( May 24th 2011 )
Abstract: Today we are living in a data-dominated world where distributed scientific instruments, as well as clusters, generate terabytes to petabytes of data which are stored increasingly in specialized campus facilities or in the Cloud. It was in response to this challenge that the NSF funded the OptIPuter project to research how user-controlled 10Gbps dedicated lightpaths (or "lambdas") could transform the Grid into a LambdaGrid. This provides direct access to global data repositories, scientific instruments, and computational resources from "OptIPortals," PC clusters which provide scalable visualization, computing, and storage in the user's campus laboratory. The use of dedicated lightpaths over fiber optic cables enables individual researchers to experience "clear channel" 10,000 megabits/sec, 100-1000 times faster than over today's shared Internet-a critical capability for data-intensive science. The seven-year OptIPuter computer science research project is now over, but it stimulated a national and global build-out of dedicated fiber optic networks. U.S. universities now have access to high bandwidth lambdas through the National LambdaRail, Internet2's WaveCo, and the Global Lambda Integrated Facility. A few pioneering campuses are now building on-campus lightpaths to connect the data-intensive researchers, data generators, and vast storage systems to each other on campus, as well as to the national network campus gateways. I will give examples of the application use of this emerging high performance cyberinfrastructure in genomics, ocean observatories, radio astronomy, and cosmology.
Speaker Bio: Larry Smarr is the founding Director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), a UC San Diego/UC Irvine partnership, and holds the Harry E. Gruber professorship in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at UCSD's Jacobs School. At Calit2, Smarr has continued to drive major developments in information infrastructure-- including the Internet, Web, scientific visualization, virtual reality, and global telepresence--begun during his previous 15 years as founding Director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Smarr served as principal investigator on NSF's OptIPuter project and currently is principal investigator of the Moore Foundation's CAMERA project and co-principal investigator on NSF's GreenLight project. In October 2008 he was the Leadership Dialog Scholar in Australia.
Rich Wolski
( May 26, 2011 )
Abstract: Elastic Utility Computing Architecture for Linking Your Programs to Useful Systems, an open-source software infrastructure that implements IaaS-style cloud computing. The goal of Eucalyptus is to allow sites with existing clusters and server infrastructure to host a cloud that is interface-compatible with Amazon's AWS. In addition, through its interfaces, Eucalyptus is able to host cloud platform services such as AppScale (an open source implementation of Google's AppEngine), and Hadoop making it possible the "mix and match" different service paradigms and configurations within the cloud. Finally, Eucalyptus is capable of leveraging a heterogeneous collection of virtualization technologies within a single cloud making it possible to incorporate resources that have already been virtualized without modifying their configuration.
The talk will focus on specific features of the system that are designed to enable rapid development, prototyping, and deployment of local computing clouds, particularly for debugging and/or application development purposes. It will also discuss experiences with hosting the Eucalyptus Public Cloud (EPC) as a free public cloud platform for experimental use and the ability to use the EPC in conjunction with commercial web development services that target AWS, such as Right scale. Finally, we will discuss our experiences in building and supporting open source cloud infrastructure and point to potential future directions that we believe will enable greater innovation.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Rich Wolski is the Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Eucalyptus Systems Inc., and a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Having received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at Davis (while a research scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) he has also held positions at the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Tennessee. He has also been a strategic advisor to the San Diego Supercomputer Center and an adjunct faculty member at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Rich has led several national scale research efforts in the area of high-performance distributed computing and grid computing, is the author of numerous research articles concerning the empirical study of distributed systems, and is the progenitor of the Eucalyptus project.
Albert Y. Zomaya
(May 25th, 2011)
Albert Y. Zomaya, Centre for Distributed & High Performance Computing, School of Information Technologies, The University of Sydney, Australia Cloud computing with the great support of virtualization technologies has become a very compelling computing paradigm. A cloud is an aggregation of resources typically operated/provided by an autonomous administrative entity/body (e.g., Amazon, Google or Microsoft). These resources are not restricted to hardware, processors and storage devices, but they can be also software services. While clouds and grids share some common characteristics, there are a number of distinct differences including resource coupling, runtime environment and usage model. Clouds are primarily driven by economics-the pay-per-use business model like for many basic utilities, such as electricity and water. This business model is very attractive for both vendors and customers. From vendor's perspective, efficient resource management, more specifically resource utilization, plays a crucial role particularly in maximizing profits. Customers can also benefit from efficient resource management in lower service request costs and better response time. This talk will review and address issues associated with this profit-driven resource management.
Speaker Bio: Albert Y. ZOMAYA is currently the Chair Professor of High Performance Computing & Networking and Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow in the School of Information Technologies, The University of Sydney. He is also the Director of the Centre for Distributed and High Performance Computing which was established in late 2009. Professor Zomaya is the author/co-author of seven books, more than 380 papers, and the editor of nine books and 11 conference proceedings. He is the Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Computers and serves as an associate editor for 19 leading journals. Professor Zomaya is the recipient of the Meritorious Service Award (in 2000) and the Golden Core Recognition (in 2006), both from the IEEE Computer Society. He is a Chartered Engineer (CEng), a Fellow of the AAAS, the IEEE, the IET (U.K.), and a Distinguished Engineer of the ACM.
