This is a new new grant from the National Science Foundation's CISE Research Infrastructure Program, with a funding level of $906,000 funding over 5 years from 1997-2002. The funds will be used to purchase 20 high-performance HP UNIX workstations (C-180), 50 medium-performance HP UNIX workstations (B-132), 3 UNIX fileservers (J-280), an 8-processor Silicon Graphics Origin 2000 distributed shared memory multiprocessor, and three CISCO systems ATM switches (LS1010). All the machines will be connected via an ATM network operating at OC-3 (155 Mbps). The workstations will be used in both research and teaching in the area of computer engineering.
The goals of this project are: (1) to explore the use of high-speed networking and computing to investigate file systems and data management issues for high-performance distributed computing, (2) to investigate the parallel programming support of networks of high-speed workstations and personal computers as an alternative to stand-alone parallel computers, (3) to study high-performance computer-aided design of electronic systems in a heterogeneous environment, and to develop a Web-based CAD computing center, that takes advantage of high-speed networking, (4) to explore new instructional techniques that take advantage of the high bandwidth and high speed.