University at Buffalo School of Management

22 Buffalo Business Autumn 2018 Insights Cichocki honored with teaching award Dianna Cichocki, clinical assistant pro- fessor of management science and systems, received the 2018 Milton Plesur Excellence in Teaching Award from the undergraduate Student Association this spring. The annual award recognizes outstand- ing professors who create an atmosphere of creativity, enthusiasm and participation in their classrooms. Students nominate in- structors who have inspired, excited or positively affected them from across the university. The honor is named for a beloved UB history professor, author and scholar who died in 1987. Cichocki joined the S chool of Management in 2011 and teaches "Statist- ical D ecisions in Management" and "Statistical Foundations in Analy tics." She holds a master's from Oswego State University and a bachelor's from St. John Fisher College. She is an expert on incorporating tech- nology into statistics and educational prac- tices, and measuring learning outcomes in higher education. Cichocki has given sev- eral presentations at the state and national levels on both topics and serves as a content expert on statistics for higher education publishing companies. x How to calculate pricing and resources for cloud computing School of Management researchers have developed a new algorithm that cloud computing service providers can use to establish pricing and allocate resources. Published in Information Systems Research, the study provides practical formulas that compa- nies like Amazon, Google or VMWare can use to determine the resources necessary to provide a certain level of service to their customers — and what to charge for it in their service-level agreements. In addition, any customer who uses cloud computing services can use the algorithm to help nego- tiate on pricing. "As computing resources continue to shi to the cloud, customers are demanding near-constant access to their files and so- ware, posing a significant challenge to ser- vice providers," says Sanjukta Das Smith, associate professor of management sci- ence and systems. "A company can feed in- formation about their data center into our algorithm, and out will come policy defi- nitions and specific prescriptions on how to allocate resources and set pricing, all tailor-made to their environment." With funding from a National Science Foundation grant, the researchers conduct- ed extensive computational studies using real-world server log data to validate and supplement their analytical work. "Better understanding of costs is cru- cial for effective resource provisioning," says Smith. "Through our research, provid- ers can fine-tune resources for each client, rather than the current strategy of relying on guesstimates." Smith collaborated on the study with School of Management colleagues Ram Ramesh, professor of management sci- ence and systems, and PhD candidate Shuai Yuan, along with Chunming Qiao, SUNY Distinguished Professor and chair of the UB Department of Computer Science and Engineering. x Dianna Cichocki at the United Way Day of Caring with the School of Management in University Heights. Photo: Douglas Levere Smith

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