Center for Experimental Research
in Computer Systems
(CERCS)
Georgia Institute of Technology
Ohio State University
Karsten Schwan, Calton Pu, Douglas Blough,
Sudhakar Yalamanchili
Jay Ramananathan
Rajiv Ramnath
IUCRCERCS NSF Industry University Co-operative Research Center
Mission
Lead the innovation of systems, computing, and information technologies, to further the
development of the interactive and distributed information services of the future, and to
create the intellectual capital that can advance these technologies and fuel future
discoveries.
Enterprise
Scientific
Grid
Remote and Mobile Access
Mobile/Pervasive
Information anytime, anywhere 
Seamlessness!
Quality!
Security!
Robustness!
Timeliness!
Extended Mission
• Educational:
– Seed new curricula at GT and serve as a curricular resource for
educational institutions worldwide
– Business models for curricular and professional education delivery
– Training of graduate students through the administration of an extensive
internship program
• Outreach:
– Work with our alumni to create new opportunities and build networks
– Service to the broader community
CERCS Research Thrusts
Scientific
Computing
Multicore
Software Stack
Energy
Management
Systems
Infrastructure&
Management
End User
Engagement
Enterprise
Systems
Mobile
Systems
Research Projects
• Programming models &
Compilation – IBM, Intel
• Execution models &
run-time systems – IBM
Logicbblox
• Virtualization Support –
IBM, Intel, HP
• Virtual Power - OSISoft
• Architecture–Package
Co-Design
• Power Efficient Global
Memory Systems - Intel
• Configuration Management in
Virtualized Systems – HP, ATT
• High Performance I/O - DOE
• Virtualization & Mobility –
Motorola
• Privacy in Healthcare –
Childrens Hospital
• CETI program – OSU
Datacenter Energy
Usage - Nationwide
• Cloud Computing
Critical Enterprise
Systems – IBM, Yahoo
Strategic Thrusts - Highlights
– Scientific/Technical Computing – `Big Data’: Scalable, Reliable Access:
• GT: IHPCL Laboratory (Intel and NVIDIA donations for a Heterogeneous Virtualized
Multicore (HVM) Platforms Lab – Cell, GPU, and Tolopai platforms); Intel multicore
education - cercs.gatech.edu/multicore
• DOE: ORNL, Sandia: High Performance I/O initiative; involvement with startups (RNet
– Ohio); joint proposals and joint research/interns
• IBM/Intel (IBM OCR grant: managed multicore systems, Intel - HVM; LogicBlox
(Atlanta); ICE (Atlanta)
• News: Substantially strengthened engagement with DOE at ORNL; new awards from
NSF; opportunities in `green’ computing; Cloud computing/HPC linkages; applications
in collaborative medicine
Strategic Thrusts - Highlights
– Embedded Systems/Computer Architecture:
• Boeing (testing – Mary Jean Harrold);
• IBM/Intel (lightweight methods for virtualizing multicore platforms; system-level
power management)
• Motorola (virtualizing mobile platforms; future home entertainment)
• Netronome (network appliances)
• Federal: pervasive and mobile applications; Cyberphysical Systems program
(medical, green); NIH challenge grants
• Sony (gaming applications; startup company – tool chains)
• Samsung (Star Center) and STI center - separate efforts
• News: increased engagement with Motorola (joint with GVU and other research
centers at Georgia Tech) with focus on home entertainment/interactive video;
linkage to energy management in datacenters
throughput,
response times
image quality,
end-to-end delay,
jitter, loss rate
Strategic Thrusts - Highlights
– Enterprise Computing – Clean Information: Adaptive, Trusted, Sustainable:
• Cisco, Netronome (network appliances; IB, QoS, network, and device virtualization)
• IBM, Intel, OSISoft (critical enterprise cloud computing (CECCS); autonomics in
virtualized systems; I/O virtualization; trusted passages/reliable operation; coordinated
power management; `Green Cloud’ effort joint with ME)
• TCS (failure diagnosis and fault containment)
• ATT/HP (automated deployment; scalable, open source datacenter management and
monitoring infrastructures; maintainability; sustainability; exascale datacenters and
clouds; OpenCirrus experimental cloud computing infrastructure)
• Travelport (runtime behavior/fault detection/QoI management; practical use of
multicore systems in enterprise applications)
• ICE (high performance financial applications)
• LogicBlox (dynamic code generation - efficient data queries, acceleration architectures)
• VMWare (cloud computing, embedded systems); targeted summer interns
• News: NSF-funded project on data privacy in healthcare (McKesson, Childrens
Hospital); cloud computing collaboration with Center on Comprehensive Informatics
(Emory); NetApp collaboration pending; outreach to Italy and Brazil collaborators
Front - end
Middle-tier
Application Logic Data Base
Proxy Server
Inte
rnet
CERCS Personnel
• Faculty
– Mustaque Ahamad, Mostafa Ammar, Doug Blough, Nate Clark, Tom
Conte, Greg Eisenhauer, Nick Feamster, Richard Fujimoto, Ada
Gavrilovska, Jon Giffin, Alexander Gray, Mary Jean Harrold,
Hyesoon Kim, Hsien-Hsin Lee, Wenke Lee, Ling Liu, Gabriel Loh,
Alex Orso, Henry Owen, Santosh Pande, Milos Prvulovic, Calton
Pu, Kishore Ramachandran, Jay Ramanathan (Ohio State), Rajiv
Ramnath (Ohio State), George Riley, David Schimmel, Karsten
Schwan, Rich Vuduc, Matthew Wolf, Hongyan Zha, Sudhakar
Yalamanchili, (Ellen Zegura)
• Associated Faculty/Researchers
– Tucker Balch (Robotics), Patrick Bridges (UNM), Robert Butera,
Steve DeWeerth, Irfan Essa, Phil Hutto, Byron Jeff (Clayton State),
Scott Klasky (ORNL), Kang Li, Sung Kyu Lim, Arthur Maccabe
(UNM->ORNL), Pete Manolios (Northeastern), Vincent Mooney,
Jeff Nichols (ORNL), Kalyan Perumalla (ORNL), Jeff Vetter
(ORNL), Patrick Widener (UNM)
Industrial Relations
• IUCR CERCS Center
– Contributors (GT): Boeing, Cisco, Delta, DOE, HP, IBM, Intel,
LogicBlox, Motorola, Netronome, OSISoft, TCS, Travelport
(Worldspan); VMWare, more in Ohio
– Industry Workshops and Industrial Advisory Board
• Joint initiatives - e.g., expansion to Ohio State (joint
curriculum/facility efforts), planned expansion to UNM; outreach
to Italy and Brazil
• Internship Program
– Amazon, ATT, CISCO, Dell, Delta, (DoCoMo), DOE (ORNL,
Sandia), Google, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, NetApp,
(Radisys), TCS, VMWare, TravelPort (Worldspan), Yahoo, small
companies
• Evolving relationships:
– Amazon, ATT, DoCoMo, Microsoft, NetApp, NVIDIA, QualComm,
Raytheon, RNet, VMWare, Yahoo, Xilinx