CAREER: A Communication-Oriented Operating Systems for the National Information Infrastructure (Career Development Program)

本计画将设计、实作及实验一个操作系统，以满足多媒体、平行运算及分散式资讯撷取等新兴应用的需求。这些性能关键型应用程序的特点是大量使用通信，并且需要严格控制机器资源。 现有的操作系统通常限制这些应用程序的性能，从而阻止用户获得高性能计算机系统的能力。因此，落后的操作系统技术可能会延迟新兴国家信息基础设施中并行计算、多媒体和其他服务的接受。 该项目的主要主题是：（1）设计操作系统通信支持，使其提供的性能接近网络提供的性能;（2）实现与底层计算机系统性能相匹配的操作系统性能;（3）研究开放服务实现，允许定制操作系统服务，以精确匹配应用程序的要求。 目标是将高性能计算机系统提供的资源交付给应用程序，而不牺牲功能性、公平性、安全性和可移植性。方法包括根据不断变化的应用程序要求和硬件性能特征重新评估当前的操作系统;设计，实施和实验适当的解决方案;以及通过软件产品的出版和分发来传播结果。 该职业计划的教育计划包括开发互动式教学风格，引入使用工作站网络的并行编程实践课程，以及组织旨在让初中生接触计算机和信息技术的暑期课程。

This project will design, implement and experiment with an operating system that satisfies the requirements of emerging applications such as multimedia, parallel computing, and distributed information retrieval. These performance critical applications can be characterized by their intense use of communication, and by their need for tight control of the machine's resources. Existing operating systems often limit the performance of such applications, thereby preventing users from reaping the power of high-performance computer systems. As a result, lagging operating system technology threatens to delay the acceptance of parallel computing, multimedia, and other services in the emerging national information infrastructure. The major themes of the project are (1) designing OS communications support that delivers performance close to that provided by the network; (2) achieving OS performance that scales with the underlying computer system's performance; and, (3) investigating open service implementations that allow customization of OS services to match precisely an application's requirements. The goal is to deliver the resources provided by high-performance computer systems to applications, without sacrificing functionality, fairness, safety, and portability. Methods include the re-evaluation of current operating systems in light of changing application requirements and hardware performance characteristics; design, implementation, and experimentation with appropriate solutions; and, dissemination of results through publication and distpibution of software artifacts. Education plans of this CAREER project include the development of an interactive teaching style, introduction of a hands-on course in parallel programming using networks of workstations, and the organization of a summer program designed to expose junior high students to computer and information technology.