CAREER: Communication Synchrony

今天的数据中心网络提供的是尽力而为的服务--无法预测通过网络传输数据所需的时间。这种不可预测性减少了系统设计人员可以依赖于网络的假设集，导致正确性问题，性能和可扩展性差，以及高资源开销。该项目旨在设计可预测的数据中心网络。这种网络将使系统不仅在设计上是正确的，而且还能实现比今天的系统更好的性能和效率。可预测的数据中心网络也有可能实现目前不可行的技术和应用。该项目还将通过教育和推广活动产生更广泛的社区影响，包括创建公开的教学材料和工具，以及参与旨在提高选择计算机科学作为专业的弱势背景本科生比例的计划。 该项目引入了一种全新的服务模型-通信同步-使数据中心网络能够保证有限的、可预测的数据传输时间。该项目将围绕三个核心研究方向组织：（1）设计和实现分布式分组交换数据中心网络，使通信同步;（2）开发一个理论框架，以建立基本限制，以及帕累托最优设计的网络，使通信同步;以及（3）通过设计可实现微秒级延迟同时可扩展到太比特以太网的终端主机网络堆栈，演示通信同步的好处。通信同步有可能为后摩尔时代围绕分布式系统、操作系统和终端主机硬件的一些最困难和最重要的技术问题提供解决方案。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Today’s data center networks provide best-effort service—it is impossible to predict the time taken to transmit data across the network. Such unpredictability reduces the set of assumptions that system designers can rely upon from the network, resulting in correctness issues, poor performance and scalability, and high resource overheads. This project aims to design predictable data center networks. Such networks will enable systems that are not only correct by design, but also achieve orders of magnitude better performance and efficiency than today’s systems. Predictable data center networks also have the potential to enable technologies and applications that are infeasible today. This project will also have broader community impact through educational and outreach activities that include creation of publicly available pedagogical materials and tools, and participation in programs that aim to improve the fraction of undergraduates from disadvantaged backgrounds choosing computer science as a major. This project introduces a fundamentally new service model—communication synchrony—that enables data center networks to guarantee bounded, predictable, data transmission times. The project will be organized around three core research thrusts: (1) design and implementation of distributed packet-switched data center networks that enable communication synchrony; (2) development of a theoretical framework to establish fundamental limits, as well as Pareto-optimal designs for networks that enable communication synchrony; and (3) demonstration of the benefits of communication synchrony by designing end-host network stacks that can achieve microsecond-scale latency while scaling to Terabit Ethernet. Communication synchrony has the potential to provide solutions to some of the most difficult and important technical questions surrounding distributed systems, operating systems and end-host hardware for the post-Moore era.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.