CISE Research Infrastructure: (I^3)C: An Infrastructure for Innovation in Information Computing

EIA 02-02007

Das, Chita R.

Acharya, Raj; Giles, C. L.; Irwin, Mary Jane; Plassman, Paul E.

Pennsylvania State University

(I^3\)C: An Infrastructure for Innovation in Information Computing

This proposal, advancing the state-of-the-art in cluster computing, addresses a broad spectrum of interactive and archival information processing issues that require intensive computational capabilities. A high performance compute-engine (clusters), the Access Net, Storage Network (file and database server), and a Media Lab (multimedia and graphics equipment, workstations, laptops, PDAs, and software) comprise the infrastructure that will support the following three core areas, with respective research activities:

1. Applications

a. Computational Science

b. Digital Immortality

c. Bioinformatics

2. System Software

a. Cluster Scheduling

b. Shared I/O Support

c. Fault Tolerance

3. Architecture

a. QoS Support for Multimedia and E-Commerce Applications in Clustered-Servers

b. Design of Energy-Efficient Hardware and Software Optimizations

c. Energy Perspective Optimization of Different Layers of the Wireless Protocol Stack

The project focuses on three application areas (Computational Science, Digital Immortality, and Bioinformatics) to examine common research issues, which in turn drive the Software and Architecture research for providing holistic solutions to challenging problems. A research team, consisting of 25 investigators from three different colleges, will benefit from this infrastructure by strengthening their interdisciplinary research through cross-fertilization of new ideas.