| Enterprise |
| The Vision |
|
The Enterprise project is investigating the
computing technologies needed to support enterprise applications. To this
end, we have purchased a
24-processor SunFire 6800, an array of 50 PC's to use as an active disk
array, and gigabit networking equipment.
The active disk array provides high storage capacity and the ability to
use processors close to the disks in order to filter and pre-process data.
The SMP, the active disk array, and an existing 32-node Linux cluster are
connected through three Gigabit switches.
This infrastructure will enable the department to establish a leading research program in the computing technologies used to support enterprise applications. These applications include database servers, file servers, multimedia servers, and ``enterprise application'' servers. Our research group will eventually consist of at least thirteen faculty members (the equipment will initially support 10 current faculty and approximately 35 graduate students and post-docs), including several new systems faculty to be hired over the next several years. Though the group's projects include a broad range of specific activities, the overriding vision for the group will be a unified investigation of how to structure and support large-scale server applications. We will take a vertical approach to this problem, investigating issues at every level from the application down to the network protocol level. |
| Big Iron: 24-processor SunFire 6800 |
| The Active Disks... |
| Co-PI's... |
|
The Co-PI's are as follows: |