This paper introduces Archer, a community-based computing resource for
computer architecture research and education. The Archer infrastructure
integrates virtualization and batch scheduling middleware to deliver
high-throughput computing resources aggregated from resources distributed
across wide-area networks and owned by different participating entities in a
seamless manner. The paper discusses the motivations leading to the design of
Archer, describes its core middleware components, and presents an analysis of
the functionality and performance of a prototype wide-area deployment running a
representative computer architecture simulation workload.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures. Describes the Archer project,
http://archer-project.or