The future of distributed systems was discussed in the city of Porto, with INESC TEC organising one of the most relevant international conferences in this field, in partnership with the University of Minho, TecMinho and Porto Business School. The International Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS 2025) took place from 29 September to 2 October 2025, marking the 44th edition of this initiative.
Around 70 researchers, professionals, and academics from different regions of the world came together to foster the exchange of innovative ideas and practices focused on original research papers on distributed systems, reports of industrial or exploratory experience, and substantial tools for the research, development, and operation of reliable distributed systems.
Those who participated in the event explored topics like fault tolerance, security and privacy in distributed systems – including blockchains, machine learning, cloud computing and storage, AI, and data processing.
João Claro, Chairman of the Board at INESC TEC, Rui Oliveira, Director of the Institute, and José Esteves, President of Porto Business School, were responsible for the opening session; all emphasised the importance of collaboration between scientific research and advanced management education. Throughout the programme, the conference also featured three nationally and internationally renowned keynote speakers: Paulo Marques (Feedzai), Evgenia Smirni (William & Mary), and Jacopo Tagliabue (Bauplan), who shared innovative perspectives on the challenges and opportunities in the field.
Among 109 submitted papers and 35 accepted, this edition of the conference presented two awards: the Best Paper Award, granted to the paper “Robust Fingerprinting of Graphs with FinG”, and the Best Student Paper Award, which recognised the paper “Towards Stress Testing the Internet Inter-Domain Routing System ‘in Silico’ with Domino”.
“The organisation of this conference underlines the importance of the reliability of computer systems across a range of topics in which INESC TEC conducts research and innovates,” said José Orlando Pereira, INESC TEC researcher in distributed systems and General Chair of SRDS 2025, together with António Luís Sousa, also an INESC TEC researcher in the same area. “The scientific community in Portugal is also very interested in the reliability of distributed systems,” added the researcher.
It’s important to mention that the first day of the event featured the organisation of three workshops (SwarmAware 2025, DLT4SEC 2025, and RLDM 2025), which fostered debate on emerging topics associated with decentralisation, distributed security, and practical applications of robust tools.
The researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with INESC TEC and UMinho.
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