HEC: Collaborative Research: SAM^2 Toolkit: Scalable and Adaptive Metadata Management for High-End Computing

The increasing demand for Exa-byte-scale storage capacity by high end computing applications requires a higher level of scalability and dependability than that provided by current file and storage systems. The proposal deals with file systems research for metadata management of scalable cluster-based parallel and distributed file storage systems in the HEC environment. It aims to develop a scalable and adaptive metadata management (SAM2) toolkit to extend features of and fully leverage the peak performance promised by state-of-the-art cluster-based parallel and distributed file storage systems used by the high performance computing community. There is a large body of research on data movement and management scaling, however, the need to scale up the attributes of cluster-based file systems and I/O, that is, metadata, has been underestimated. An understanding of the characteristics of metadata traffic, and an application of proper load-balancing, caching, prefetching and grouping mechanisms to perform metadata management correspondingly, will lead to a high scalability. It is anticipated that by appropriately plugging the scalable and adaptive metadata management components into the state-of-the-art cluster-based parallel and distributed file storage systems one could potentially increase the performance of applications and file systems, and help translate the promise and potential of high peak performance of such systems to real application performance improvements. The project involves the following components: 1. Develop multi-variable forecasting models to analyze and predict file metadata access patterns. 2. Develop scalable and adaptive file name mapping schemes using the duplicative Bloom filter array technique to enforce load balance and increase scalability 3. Develop decentralized, locality-aware metadata grouping schemes to facilitate the bulk metadata operations such as prefetching. 4. Develop an adaptive cache coherence protocol using a distributed shared object model for client-side and server-side metadata caching. 5. Prototype the SAM2 components into the state-of-the-art parallel virtual file system PVFS2 and a distributed storage data caching system, set up an experimental framework for a DOE CMS Tier 2 site at University of Nebraska-Lincoln and conduct benchmark, evaluation and validation studies

Realizing an Integrated Electronic Commerce Portal System

This experience report1 describes the design and implementation of an electronic commerce portal system for insurance companies which supports the insurance agents in their daily work. The electronic commerce portal, called IPSI, is used within an intranet. The insurance agents need information about their industrial and private customers and have to be supported in organizing their work by an organizer with reminder function, address management, etc. The insurance company has the goal to provide its employees with the most current information about its product portfolio and tariffs as well as wordings of the law and comments on it. An electronic commerce portal therefore has to provide a multitude of functions. The advantage of a portal lies in the integration of different software systems that provide these functions and thus leads the users directly to the desired information. They do not have to search awkwardly and are not served with irrelevant information. An object oriented design using UML, the realization of adequate adaptors for the integration of different heterogeneous software systems using the Java programming language, and the use of the middleware CORBA for communication within the portal were objectives of the project. This project was realized by the University of Dortmund in cooperation with different insurance and software companies. The electronic commerce portal was implemented as a prototype for a certain insurance company, including the integration of one of their legacy systems

A Survey of Smart Energy Services for Private Households

The energy sector is challenged by the ongoing digitalization with emerging smart energy products and services. Smart energy products such as smart meters leverage innovative smart energy services promising both new business opportunities and values for customers. Smart products and services could enhance energy efficiency as well as enable private households to produce their own energy. Although services are regarded as a bridge to the customer, research on smart energy services is scarce. To address the gap, we assess smart energy services discussed in research and in the German consumer market and compare the findings from literature with the real market. Our survey provides researchers and practitioners with an overview of smart energy services and can serve as a starting point for service design, which in turn can support the diffusion of energy saving technologies

TIA Software User's Manual

This user's manual describes the installation and operation of TIA, the Thermal-Imaging acquisition and processing Application, developed by the Nondestructive Evaluation Sciences Branch at NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia. TIA is a user friendly graphical interface application for the Macintosh 2 and higher series computers. The software has been developed to interface with the Perceptics/Westinghouse Pixelpipe(TM) and PixelStore(TM) NuBus cards and the GW Instruments MacADIOS(TM) input-output (I/O) card for the Macintosh for imaging thermal data. The software is also capable of performing generic image-processing functions

Semantically-aware data discovery and placement in collaborative computing environments

As the size of scientific datasets and the demand for interdisciplinary collaboration grow in modern science, it becomes imperative that better ways of discovering and placing datasets generated across multiple disciplines be developed to facilitate interdisciplinary scientific research. For discovering relevant data out of large-scale interdisciplinary datasets. The development and integration of cross-domain metadata is critical as metadata serves as the key guideline for organizing data. To develop and integrate cross-domain metadata management systems in interdisciplinary collaborative computing environment, three key issues need to be addressed: the development of a cross-domain metadata schema; the implementation of a metadata management system based on this schema; the integration of the metadata system into existing distributed computing infrastructure. Current research in metadata management in distributed computing environment largely focuses on relatively simple schema that lacks the underlying descriptive power to adequately address semantic heterogeneity often found in interdisciplinary science. And current work does not take adequate consideration the issue of scalability in large-scale data management. Another key issue in data management is data placement, due to the increasing size of scientific datasets, the overhead incurred as a result of transferring data among different nodes also grow into a significant inhibiting factor affecting overall performance. Currently, few data placement strategies take into consideration semantic information concerning data content. In this dissertation, we propose a cross-domain metadata system in a collaborative distributed computing environment and identify and evaluate key factors and processes involved in a successful cross-domain metadata system with the goal of facilitating data discovery in collaborative environments. This will allow researchers/users to conduct interdisciplinary science in the context of large-scale datasets that will make it easier to access interdisciplinary datasets, reduce barrier to collaboration, reduce cost of future development of similar systems. We also investigate data placement strategies that involve semantic information about the hardware and network environment as well as domain information in the form of semantic metadata so that semantic locality could be utilized in data placement, that could potentially reduce overhead for accessing large-scale interdisciplinary datasets

Integració de bases de dades referents a informació geotècnica i al comportament de talussos en un projecte SIG

The current computer systems allow to register a great amount of data that keep on making the data bases of different organisms of the administration grow. Storage systems and data processing used are very diverse and there is great heterogeneity in the structures and formats hampering their compatibility. Civil work projects in Catalonia have generated a large amount of geological and geotechnical information which is gathered in a data base (DB) owned by GISA (Gestió d’Infraestructures S.A.). The DB, named as DINS (Dades INtegrades del Subsòl), includes records of the location of the surveys, borehole logs and both in situ and laboratory geotechnical tests. On the other hand, DGC (Direcció General de Carreteres) created a DB on the incident records in roads, which includes the occurrence of rock falls and slides, and the geomechanical characteristics of the slopes. In this work we present a GIS platform that we have set up capable to extract and manage all the available data from both DB and also from surveys carried out by the IGC (Institut Geològic de Catalunya). A significant part of the work have consisted of making compatible the databases and configuring the data-queries. The main goal of this work has been design a data-query tool which could be used by GISA, DGC and IGC. The GIS platform will allow the possibility of adding and overlapping the geological and hazard maps to the infrastructure network. This will help the decision-makers. Specifically, the GIS is able to show all the geotechnical information and the observed slope behaviour all over the catalan territory. Furthermore, it will allow the use of search criteria exclusive of a relational DB, or spatial criteria such as belonging to a region (municipality or a geological formation) or the vicinity to a conflicting slope or project.Els sistemes informàtics actuals permeten registrar una gran quantitat de dades que dia a dia van fent créixer les bases de dades de diferents organismes de l’administració. Els sistemes d’emmagatzematge i tractament d’informació que s’utilitzen són molt diversos i s’observa una gran heterogeneïtat en les estructures i formats dificultant la seva compatibilització. A l’entorn dels projectes d’obra civil a Catalunya es genera molta informació de caire geològico - geotècnic que es registra en una base de dades (BD) des de l’empresa pública GISA (Gestió d’Infraestructures S.A.). Aquesta BD s’anomena DINS (Dades INtegrades del Subsòl) i registra la localització de les prospeccions així com els registres dels sondeigs i els resultats dels assaigs tant in situ com de laboratori. Per altra banda, la DGC (Direcció General de Carreteres) registra en una BD les incidències viàries provocades per talussos inestables, és a dir, caigudes de blocs i moviments de massa dels quals se’n registra la localització i alguns trets geomètrics i geològico - geotècnics. En aquest marc de gestió de dades espacials del terreny, es posa sobre la taula la possibilitat de compatibilitzar les dues bases de dades en un projecte SIG (Sistemes d’Informació Geogràfica) capaç d’aglutinar tota la informació procedent tant de la BD de talussos inestables de la DGC com de la BD DINS de GISA, i fins i tot les prospeccions realitzades per l’Institut Geològic de Catalunya. L’objectiu fonamental d’aquest projecte és dissenyar una eina de gestió i consulta d’informació del terreny que pugui ser utilitzada per GISA, la DGC i l’IGC. La possibilitat de les eines SIG d’afegir i superposar els plànols dels projectes i les cartografies geològiques i de riscos, ajudarà a la presa de decisions al tenir disponible una major quantitat d’informació conjuntament. Concretament, aquest nou projecte SIG permetrà tenir tota la informació de les campanyes geotècniques antecedents distribuïdes sobre el territori català creuada amb el comportament dels talussos observat per la DGC. A més a més, permetrà utilitzar criteris de cerca propis d’una BD relacional, o criteris espacials com la pertinença a una regió (municipis o una formació geològica), o la proximitat a un nou projecte o a un talús conflictiu

Revisiting Client/Server Computing

The role of the Information Technology department is changing as it continues to mature and adapt to changes in technology, much of that change dealing with its interaction with corporate end-users. IT departments must continue to move in a more user friendly direction or they are going to encounter serious political problems with top management. The increased interest in cloud computing, green computing, and in outsourcing are further indicators of the problems that IT departments are currently facing.   Information Technology departments must approach client/server with a clear view of the lasting business benefits that it can bring rather than opposing or resisting the migratio

Применение технологий цифровой экономики в розничной торговле

В статье рассматриваются практические аспекты применения в розничной торговле отдельных технологий цифровой экономики – «Интернет вещей» и виртуальной реальности

Technical Reports (2004 - 2009)

Authors of Technical Reports (2005-2009): Choueiry, Berthe Cohen, Myra Deogun, Jitender Dwyer, Matthew Elbaum, Sebastian Goddard, Steve Henninger, Scott Jiang, Hong Lu, Ying Ramamurthy, Byrav Rothermel, Gregg Scott, Stephen Seth, Sharad Soh, Leen-Kiat Srisa-an, Witty Swanson, David Variyam, Vinodchandran Wang, Jun Xu, Lison