More Like this

1. From cloud computing to sky computing

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3458336.3465301  

   Stoica, Ion; Shenker, Scott (June 2021, HotOS '21: Proceedings of the Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems)

   We consider the future of cloud computing and ask how we might guide it towards a more coherent service we call sky computing. The barriers are more economic than technical, and we propose reciprocal peering as a key enabling step. 

   more » « less
2. Scalable Software Infrastructure for Integrating Supercomputing with Volunteer Computing and Cloud Computing

   Ritu Arora, Carlos Redondo (April 2019, Communications in computer and information science)

   Volunteer Computing (VC) is a computing model that uses donated computing cycles on the devices such as laptops, desktops, and tablets to do scientific computing. BOINC is the most popular software framework for VC and it helps in connecting the projects needing computing cycles with the volunteers interested in donating the computing cycles on their resources. It has already enabled projects with high societal impact to harness several PetaFLOPs of donated computing cycles. Given its potential in elastically augmenting the capacity of existing supercomputing resources for running High-Throughput Computing (HTC) jobs, we have extended the BOINC software infrastructure and have made it amenable for integration with the supercomputing and cloud computing environments. We have named the extension of the BOINC software infrastructure as BOINC@TACC, and are using it to route *qualified* HTC jobs from the supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) to not only the typically volunteered devices but also to the cloud computing resources such as Jetstream and Chameleon. BOINC@TACC can be extremely useful for those researchers/scholars who are running low on allocations of compute-cycles on the supercomputers, or are interested in reducing the turnaround time of their HTC jobs when the supercomputers are over-subscribed. We have also developed a web-application for TACC users so that, through the convenience of their web-browser, they can submit their HTC jobs for running on the resources volunteered by the community. An overview of the BOINC@TACC project is presented in this paper. The BOINC@TACC software infrastructure is open-source and can be easily adapted for use by other supercomputing centers that are interested in building their volunteer community and connecting them with the researchers needing multi-petascale (and even exascale) computing power for their HTC jobs 

   more » « less
3. Scalable Software Infrastructure for Integrating Supercomputing with Volunteer Computing and Cloud Computing

   https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7729-7_8  

   Ritu Arora, Carlos Redondo (April 2019, Communications in computer and information science)

   Volunteer Computing (VC) is a computing model that uses donated computing cycles on the devices such as laptops, desktops, and tablets to do scientific computing. BOINC is the most popular software framework for VC and it helps in connecting the projects needing computing cycles with the volunteers interested in donating the computing cycles on their resources. It has already enabled projects with high societal impact to harness several PetaFLOPs of donated computing cycles. Given its potential in elastically augmenting the capacity of existing supercomputing resources for running High-Throughput Computing (HTC) jobs, we have extended the BOINC software infrastructure and have made it amenable for integration with the supercomputing and cloud computing environments. We have named the extension of the BOINC software infrastructure as BOINC@TACC, and are using it to route *qualified* HTC jobs from the supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) to not only the typically volunteered devices but also to the cloud computing resources such as Jetstream and Chameleon. BOINC@TACC can be extremely useful for those researchers/scholars who are running low on allocations of compute-cycles on the supercomputers, or are interested in reducing the turnaround time of their HTC jobs when the supercomputers are over-subscribed. We have also developed a web-application for TACC users so that, through the convenience of their web-browser, they can submit their HTC jobs for running on the resources volunteered by the community. An overview of the BOINC@TACC project is presented in this paper. The BOINC@TACC software infrastructure is open-source and can be easily adapted for use by other supercomputing centers that are interested in building their volunteer community and connecting them with the researchers needing multi-petascale (and even exascale) computing power for their HTC jobs. 

   more » « less
4. Integrating Parallel and Distributed Computing in Early Computing Classes

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3545947.3569623  

   Ghafoor, Sheikh; Weems, Charles; Sussman, Alan; Vaidyanathan, Ramachandran; Prasad, Sushil (March 2022, ACM)

   Parallel and distributed computing (PDC) has become pervasive in all aspects of computing, and thus it is essential that students include parallelism and distribution in the computational thinking that they apply to problem solving, from the very beginning. Computer science education is still teaching to a 20th century model of algorithmic problem solving. Sequence, branch, and loop are taught in our early courses as the only organizing principles needed for algorithms, and we invest considerable time in showing how best to sequentially process large volumes of data. All computing devices that students use currently have multiple cores as well as a GPU in many cases. Most of their favorite applications use multiple cores and numbers of distributed processors. Often concurrency offers simpler solutions than sequential approaches. Industry is desperate for software engineers who think naturally in terms of exploiting these capabilities, rather than seeing them as an exotic upper-level topic that gets layered over a sequential solution. However, we are still teaching students to solve problems using sequential thinking. In this workshop we overview key PDC concepts and provide examples of how they may naturally be incorporated in early computing classes. We will introduce plugged and unplugged curriculum modules that have been successfully integrated in existing computing classes at multiple institutions. We will highlight the upcoming summer training workshop, for which we have funding to support attendance, as well as other CDER (Center for Parallel and Distributed Computing Curriculum Development and Educational Resources) activities. 

   more » « less
5. Computing for communities: An Ethnographic examination of an after-school computing program

   Codding, D.; Rolón-Dow, R. (January 2019, 40th Ethnography in Education Research Forum)

   Despite recent efforts to increase diversity, female and racially minoritized youth 1 continue to be underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Our pilot study utilizes culturally responsive frameworks to address the underrepresentation of minoritized youth in computer science (CS) by supporting youth at a local Boys & Girls Club as they develop a sense of competence and belonging in the CS field. Culturally responsive frameworks shape our work with students and inform our research process. This paper examines the context of our pilot study and the positionality of our research team, which includes university researchers and community partners. It also provides a reflexive analysis of our community inquiry process and how it has influenced the development and adaptation of our CS programming. 

   more » « less