Foster the concept of a Single System Image at 99.999% availability in a heterogeneous environment.

Establish and maintain a national laboratory resource to pursue the Vision.

The Department of Information & Computer Science at UCI will nurture alliances with organizations involved in Clustering and related technologies such as:

1. Clustering Systems
2. Fibre Channel and Storage Area Network (SAN)
3. Clustering Applications

Research and technical emphasis of the faculty associated with the lab include:

• Data Management and Data Mining

Support for complex multidimensional datasets, management of highly dynamic data sets, spatio-temporal database management, management of uncertainty in database systems, machine learning and pattern recognition over large data sets, visualization of dynamic data sets.

• Clustering for Numerical and Scientific Computing

Scalability, memory hierarchy performance, parallel I/O, compilation, application issues, portable libraries including message passing.

• Distributed Systems

Network centric computing, availability and fault tolerance in distributed and parallel systems, replication and caching in distributed environments, open and heterogeneous systems environments, Quality of Service enabled resource management, composable middleware for distributed systems, concurrent object based computing, ubiquitous and mobile computing environments, security protocols, systems and performance analysis

• Multimedia Management

Analysis and interpretation of multimedia data, representation and storage of multimedia information, multimedia information retrieval and database management, communication and transmission of multimedia objects, multimedia in mobile environments, quality of service specification and enforcement in multimedia applications

• Applications

Multimedia search engines, video on demand systems, multimedia teleconferencing, distance learning, multimedia enabled classrooms, web mining, telemedicine, bio-medical diagnostic tools, weather interpretation and advisory systems, tools for visualizing and animating dynamic objects, digital arts and entertainment, electronic commerce

We envision the lab (at build-out) to include:

• Servers: NT, Unix, Linux, NetWare – (mix SCSI – FC local storage)
• Storage: Fibre Channel Raid – minimum 500 GB

Tape Library – minimum 500 GB

Magneto Optical Library – minimum 1 terabyte

CD and DVD Library – minimum 1 terabyte

(including media for the removable devices)

• Network Devices: HBA, bridges, hubs, switches (fabric)
• Cabling: fiber optic
• Software: Clustering and SAN software, RDBMS, SQL, Network Management
• Applications: See "Research Thrusts" above
• Educational and presentation tools
• WEB Site

• Product Testing – Each industry sponsor will be provided with access to the lab for testing of product performance, interoperability and scalability. The average duration for industry usage will be 2 to 4 days. Extended industry testing arrangements may be considered by the board in accordance with university research needs. All testing will be completed by the industry sponsor and it is expected that the lab will be left in its original state for continuation of university research. Sponsors will also have the exclusive option for additional lab usage on a fee-for-service basis. Please note that UCI does not assume legal responsibility for assuring the accuracy of testing completed in the lab.
• Advisory Board – The board is comprised of lab faculty and representatives from industry, ensuring that sponsors have direct input into activities and policy decisions. The board meets on a quarterly basis.
• Technical Reports - Subscription to all technical reports published by lab faculty and the Information & Computer Science Department.
• Annual Meeting – Lab faculty present research findings on an annual basis to share ideas on clustering issues.
• Visiting Researchers - Companies have the opportunity to send visiting scholars and have them participate in a faculty member's research group consistent with resource availability.
• Recruiting - Lab sponsors will have opportunities to interact with students, as well as, post job announcements in student labs and electronic bulletin boards.

• Structure - The Lab will have an industry advisory board, director, support staff and physical facilities such as space, computing and networking.
• Funding - Industry Sponsorship is $25,000 Annually

Sponsor donations are tax deductible gifts that will be used to enhance research programs in the lab as well as maintain the computing infrastructure. Gifts can be made payable to the UCI Foundation and returned to:

No University overhead costs will be charged against sponsor gifts to the lab. In addition to cash contributions, the lab accepts tax deductible gifts of hardware and software that enhance the research efforts.

Chairman

(714)630-3000

clusterlab@worldnet.att.net

Dave has spent over 25 years in Information Technology, including networking, enterprise software, and storage solutions as well as promoting standards. He was Chief Operating Officer for Novell Data Systems (Novell, Inc.) and Technology Manager of several computer companies. He attended St .Thomas College and UCLA in Math and Computer Science.

Co-Director

(949)824-5975

sharad@ics.uci.edu

Dr. Mehrotra is an Assistant Professor in UCI’s Department of Information & Computer Science and leads research in databases for multimedia information retrieval. He received his Ph.D. from University of Texas, Austin.

Co-Director

(949)824-6188

alexv@ics.uci.edu

Dr. Veidenbaum is an Associate Professor in UCI’s Department of Information & Computer Science and leads research in computer architecture, compilation, and performance evaluation.. He received his Ph.D. from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Nalini Venkatasubramanian

Co-Director

(949)824-5898

nalini@ics.uci.edu

Dr. Venkatasubramanian is an Assistant Professor in UCI’s Department of Information & Computer Science and leads research in quality of service for multimedia networks. She received her Ph.D. from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.