In 2023, I was selected for a research internship at Nokia Bell Labs in Lannion, France, where I had the privilege to collaborate with Semih Ince, Dr. Julien Lallet, and Dr. Renaud Santoro on cutting-edge cloud FPGA solutions.

The Challenge:
Cloud accelerator instances were significantly underutilizing FPGA resources, leaving valuable computing power idle. Our team proposed an innovative solution - a secure multi-tenant framework that would allow isolated instances to safely share the same FPGA device.

My Contribution:

• Developed a complete proof-of-concept environment using:
  • Xilinx ZCU102 FPGA platform
  • Embedded Linux (Yocto/Petalinux)
  • Container orchestration with Docker and Kubernetes (k3s)
• Designed the security architecture for tenant isolation
• Created comprehensive documentation enabling team reproduction

The Experience:
Working alongside this talented and diverse team taught me invaluable lessons about:

• The unique challenges of hardware virtualization
• Security considerations in shared accelerator environments
• Bridging the gap between embedded systems and cloud infrastructure

This intensive three-month project (April-July 2023) allowed me to apply my security knowledge in novel ways while deepening my expertise in both embedded systems and cloud-native technologies. Seeing our solution come to life - from concept to working prototype - remains one of my most rewarding professional experiences.