II-New: Secure and Efficient Cloud Infrastructure and Accessibility Services

该项目将在石溪大学建立一个研究云计算的实验基础设施。云计算是为Amazon、Google、Facebook和Twitter等在线服务组织和管理服务器的主要方法。尽管云计算提供商正在迅速扩张，但研究文献中对如何最好地构建和使用云的了解很少。这种差异主要源于云计算运营商开展业务的极端保密性，限制了此类知识的传播，以保持竞争优势。该项目将通过让研究人员能够直接试验完整的云基础设施来推进云计算硬件、软件和应用程序的原则性研究。该项目的资金使人们能够购买一个小型计算云，托管在石溪大学的计算机科学大楼中，配置为模拟最先进的数据中心。商业云的用户不能学习云系统设计的许多方面。该项目为研究人员提供了对云基础设施的完整物理访问，使他们能够测量功耗、温度和空气流量等物理特性；访问整个软件堆栈将能够对云资源管理和管理程序实施进行实验；对云资源的无限制访问将实现快速、灵活的基准测试和应用程序开发和集成。此外，直接访问完整的云环境，包括本地开发的应用程序和管理基础设施，将为研究人员提供全面的自省，使端到端的云行为研究成为可能。这项建议将一组PI聚集在一起，他们将以新的经验严谨水平进行与云相关的研究。由于石溪的研究人员和教育工作者有一长串预期的项目，基础设施应该会立即得到大量使用。首批项目中将包括一项关于云应用扩展效率的虚拟化特征研究，该研究将确定云架构中迫切的研究机会。另一项将开始对轻量级虚拟化技术进行规模测量和测试。该基础设施将用于开发和部署基于云的无障碍即服务模式，用于向残疾人提供无障碍数字内容。该项目汇集了在云计算堆栈的所有层工作的研究人员-通过与活跃的用户社区进行现实部署的研究，创造了横切洞察力的可能性。

This project will create an experimental infrastructure for studying cloud computing at Stony Brook University. Cloud computing is the predominant approach for organizing and managing servers for online services such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Although cloud computing providers are rapidly expanding, very little is clearly understood in the research literature about how best to build and use a cloud. This disparity arises primarily from the extreme secrecy in which cloud computing operators conduct their business, limiting the dissemination of such knowledge to retain competitive advantage. This project will advance the principled study of cloud computing hardware, software, and applications, by giving researchers the ability to directly experiment with a complete cloud infrastructure. The funding for this project enables the purchase of a small computing cloud to be hosted in the Computer Science building at Stony Brook University, configured to mimic a state-of-the-art datacenter. Users of commercial clouds cannot study many aspects of cloud system design. This project provides researchers with complete physical access to the cloud infrastructure, enabling measurement of the physical characteristics such as power consumption, temperature, and air flow; access to the entire software stack will enable experimentation on cloud resource management and hypervisor implementation; unrestricted access to the cloud resources will enable rapid flexible benchmark and application development and integration. Moreover, direct access to the complete cloud environment, including the locally-developed applications and management infrastructure, will provide researchers with full introspection that enables end-to-end studies of cloud behavior.This proposal brings together a group of PIs who will conduct cloud-related research with a new level of empirical rigor. Because researchers and educators at Stony Brook have a long list of anticipated projects, the infrastructure should immediately garner heavy use. Among the first projects will be a characterization study of virtualization on the scaling efficiency of cloud applications, which will identify the pressing research opportunities in cloud architecture. Another will begin at-scale measurement and testing of lightweight virtualization techniques. This infrastructure will be leveraged to develop and deploy a cloud-based Accessibility as a Service model for delivering accessible digital content to people with disabilities. This project brings together researchers working at all layers of the cloud computing stack---creating the potential for crosscutting insights from study in a realistic deployment with an active user community.