The application of large-scale cyberinfrastructure to applications such as bio-informatics is resulting in the need to transport and store large quantities of data. Due to the large scale and distributed nature of the biomedical data and health information systems, developing a robust, distributed, and scalable network cyberinfrastructure is a major focus for biomedical informatics research innovation. Among the issues associated with such an infrastructure is the transport of time or delay sensitive data, what is often described as Quality of Service (QoS). Software Defined Network (SDN) technology has the potential for providing QoS but it has not been integrated and demonstrated in end-to-end systems. In addition to health care applications, an integrated system providing QoS is applicable to real time instrument control, transport of real time video and other time-sensitive applications.
This project is enhancing the current network infrastructure with an intelligent middleware service that operates as a broker between the SDN controller and the end-user application. The flexible co-scheduling middleware engine (referred to as Flexware) will provide the capability to dynamically configure a network to best support the varied nature of biomedical inputs. Flexware combines several emerging intelligent network services, such as anycast, manycast, survivability, and parallel transfers for large-scale biomedical data storage and retrieval under a shared umbrella that provides an application with customized and optimized network performance. This project will have significant impacts on improving the quality of healthcare applications, providing clinical and scientific researchers with flexible and efficient network resource allocation for studying patient behavior, and training the next generation workforce in medical and engineering fields.
