Cameron, Kirk University South Carolina Research Foundation
Intellectual Merit: Computer models of complex phenomena deepen our understanding of the universe and indirectly improve our quality of life. Large-scale parallel and distributed systems will be used to meet the computational demands of distributed simulations. If application performance efficiencies do not improve, the performance using thousands of power hungry components will lead to intolerable operating costs and failure rates. Fundamental technologies will be difficult. Years of intense research aimed at improving the performance of applications in parallel and distributed systems have led to average efficiencies of 5-10%. The continued exponential increase in complexity makes maintaining these efficiencies through tuning challenging. Improving efficiency dramatically will require innovation
Broader Impact: Completion of our research plan will create technologies that improve the performance of distributed simulations generally. This impacts a broad range of disciplines that perform simulation-based experimentation including computational physics, biology and chemistry. Reducing power consumption of large-scale applications will reduce operational costs for computational center, increase system reliability through decreased heat emissions, and impact the environment indirectly through energy conservation. Completion of our educational plan will elevate the profile of power-performance considerations in high performance computing. Recruitment and mentoring of students will produce graduates with marketable skill sets. The integration of developed technologies including research discoveries and tools into educational curriculum at the University of South Carolina (USC) will capture the interest of next generation computer scientist. Completion of this project will allow the PI to lay a solid foundation for continued contributions to the field of Computer Science. The objectives of this CAREER proposal are also in line with the institutional goals of USC, an EPSCORE designated State University, to promote research and education through scholarship.
