Production Systems
All three systems start from the same problem: hardware and networks that cannot be trusted.
HyperEdge (2020–) — the edge delivery network I run at ByteDance, carrying on-demand video, live streaming, and real-time communication for Douyin and TikTok, serving two billion people a day. NSDI ‘26
- Heterogeneous device scheduling and edge caching. INFOCOM ‘24
- Multipath media transport. IWQoS ‘25 · IEEE Network ‘24
- Media network measurement. SIGCOMM ‘26 · NSDI ‘26
MASS (2018–2020) — one of the earliest production-grade proof-of-capacity blockchains, reaching consensus with storage instead of computing power so that anyone with a hard drive can join. It has processed more than ten billion transactions and still runs.
WebRTC network (2012–2018) — one of the earliest production WebRTC implementations, shipped while the standard was still being drafted. A software-defined network carried real-time audio and video across borders, and an in-browser SDK ran multi-party calls in any page and any browser without plugins.
Research & Standards
Papers
† corresponding author · ‡ PI and first-author advisor at ByteDance.
Horizon: A Hyper-Edge Observability Engine for Live Streaming Networks — Liu, Ziqian; Ding, Daqian; Han, Rui†; Guo, Shixian; Xie, Zhendong; Xu, Aifang; Wang, Changqian; Liu, Kefei; Li, Jialin; Xiao, Yunming; Cui, Heming; Qiu, Yiming. SIGCOMM ‘26
HyperEdge: An Edge CDN Infrastructure for Cost-Efficient Video Streaming — Wei, Dehui; Zhang, Jiao; Li, Haozhe; Han, Rui‡; Xue, Zhichen; Peng, Yajie; Pang, Xiaofei; Yan, Ma; Li, Jialin. Outstanding Paper. NSDI ‘26 PDF
Skyline: A Cloud-Centric Internet Monitoring Engine — Guo, Shixian; Liu, Ziqian; Bai, Yangyang; Chen, Yuan; Zhang, Qi; Lv, Yang; Hu, Jianwei; Li, Gen; Liu, Songlin; Zhong, Zhenyang; Wen, Sisi; Dong, Yongbin; Luo, Feng; Chen, Anjian; Han, Rui; Feng, Jiale; Meng, Lingpei; Chen, Siwan; Zhong, Juntao; Hu, Chaoran; Li, Hang; Xu, Shuai; Huang, Yibo; Liu, Kefei; Qiu, Yiming. NSDI ‘26 PDF
RLive: Robust Delivery System for Scaling Live Streaming Services — Tian, Yu; Lv, Gerui; Wu, Qinghua; Fang, Ruili; Peng, Yajie; Xue, Zhichen; Han, Rui‡; Lin, Chuanqing; Pang, Xiaofei; Lu, Ri; Li, Zhenyu. EuroSys ‘26
HELDR: Packet Loss Detection and Retransmission for Live Streaming Hyper-Edge Network — Guo, Peisheng; Zhang, Jiao; Wang, Yuqing; Li, Haozhe; Xue, Zhichen; Peng, Yajie; Han, Rui‡; Pang, Xiaofei; Huang, Tao; Fang, Ruili; Zhu, Zhenpeng; Chen, Weiqi; Wei, Dehui. IWQoS ‘25 PDF
PScheduler: QoE-Enhanced Multipath Scheduler for Video Services in Large-Scale Peer-to-Peer CDNs — Wei, Dehui; Zhang, Jiao; Li, Haozhe; Xue, Zhichen; Peng, Yajie; Pang, Xiaofei; Liu, Yuanjie; Han, Rui‡; Li, Jialin. INFOCOM ‘24 PDF
Multipath Smart Preloading Algorithms in Short-Video Peer-to-Peer CDN Transmission Architecture — Wei, Dehui; Zhang, Jiao; Li, Haozhe; Xue, Zhichen; Peng, Yajie; Han, Rui‡. IEEE Network ‘24 PDF
Research Program
- Multimodal Network End-to-End Transmission Protocol and Congestion Control — National Key R&D Program of China, 2022–2025. Industry-side technical lead, with BUPT and Xi’an Jiaotong University.
Standards
Core drafter representing ByteDance and Volcano Engine.
Technical Requirements for Video Bitrate Adaptation Based on Transport Layer Information — Beijing Volcano Engine Technology Co., Ltd, BUPT. CCSA Industry Standard Draft, 2025.
Technical Requirements for Transport Information Feedback of Streaming Media Applications in Wireless LANs — Beijing Volcano Engine Technology Co., Ltd, BUPT, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, ZTE Corporation, China United Network Communications Group Co., Ltd. CCSA Industry Standard Draft, 2025.
Technical Requirements for Packet Scheduling in Multipath Network Transmission — Beijing Volcano Engine Technology Co., Ltd, BUPT. CCSA Group Standard Draft, 2025.
Technical Requirements for NAT Device Type Detection over UDP — Beijing Volcano Engine Technology Co., Ltd, BUPT. CCSA Group Standard Draft, 2025.
Patents
Eighteen patents across CN and US jurisdictions.
- A Data Scheduling Method, Device, Electronic Equipment, and Storage Medium — Peng, Yajie; Li, Haozhe; Wei, Dehui; Han, Rui; Xue, Zhichen; Zhang, Jiao. CN118828101B
- Multi-Source Packet Retransmission Algorithm for Live Streaming Scenarios — Li, Haozhe; Guo, Peisheng; Xue, Zhichen; Peng, Yajie; Pang, Xiaofei; Han, Rui; Fang, Ruili; Zhang, Jiao. CN121907412A
- An Edge Server Access Bandwidth Estimation Algorithm for Live Streaming — Li, Haozhe; Peng, Yajie; Pang, Xiaofei; Han, Rui; Fang, Ruili; Xue, Zhichen; Guo, Peisheng; Zhang, Jiao; Liu, Yuanjie. CN121814690A
- A Method and Architecture for Live Streaming CDN Capacity Scaling — Fang, Ruili; Tian, Yu; Peng, Yajie; Han, Rui; Pang, Xiaofei. CN120980076A
- A Method and System for Cross-Border, Ultra-Low Latency Communication in In-Browser Video Classrooms — Han, Rui. CN 201710596812.0
Knowledge Exchange
Universities
Bringing industry practice into university research, engineering, and teaching, through partnerships I set up and run, mentoring 11 graduate students and visiting interns.
- School of Computer Science, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT) — Industry Mentor, Professional Master’s Program — 2026–
- School of Computer Science, Fudan University — Industry Mentor, Professional Master’s Program — 2022–
Talks
SIGCOMM Reading Group: HyperEdge — ACM SIGCOMM–CCF Reading Group (Session 32), hosted online by Xiamen University. Jun 2026. Video (Bilibili)
Hyperscale Multimedia Network Observability and Capacity Evaluation — CAICT Network Intelligent Sensing Symposium. Dec 2025. The work received CAICT’s “Starbeam” Forward-Looking Innovation Award. News · News
Re-exploring Cost Optimization in Edge Multimedia Networks — LiveVideoStackCon ‘23. Nov 2023. Video (YouTube) · Video (Bilibili) · Slides
Global Opportunities for Real-Time Video Networks — Zhongguancun Innovation Street. Mar 2018. Panel with Eric Migicovsky (Y Combinator).
Translation
- The Engineering Executive’s Primer (Chinese Edition) — by Will Larson, translated by Ray Han. Forthcoming, Posts & Telecom Press, Late 2026. O’Reilly