CNS Core: Small: Operating System Approaches for a Consolidated Rack Computer

The objective of this project is to lay the foundations for a new type of computer, termed a “rack computer”. Named for the racks commonly used to hold computers in today's data centers, a rack computer consists of several individual computers, co-located in a rack. Instead of large number of individually managed computers, however, a rack computer appears to the user as if it was a single computer with the combined resources of the individual machines.

Toward this goal, the PI will investigate new programming models, communication mechanisms and operating system designs.

Compared to existing techniques from the cloud-, cluster- and super-computing worlds, a rack computer allows the same program to more seamlessly scale from a basic laptop computer, to a full rack of powerful servers. Because one rack can hold a substantial amount of computing power, including as many as 10,000 CPU cores, and because rack computers offer substantial efficiency gains over current techniques, a single rack computer may be enough to host many services that today require complex engineering to bring to Internet scale.

This promises to substantially reduce both development and deployment complexity, and thus costs, while at the same time improving energy efficiency.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.