Dr Vladimir Stankovic
About
Overview
Vladimir holds PhD (2008) and BEng Honours (2003) degrees in Software Engineering and Computing, respectively, from the City University London.
Vladimir joined the Centre for Software Reliability (CSR) in July 2003. Initially, he was employed as a Research Assistant working on the DOTS project and contributing to the DIRC project. Subsequently, he was appointed as a Research Associate (Security and Forensic Evaluation of ICT systems), and has been contributing since to the centre's ongoing initiative in dependability and security assessment of computer-based systems. During this appointment he obtained the Ph.D on a topic of design, and performance evaluation, of diverse database replication protocols. He was appointed a Research Fellow in January 2009, a Lecturer in March 2013, and a Senior Lecturer in August 2019.
From August 2019 to July 2024, he served as the Deputy Head of Department of Computer Science (and as the Head during the transitional period in autumn 2024). In parallel, from August 2019 to July 2023, he served as the NSS and Employability Director in the department, and previously as the UG Programme Director from August 2017 to July 2019.
He was the Principal Investigator for the EPSRC-funded DIDERO-PC project, and co-investigator in the following EU-funded projects: AQUAS, SESAMO and AFTER.
His research work, mostly on design and evaluation of (diverse) database replication protocols, as well as dependability and security assessment of software-based systems, contributes to the department's broad research areas of Software and Systems Engineering.
Enterprise
Vladimir has been contributing to the university's enterprise activities since 2009.
A patent on the topic of improvements to database replication was granted in the EU (patent number EP2470994), and in the USA (USPTO patent number 8793216). The patent was co-invented with Dr Peter Popov, a colleague from the CSR.
The university spin-off company – ResilSoft Ltd (registration number 08198880) – was incorporated in 2012, and operated until 2021. Two CSR colleagues, Dr Peter Popov and Dr Ilir Gashi, and Vladimir were the executive directors in the company.
Qualifications
- PhD Software Engineering, City, University of London, United Kingdom, 2008
- BEng Computing, City, University of London, United Kingdom, 2003
Employment
- Senior Lecturer, City, University of London, United Kingdom, August 2019 - present
- Lecturer, City, University of London, United Kingdom, March 2013 - July 2019
- Research Fellow, City, University of London, United Kingdom, January 2009 - February 2013
- Research Associate, City, University of London, United Kingdom, August 2005 - December 2008
- Visiting Lecturer/Tutor, City, University of London, United Kingdom, September 2004 - May 2012
- Research Assistant, City, University of London, United Kingdom, June 2003 - July 2005
Memberships of professional organisations
- Member, IEEE
- Member, ACM
- Fellow, Higher Education Academy
Teaching
Leadership positions in the department
Deputy HoD : August 2019-July 2024
NSS and Employability Director: August 2019-July 2023
UG Programme Director: August 2017-July 2019
Modules Taught
Ongoing:
Databases (Undergraduate Year 1)
Advanced Databases (Undergraduate Year 3 and 4, and Postgraduate)
Previous:
Team Project (Undergraduate Year 2)
CPDs
With colleagues from the CSR, Vladimir co-designed and co-delivered a course on Digital Forensics.
Software tools for teaching
Visual Paradigm (VP) offers our university VP software for educational use through the VP Academic Partner Program .
Research
Research interests
- Dependability and security assessment of computer-based systems
- Software fault tolerance and diverse redundancy
- Distributed systems algorithms and database replication protocols
- Concurrent and parallel computing
Projects
- AQUAS: Aggregated Quality Assurance for Systems
- DIDERO-PC: DIverse DatabasE ReplicatiOn - Performance Comparison - The project was funded by the EPSRC First Grant Scheme, and Vladimir was the PI.
- SESAMO: Security and Safety Modelling
- AFTER: A Framework for electrical power sysTems vulnerability identification, dEfence and Restoration
- PIA:FARA: Probabilistic Interdependency Analysis: Framework, data Analysis and on-line Risk Assessment
- AMBER: Assessing, Measuring, and BEnchmarking Resilience
- IRRIIS: Integrated Risk Reduction of Information-based Infrastructure Systems
- ReSIST: Resilience for Survivability in IST
- DIRC: Diversity - IRC
- DOTS: Diversity with Off-The-Shelf components
Research students
Saidu Sokoto
Attendance: April 2023 - present, full-time
Thesis title: Building Secure, Efficient, and User-Friendly Decentralized Networks
Role: 2nd Supervisor
Further information: The PhD is co-supervised with Dr Michal Krol
Kaleem Peeroo
Attendance: October 2020 - present, full-time
Thesis title: Experimental and Model-based Evaluation of Data Distribution Service (DDS) Performance and Security
Role: 1st Supervisor
Further information: The PhD is co-supervised with Dr Peter Popov
Konstantin Pozdniakov
Attendance: February 2013 - March 2018, full-time
Thesis title: Computer Security Penetration Testing Based on Machine Learning Techniques
Role: 2nd Supervisor
Further information: The PhD was co-supervised with Dr Eduardo Alonso.
Publications
Publications by category
Chapter
- Gashi, I., Popov, P.T., Stankovic, V. and Strigini, L. (2003). On Designing Dependable Services with Diverse Off-the-Shelf SQL Servers. In Lemos, R.D., Gacek, C. and Romanovsky, A.B. (Eds.), Architecting Dependable Systems II - [the book is a result of the ICSE 2003 Workshop on Software Architectures for Dependable Systems] (pp. 191-214). Springer. ISBN 3540231684.
Conference papers and proceedings (23)
- Pigaglio, M., Ascigil, O., Król, M., Lange, F., Peeroo, K., Rene, S.... Rivière, E. PANDAS: Peer-to-peer, Adaptive Networking Allowing Data Availability Sampling within Ethereum Consensus Timebounds. MIDDLEWARE '25: 26th International Middleware Conference.doi:10.1145/3721462.3770769
- Popov, P. and Stankovic, V. (2025). Diverse Database Replication Based on Snapshot Isolation – Performance Implications of Improved Dependability. 2025 44th International Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS) 29 September-2 October.doi:10.1109/srds69199.2025.00038
- Lamptey, R., Saedi, M. and Stankovic, V. (2025). Machine-Learning Anomaly Detection for Early Identification of DDoS in Smart Home IoT Devices. 2025 IEEE International Conference on Cyber Security and Resilience (CSR) 4-6 August.doi:10.1109/csr64739.2025.11130003
- Peeroo, K., Popov, P., Stankovic, V. and Weyde, T. (2024). Machine Learning for Performance Prediction of Data Distribution Service (DDS). 2024 19th European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC) 8-11 April.doi:10.1109/edcc61798.2024.00032
- Sokoto, S., Król, M., Stankovic, V. and Rivière, E. Next-Generation Distributed Hash Tables. CoNEXT 2023: The 19th International Conference on emerging Networking EXperiments and Technologies.doi:10.1145/3630202.3630234
- Peeroo, K., Popov, P. and Stankovic, V. (2022). Exploring The Effects of Multicast Communication on DDS Performance. European Dependable Computing Conference 12-15 September, Zaragoza, Spain.
- Pozdniakov, K., Alonso, E., Stankovic, V., Tam, K. and Jones, K. (2020). Smart Security Audit: Reinforcement Learning with a Deep Neural Network Approximator. 2020 International Conference on Cyber Situational Awareness, Data Analytics and Assessment (CyberSA) 15-19 June.doi:10.1109/cybersa49311.2020.9139683
- Fujdiak, R., Misurec, J., Pokorny, J., Zobal, L., Popov, P., Stankovic, V.... Musil, P. (2019). Security and Performance Trade-offs for Data Distribution Service in Flying Ad-Hoc Networks. 2019 11th International Congress on Ultra Modern Telecommunications and Control Systems and Workshops (ICUMT) 28-30 October.doi:10.1109/icumt48472.2019.8970670
- Popov, P.T., Salako, K. and Stankovic, V. Stochastic modeling for performance evaluation of database replication protocols. .doi:10.1007/978-3-319-22264-6_2
- Popov, P., Povyakalo, A., Stankovic, V. and Strigini, L. (2014). Software Diversity as a Measure for Reducing Development Risk. 2014 Tenth European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC) 13-16 May.doi:10.1109/edcc.2014.36
- Gashi, I., Sobesto, B., Mason, S., Stankovic, V. and Cukier, M. (2013). A Study of the Relationship Between Antivirus Regressions and Label Changes. IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering 4-7 November, Pasadena, CA, US.
- Cukier, M., Gashi, I., Sobesto, B. and Stankovic, V. (2013). Does Malware Detection Improve With Diverse AntiVirus Products? An Empirical Study. 32nd International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security (SAFECOMP) 24-27 September, Toulouse, France.
- Popov, P., Stankovic, V. and Strigini, L. (2012). An Empirical Study of the Effectiveness of 'Forcing Diversity' Based on a Large Population of Diverse Programs. ISSRE 2012, International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering 27-30 November, Dallas, Texas, USA.
- Gashi, I., Stankovic, V., Cukier, M. and Sobesto, B. (2012). Diversity with AntiVirus Products: Additional Empirical Studies. 42nd IEEE International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN) 2012 25-28 June, Boston, USA.
- Bishop, P., Bloomfield, R., Gashi, I. and Stankovic, V. Diverse protection systems for improving security: a study with AntiVirus engines. .
- Stankovic, V., Bloomfield, R., Bishop, P. and Gashi, I. Diversity for Security: a Study with Off-The-Shelf AntiVirus Engines. 21st International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE 2011) Hiroshima, Japan.
- Gashi, I., Stankovic, V., Leita, C. and Thonnard, O. (2009). An Experimental Study of Diversity with Off-The-Shelf AntiVirus Engines. Eighth IEEE International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications (NCA 2009) 9-11 July.
- Stankovic, V., Bessani, A., Daidone, A., Gashi, I., Obelheiro, R. and Sousa, P. Enhancing Fault / Intrusion Tolerance through Design and Configuration Diversity. 3rd Workshop on Recent Advances on Intrusion-Tolerant Systems (WRAITS 2009) Estoril, Lisbon, Portugal.
- Bloomfield, R.E., Gashi, I., Povyakalo, A. and Stankovic, V. (2008). Comparison of Empirical Data from Two Honeynets and a Distributed Honeypot Network. 19th International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE 2008) 10-14 November, Seattle, USA.doi:10.1109/ISSRE.2008.62
- Bessani, A.N., Reiser, H.P., Sousa, P., Gashi, I., Stankovic, V., Distler, T.... Douglis, F. FOREVER: Fault/intrusiOn REmoVal through Evolution & Recovery. .
- Stankovic, V., Lin, S., Pareaud, T., Robert, T. and Zutautaite-Seputiene, I. Toward Adaptable Software Architecture for Dependability: ASAP. 7th European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC 2008).
- Stankovic, V., Alata, E., Leita, C., Serafini, M., Thonnard, O., Viniikka, J.... Zurutuza, U. Malicious Fault Characterization Exploiting Honeypot Data. 7th European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC 2008).
- Stankovic, V., Popov, P. and Kawada, S. Improving DBMS performance through diverse redundancy. 25th IEEE Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS 2006).
Journal articles (2)
- Bloomfield, R.E., Popov, P., Salako, K., Stankovic, V. and Wright, D. (2017). Preliminary interdependency analysis: An approach to support critical-infrastructure risk-assessment. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 167, pp. 198-217. doi:10.1016/j.ress.2017.05.030
- Gashi, I., Popov, P.T. and Stankovic, V. (2009). Uncertainty explicit assessment of off-the-shelf software: A Bayesian approach. Information & Software Technology, 51, pp. 497-511
Patents (2)
- Popov, P.T. and Stankovic, V.(2012). Database replication. Patent no. 8 793 216
- Stankovic, V. and Popov, P.(2012). Improvements Relating to Database Replication Protocols. Patent no. EP2470994
Poster
- Peeroo, K., Stankovic, V., Popov, P. and Weyde, T. Visualising the Impact of High-dimensional Configuration Parameters on the Performance of Data Distribution Service. , 2024.
Reports (4)
- Popov, P. and Stankovic, V. (2025). Diverse Database Replication Based on Snapshot Isolation – Performance Implications of Improved Dependability..
- Peeroo, K., Popov, P.T., Stankovic, V. and Weyde, T. (2023). Machine Learning for Performance Prediction of Data Distribution Service. London, UK: City, University of London.
- Stankovic, V., Chozos, N., Popov, P.T., Bloomfield, R.E., Wright, D. and Howell-Morris, R. (2010). Preliminary Interdependency Analysis (PIA): Method and tool support. London: Adelard LLP and City University London.
- Stankovic, V. and Strigini, L. (2009). A survey on online monitoring approaches of computer-based systems..
Software (3)
- Stankovic, V. and Popov, P.T. (2016). TPC-C Client - Java-based implementation of the industry standard benchmark for database performance evaluation..
- Salako, K., Stankovic, V. and Popov, P.T. (2015). Stochastic model for performance evaluation of database replication protocols..
- Popov, P., Salako, K. and Stankovic, V. (2015). Stochastic Modeling for Performance Evaluation of Database Replication Protocols. Springer International Publishing.
Thesis/dissertation
- Stankovic, V. Performance Implications of Using Diverse Redundancy for Database Replication. (PhD)
Professional activities
Editorial activity
- Vladimir has served as a Program Committee member for the following reputable conferences and workshops: - International Conference on Critical Information Infrastructures Security (CRITIS), 2020 - present - IEEE Cyber Security and Resilience (CSR), 2025 - IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE) 2016. - IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE) 2015. - IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE) - Fast Abstract stream in 2011, 2013 and 2014, and Student stream in 2010. - European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC): Fast Abstract stream in 2015, and Student papers forum in 2012. - International Workshop in Recent Advances in the Dependability AssessmeNt of Complex systEms (RADIANCE) in 2016 Vladimir has served as a Reviewer for the following premier journals and conferences: - IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC) journal - IEEE Security & Privacy journal - International Journal of Neural Systems - International Journal of High Performance Computing and Networking (IJHPCN). - IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE) - IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE) - IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Distributed Systems and Networks (DSN) - European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC) - International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security (SAFECOMP), - International Workshop on Quantitative Aspects in Security Assurance (QASA) workshop. - ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems (EICS 2015), Program Committee (PC) member and Reviewer.
Keynote lecture/speech
- Stochastic modeling for performance evaluation of database replication. Madrid, Spain (2015). The talk described the research behind the publication at the 12th International Conference on Quantitative Evaluation of SysTems (QEST 2015).