INTEL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY CENTER

CLOUD COMPUTING

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Distributed system performance problems can be diagnosed by comparing traced request flows...

Multiple frameworks (e.g., Hadoop and Dryad) can be run on the same cluster with Mesos...

Open Cirrus offers free cloud computing resources, world-wide, based on open source systems...

ISTC-CC: News

MEMBER NEWS | ISTC-CC IN THE PRESS

Garth Gibson & RANDY KATZ Receive 2012 Jean-Claude Laprie Award in Dependable Computing

MARCH 30, 2012

Garth Gibson and Randy Katz have been awarded the 2012 Jean-Claude Laprie Award in Dependable Computing, Industrial/Commercial Product Impact Category, by the IFIP Working Group 10.4 on Dependable Computing and Fault Tolerance. The award is for outstanding papers published at least 10 years ago that have significantly influenced the theory and/or practice of dependable computing, and given for "A Case for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID)," by D.A. Patterson, G.A. Gibson, and R.H. Katz, Proc. of 1988 ACM SIGMOD Int. Conf. on Management of Data, June 2, 1998. The groundbreaking paper introduced the concept of RAID, which rapidly became the common configuration paradigm for disks at all but the very low end of the server market. Its impact is primarily to industry where RAID was a truly disruptive technology. The RAID levels as defined in this paper persist to the present day. The paper familiarized development engineers who didn't normally work in the area of High Availability or Fault Tolerance with the concepts of improving reliability and availability through redundancy.

The award will be made at the 42nd Annual IEEE/IFIP Dependable Systems and Networks Conference (DSN), Boston, MA, June 25-28, 2012.
-- info from http://www.dependability.org/articles/laprie/laprie2012.html

Onur Mutlu receives George Tallman Ladd award

FEB 23, 2012

Onur Mutlu, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering has received the George Tallman Ladd Research Award. The G.T. Ladd award is made to a faculty member within the Carnegie Institute of Technology in recognition of outstanding research and professional accomplishments and potential. The award is in the form of a memento and an honorarium. More than one award may be made in each year and is made based on excellence in research as measured by scholarly publications, research program development, development of funding, and awards and other recognition. Congratulations Onur!

Prof Aims to Rebuild Google With Stuff In Desk Drawer

JAN 5, 2012

"Dave Andersen looked into a desk drawer filled with tiny computers. Each was no bigger than a hardback novel, and their chips ran no faster than 600 MHz. Built by a little-known company called Soekris Engineering, they were meant to be wireless access points or network firewalls, and that's how Andersen — a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon — used them in a previous research project. But that project was over, and he thought: "They've got to be good for something else."" [more]
Wired -- Jan 5, 2012

ISTC-CC: CMU's early distributed file systems work laid foundation for cloud storage

DEC 25, 2011

Many years later, CMU's seminal work on distributed file systems continues to have huge impact on the field. From AFS to Coda, CMU's work has laid a foundation atop which some of the most popular cloud backup and sharing systems, such as Dropbox and iCloud, are built. Check out this Wired article for more.
Wired -- December 25, 2011

GUY Blelloch named an aCM fellow

DEC 8, 2011

Congratulations to Guy Blelloch, who has been made an ACM Fellow for his contributions to parallel computing. The ACM Fellows Program was established by Council in 1993 to recognize and honor outstanding ACM members for their achievements in computer science and information technology and for their significant contributions to the mission of the ACM. The ACM Fellows serve as distinguished colleagues to whom the ACM and its members look for guidance and leadership as the world of information technology evolves.

Garth GIBSON's and RANDY KATZ's 1988 RAID Paper Enters SIGOPS Hall of Fame

OCT 25, 2011

We are very pleased to announce that Garth Gibson's original RAID paper from SIGMOD 1988 --- "A Case for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks" by Patterson, Gibson and Katz --- was one of the four papers to be honored as a 2011 SIGOPS Hall of Fame Award paper. The award was made at the 23rd ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP), October 23-26, 2011, Cascais, Portugal.
The SIGOPS Hall of Fame Award was instituted in 2005 to recognize the most influential Operating

Systems papers that were published at least ten years in the past. The Hall of Fame Award Committee consists of past program chairs from SOSP, OSDI, EuroSys, past Weiser and Turing Award winners from the SIGOPS community, and representatives of each of the Hall of Fame Award papers.

Intel Labs Invests $30M in the Future of Cloud and Embedded Computing with the Opening of Latest Intel Science and Technology Centers

AUG 3, 2011

SANTA CLARA, Calif., August 3, 2011 – Aimed at shaping the future of cloud computing and how increasing numbers of everyday devices will add computing capabilities, Intel Labs announced the latest Intel Science and Technology Centers (ISTC) for Cloud Computing Research and for Embedded Computing, both headquartered at Carnegie Mellon University.

The ISTC for Cloud Computing forms a new cloud computing research community that broadens Intel's "Cloud 2015" vision with new ideas from top academic researchers, and includes research that extends and improves on Intel's existing cloud computing initiatives. The center combines top researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of California Berkeley, Princeton University, and Intel. The researchers will explore technology that will have has important future implications for the cloud, including built-in application optimization, more efficient and effective support of big data analytics on massive amounts of online data, and making the cloud more distributed and localized by extending cloud capabilities to the network edge and even to client devices.

In the future, these capabilities could enable a digital personal handler via a device wired into your glasses that sees what you see, to constantly pull data from the cloud and whisper information to you during the day -- telling you who people are, where to buy an item you just saw, or how to adjust your plans when something new comes up.
-- from Intel News Room, by Connie Brown

SATYA RECEIVES OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTIONS AWARD AT MOBISYS'11

JUNE 30, 2011

Congratulations to Prof. M. Satyanarayanan (Satya), who was awarded the SIGMOBILE 2010 Outstanding Contributions Award "for pioneering a wide spectrum of technologies in support of disconnected and weakly connected mobile clients" at Mobisys 2011. He joins an illustrious group of previous winners, including Prof. Daniel P. Siewiorek in 2006, who received the award "for pioneering fundamental contributions to wearable and context-aware computing." The SIGMOBILE Outstanding Contribution Award is given for significant and lasting contributions to the research on mobile computing and communications and wireless networking.

FAWN TEAM Winner of 2011 10GB JouleSort Daytona and Indy categories

JUNE 2011

The FAWN team, a joint Intel-CMU group, including Padmanabhan Pillai, Michael Kaminsky, Michael A. Kozuch, Vijay Vasudevan, Lawrence Tan and David G. Andersen won the 2011 10GB JouleSort competition using a Sandy Bridge-based platform with Intel SSDs. For more details see FAWNSort: Energy-efficient Sorting of 10GB and the Sort Benchmark Home Page.

ONUR MUTLU RECEIVES IEEE YOUNG COMPUTER ARCHITECT AWARD

JUNE 23, 2011

ECE Assistant Professor Onur Mutlu has earned the inaugural IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Computer Architecture's Young Computer Architect Award "in recognition of outstanding contributions in the field of computer architecture in both research and education." The award recognizes outstanding contributions in the field of computer architecture by an individual who received their Ph.D. within six years of their nomination.
-- 8.5x11 News, June 23, 2011, Vol. 21, No. 49

CAROLE-JEAN WU, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, WINS INTEL CORPORATION FELLOWSHIP

JUNE 6, 2011

Electrical Engineering Graduate Student Carole-Jean Wu has won the Intel Corporation PhD Fellowship for the 2011-2012 academic year. The focus of her research (under the advising of Princeton Professor Margaret Martonosi) is on shared resource management for CMP systems. This fellowship is awarded to exceptional Ph.D. candidates engaging in innovative work in fields related to Intel's business and research interests. In addition to the cash award, recipients of this fellowship are also prioritized for internship and hiring within the company.
-- http://www.src.org/newsroom/article/2011/206/

SWAPNIL PATIL RECEIVES ACM STUDENT RESEARCH AWARD!

JUNE 4, 2011

Swapnil Patil, a PhD student in computer science at Carnegie Mellon, took first place in the graduate student category of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Student Research Competition Grand Finals. Patil received the award June 4 at the ACM Awards Banquet in San Jose, CA, for his development of a file system director service that scales to millions of files, which he presented at SC10, the international conference for high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis. ACM's Student Research Program is sponsored by Microsoft Research to encourage students to pursue careers in computer science research, and to ensure the future of scientific discovery and innovation. The competitions, held at 13 major ACM Special Interest Group conferences within the last year, featured research projects produced by an international array of computer science graduate and undergraduate students. Winners from each of the SIG competitions were then eligible to compete in the Grand Finals.

THREE Mutlu Papers Named Top Picks

FEBRUARY 28, 2011

Three research papers co-authored by Assistant Professor of ECE Onur Mutlu have been published in a collection of 2010's most significant computer architecture papers, as chosen by IEEE Micro magazine. At the beginning of each year, the leading IEEE periodical in computer architecture and design selects 10–12 "Top Pick" computer architecture papers of the past year based on the publication's novelty and potential for long-term impact. Eleven were selected for 2010.

The first publication, "Aergia: Exploiting Packet Latency Slack in On-Chip Networks," highlights more efficient on-chip communication mechanisms. It introduces methods that identify messages critical for system performance in multicore systems and develops scheduling policies that take advantage of this information. The paper — co-written by Mutlu, Reetuparna Das (Intel), Chita Das (Penn State University), and Thomas Moscibroda (Microsoft Research) — originally appeared at the 37th International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA). The Top Picks version of the paper is available here.

In the second Top Pick, "Data Marshaling for Multicore Architectures," Mutlu and colleagues from the HPS Research Group at the University of Texas at Austin develop hardware/software cooperative methods to reduce the performance overhead of remotely executing a code segment in a multicore system. The paper, co-written by Aater Suleman, Jose Joao, Khubaib, and Yale Patt, also originally appeared at the 37th ISCA. The Top Picks version of the paper is available here.

The third paper, "Thread Cluster Memory Scheduling: Exploiting Differences in Memory Access Behavior," presents a new memory scheduling algorithm that addresses system throughput and fairness separately with the goal of achieving the best of both. This paper, co-authored by Yoongu Kim, Michael Papamichael and Mor Harchol-Balter, appeared in the Proceedings of the 43rd International Symposium on Microarchitecture (MICRO), pages 65-76, Atlanta, GA, December 2010.

For more on Mutlu's work, visit www.ece.cmu.edu/~safari/.
--from ECE News, Feb 28, 2011

Sloan Fellowships for 2011 Announced

FEBRUARY 2011

Congratulations to David Andersen has been named a 2011 Sloan Foundation Fellow. The complete list of awardees is here.

Gregory Ganger Earns ECE Professorship For Expertise In Computer Systems

FEBRUARY 10, 2011

Gregory R. Ganger was awarded the Stephen J. Jatras Professorship in Electrical and Computer Engineering for cutting-edge work in computer systems. The professorship is named for the late Stephen J. Jatras (E'47), former chairman of the Telex Corp. and a leader in a variety of academic, civic and community organizations stretching from Pittsburgh to Tulsa, OK.

Ganger, who recently testified in Washington, D.C., about the risks and benefits of cloud computing, is internationally recognized for his work in computer systems, such as storage systems, distributed systems and operating systems.

Since 2001, Ganger has served as director of the Parallel Data Lab (PDL), where he is collaborating with HP labs on a research initiative focused on cloud computing issues through the prestigious HP Labs Innovation Program. More than 50 students, staff and faculty contribute to PDL research activities, and 19 of the top companies sponsor and participate in the ongoing work.

"Greg is an outstanding researcher, educator and academic leader. His work addresses fundamental engineering challenges, and solves important problems even while he builds unique systems and organizations. He is a wonderful example of the spirit of Carnegie Mellon's culture of collaboration," said Ed Schlesinger, head of Carnegie Mellon's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
-- 8.5x11 News, Feb. 10, 2011 - Vol. 21, No. 30

BEST PAPER AWARD

AUGUST 15, 2010

Congratulations to M. Martonosi and her group for winning the best paper award for "Capping the Brown Energy Consumption of Internet Services at Low Cost" at the first International Green Computing Conference (IGCC), held in Chicago, IL in August 2010.

GREGORY GANGER TESTIFIES IN WASHINGTON ABOUT BENEFITS AND RISKS OF USING CLOUD COMPUTING

JUNE 30, 2010

In testimony to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization and Procurement, Gregory Ganger discussed the benefits and risks of using cloud computing.

Ganger, head of Carnegie Mellon's Parallel Data Lab and a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said that cloud computing has the potential to provide large efficiency improvements for federal information technology (IT) functions. Cloud computing refers to computing that is based on the Internet, which allows computer users to share software, databases and other services that are provided or managed by other parties over the Web. This contrasts with personal computing, where all data storage and processing occurs within the user's computer and uses software loaded onto that computer.

Ganger recommended to federal officials that the government support both standardization and research/experimentation efforts in the pursuit of cloud computing's potential. He also noted that moving federal IT "to the cloud" will require significant technical and change management training for IT staff and managers as well as explicit information and effort sharing across a broad swath of federal agencies considering the use of cloud computing.

"Cloud computing is an exciting realization of a long-sought concept: computing as a utility. Pursuing judicious use for federal IT functions is important, given the large potential benefits," Ganger said.

View the webcast | Prepared text of Greg's testimony | Links to all prepared text of all participants

-- from Carnegie Mellon Media Notification, June 30, 2010