based on zBuffer, we design a fast RPC system (called zRPC) which eliminates all RPC memory copy overheads not only in (de)serialization but also in network transmission. Extensive evaluation shows that zBuffer/zRPC significantly outperforms state-of-the-art serialization/RPC mechanisms: zBuffer is approximately 7× faster than Cornflakes in serialization for complex data objects; and zRPC reduces 99th percentile latency by 21% and achieves 62% higher throughput than eRPC on the Masstree key-value (KV) store with the YCSB benchmark.

Tue 3 Feb

Displayed time zone: Hobart change

11:30 - 12:50
Cluster and Cloud ComputingMain Conference at Pyrmont
Chair(s): Ruslan Nikolaev Pennsylvania State University
11:30
20m
Talk
Cacheman: A Comprehensive Last-Level Cache Management System for Multi-tenant Clouds
Main Conference
Xiaokang Hu Alibaba Cloud Computing, Yuchao Cao Alibaba Cloud Computing, Naixuan Guan Alibaba Cloud Computing, Yifan Wu Alibaba Cloud Computing, Xishi Qiu Alibaba Cloud Computing, Shengdong Dai Alibaba Cloud Computing, Ben Luo Alibaba Cloud Computing, Sanchuan Cheng Alibaba Cloud Computing, Fudong Qiu Alibaba Cloud Computing, Yibin Shen Alibaba Cloud, Jiesheng Wu Alibaba Cloud Computing
DOI
11:50
20m
Talk
zBuffer: Zero-Copy and Metadata-Free Serialization for Fast RPC with Scatter-Gather Reflection
Main Conference
Xiangyu Liu Xiamen University, Huiba Li Alibaba, Shun Gai Alibaba, Youmin Chen Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Yiming Zhang Xiamen University
DOI
12:10
20m
Talk
Scaling GPU-to-CPU Migration for Efficient Distributed Execution on CPU Clusters
Main Conference
Ruobing Han Georgia Institute of Technology, Hyesoon Kim Georgia Institute of Technology
DOI
12:30
20m
Talk
Trojan Horse: Aggregate-and-Batch for Scaling Up Sparse Direct Solvers on GPU ClustersBest Paper Nominee
Main Conference
Yida Li China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Siwei Zhang China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Yiduo Niu China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Yang Du China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Qingxiao Sun China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Zhou Jin China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Weifeng Liu China University of Petroleum-Beijing
DOI