Collaborative Research: CISE: Large: Systems Support for Run-Anywhere Serverless

计算资源比以往任何时候都更加丰富和分散。原则上，这种丰富的计算和存储应该允许应用程序运行得更快、更便宜、更节能。然而，这样做的应用程序很少，而且通常属于极少数大型科技公司之一。该项目旨在通过在任何位置(跨客户端设备、边缘计算位置和多个云)启用并优化、正确和安全地执行应用程序逻辑，使对整个计算资源空间的访问大众化。为了实现项目的随时随地执行的愿景，需要为四层系统支持开发一个新的协同设计：1)可以在任何地方执行应用程序的运行时；2)大量的缓存，可以在任何地方无缝访问数据；3)与缓存协作的数据存储，以确保应用程序的一致性和数据持久性；以及4)调度器，它集成来自其他层的信息，以决定在哪里运行计算和移动数据，以优化性能、可用性、成本和能量。这些共同设计层的开发将利用六名研究人员密切合作的不同专业知识。它的发展有可能改善在线应用程序，这些应用程序是人们生活中不可或缺的一部分。该项目应该使应用程序的延迟、成本、带宽使用和能效的自动优化可供许多应用程序访问，即使是由一个人开发的应用程序也是如此。应用时延的优化将改善所有用户的体验，对农村社区和其他互联网连接较差地区的用户影响尤其大。此外，它有可能使计算和数据资源的充分利用和优化无处不在，并可供所有人使用。此外，它将通过吸收来自研究大学的本科生，特别是在研究经验中服务于未被充分代表的群体的机构的本科生，培训研究生，并扩大本科生对计算机科学的参与，来促进发现和扩大参与。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Computing resources are more abundant and more distributed than ever before. In principle, this abundance of compute and storage should allow applications to run faster, cheaper, and more energy efficiently. Yet applications that do so are few and far between, and usually belong to one of the very few large tech organizations. This project aims to democratize access to the full space of computing resources by enabling, and then optimizing, correct and safe execution of application logic anywhere: across client devices, edge computing locations, and multiple clouds. To realize the project’s execute-anywhere vision it will be necessary to develop a new co-design for four layers of system support: 1) a runtime that can execute applications anywhere; 2) an abundance of caches that enable seamless access to data anywhere; 3) a data store that collaborates with caches to ensure application consistency and data durability; and 4) a scheduler that integrates information from the other layers to decide where to run computations and move data in order optimize performance, availability, cost, and energy.The development of these co-designed layers will leverage the diverse expertise of the six investigators in close collaboration. Its development has the potential to improve the online applications that are an integral part of people’s lives. The project should make automatic optimization of an application’s latency, cost, bandwidth usage, and energy efficiency accessible to many applications, even those developed by a single person. The optimization of an application’s latency will improve the experience of all users with an especially large effect on users in rural communities and other locations with poor Internet connectivity. Further, it has the potential to make the full use and optimization of compute and data resources ubiquitous and available to all. In addition, it will advance discovery and broaden participation by involving undergraduates from the investigators’ universities and especially institutions that serve under-represented groups in research experiences, training graduate students, and broadening undergraduate participation in Computer Science.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.