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

该项目的目标是为一种称为“机架计算机”的新型计算机奠定基础。机架式计算机以当今数据中心中通常用于容纳计算机的机架命名，机架式计算机由位于机架中的多台单独计算机组成。然而，代替大量单独管理的计算机，机架计算机对用户来说看起来好像是具有各个机器的组合资源的单个计算机。为了实现这一目标，PI将研究新的编程模型，通信机制和操作系统设计。与云计算、集群计算和超级计算领域的现有技术相比，机架式计算机允许相同的程序从基本的笔记本电脑更无缝地扩展到功能强大的服务器的完整机架。因为一个机架可以容纳大量的计算能力，包括多达10，000个CPU核心，并且因为机架计算机提供了比当前技术大得多的效率增益，所以单个机架计算机可能足以托管今天需要复杂工程来实现互联网规模的许多服务。这有望大幅降低开发和部署的复杂性，从而降低成本，同时提高能源效率。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并且通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响进行评估，被认为值得支持审查标准。

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.