The thesis defended by Professor Brivaldo Alves da Silva Junior from the Faculty of Computer Science (Facom) was chosen as the best at the 43rd edition of the Brazilian Symposium on Computer Networks and Distributed Systems (SBRC) 2025, held in May. The research was supervised by Professor Ronaldo Alves Ferreira from Facom, with co-supervision by Professor Ítalo Cunha from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, and focuses on the Automatic Inference of the Semantics of BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) Communities.
"The Brazilian Symposium on Computer Networks and Distributed Systems is the main scientific event in the area of networks and distributed systems in Brazil. Held annually by the Brazilian Computer Society (SBC) since 1983, the SBRC has established itself as an essential forum for the exchange of knowledge, presentation of innovative research, and collaboration among researchers, industry professionals, and postgraduate students. Throughout its history, the SBRC has followed and driven the development of the area in the country, addressing relevant topics such as the internet of things, cloud computing, 5G/6G networks, network security, artificial intelligence applied to networks, among others", highlights the award-winning professor.
According to Brivaldo, the thesis addresses the lack of public information about BGP communities and the relationships between networks, which hinders problem-solving and understanding of internet routing. "The research contributes to the development of techniques to automatically infer the semantics of BGP communities using publicly available data, which, in simpler terms, means an impact on improving the internet as a whole."
He celebrated the award and believes it was a good opportunity to disseminate the scientific work developed at the University. “The SBRC offers a rich environment for the dissemination of high-quality scientific work, through technical sessions, lectures with renowned experts, mini-courses, discussion panels, and workshops. In addition, the event promotes interaction between academia and industry, seeking solutions to practical challenges and fostering innovation” he comments.
“The results of this research have significant potential impacts for society, by improving the understanding and management of internet traffic. The ability to automatically infer the semantics of the BGP community and identify relationships between ASes can lead to the development of better tools for network operators and researchers. These tools can assist in troubleshooting routing anomalies, detecting network failures, identifying traffic engineering practices, and improving overall network performance, ultimately contributing to a more reliable and efficient internet for all users,” explains Brivaldo.
The professor holds a bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree in Computer Science from UFMS. Before becoming a professor, he worked in the industry and as an information technology analyst at the institution. Throughout his career, he has participated in and presented his work at several national and international events, including SBRC, the International Conference on Computer Communications, the Symposium on Network Operations and Management, and the Brazilian Symposium on Cybersecurity, receiving an honorable mention as the best runner-up paper at IFIP Networking in 2020.
The full text of the award-winning thesis, in English, is available in the UFMS Institutional Repository (check it here).
The Event
SBRC is an event held annually by the Special Commission on Computer Networks and Distributed Systems of the SBC and the Computer Networks Laboratory. Over more than four decades, SBRC has established itself as the most important national scientific event in the areas of computer networks and distributed systems, achieving international scope with the presence of researchers and professionals from Latin America and other parts of the world.
The importance of SBRC can be observed in the number of paper submissions and participants in its various editions. The main track of the symposium has received an average of 300 submissions annually, of which between 30% and 35% are accepted for publication and oral presentation. In addition to the presentation of these papers, the SBRC program typically includes lectures by Brazilian and foreign researchers, short courses, discussion panels, tool demonstrations, and workshops.
In 2025, the 43rd edition of the SBRC was held in person from May 19 to 23, 2025, in Natal. The organization of SBRC 2025 was the responsibility of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte together with the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Rio Grande do Norte.