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Projects
QoS-driven High-end Computing Storage Management
In today’s high-end computing (HEC) systems, the parallel file system (PFS) is at the core of the storage infrastructure. PFS deployments are shared by many users and applications, but currently there are no provisions for differentiation of service - data access is provided in a best-effort manner. As systems scale, this limitation can prevent applications from efficiently utilizing the HEC resources while achieving their desired performance and it presents a hurdle to support a large number of data-intensive applications concurrently. This NSF HECURA project tackles the challenges in quality of service (QoS) driven HEC storage management, aiming to support I/O bandwidth guarantees in PFSs. [Read More]
QoS-driven Virtualized Computing Resource Management
System virtualization is an increasingly powerful technology that enables the emerging computing paradigms such as public and private cloud systems. It allows applications to be conveniently deployed along with their required execution environments through virtual machine (VMs), and supports them to flexibly share the underlying physical resources with strong isolation. However, there exists an increasingly urgent need for virtualized systems to deliver strong Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees to their hosted applications. The objective of this project is to create a QoS-driven multi-type resource management system to support strong QoS guarantees for applications hosted on virtualized computing systems. [Read More]
DM-CACHE - Dynamic Storage Caching for Cloud Computing Systems
Block-level distributed storage systems (e.g., SAN, iSCSI) are commonly used in the emerging cloud computing systems to provide virtual machine (VM) storage. They allow fast VM migration across different hosts and improved VM availability leveraging typical fault-tolerance measures (e.g., RAID) available in such storage systems. However, as the size of cloud systems and the number of hosted VMs rapidly grow, the scalability of shared block-level storage systems becomes a serious issue. This project proposes to address this issue by using client-side storage to implement block-level caching and exploit the data locality available in VM data accesses. By leveraging the capacity of fast storage devices such as SSD available on the VM hosts, this approach has the potential to substantially improve the performance of VMs and the load on the shared storage system. This approach is implemented upon dm-cache, a generic block-level caching utility. Our current prototype supports cache sharing across different co-hosted VMs in order to maximize cache utilization. [Read More]
vMoodle - Virtual Machine based Online Learning System
Web-based online learning environment (e.g., Moodle, Blackboard, WebCT) has become a widely used and important platform for educators to conveniently create and deliver course materials through the Internet and for students to easily use these materials in an interactive online learning environment. Meanwhile, system virtual machines (VMs, e.g., VMware, VirtualBox) are also emerging as a valuable tool for creating self-contained and portable educational modules that can be transparently replicated and deployed anywhere. Therefore, the combination of these two technologies has the potential to provide an even more powerful education software system, a VM-based online learning environment. The fundamental goal of this project is to develop a VM-based online learning system that allows educators and students to conveniently use VMs for creating and consuming course materials in an online learning environment. [Read More]
Streamlining High-end Computing with Software Persistent Memory
Currently, HEC applications manage persistent data largely by themselves and thus the developer involvement, and consequently, develpment time and cost, is high. Further, the developer needs to be intimately aware of the underlying persistent storage mechanisms to achieve high-performance, which typically requires a greater degree of expertise; this vertical development, unfortunately, also makes the application software less portable. The thesis of this NSF HECURA project is that a lightweight Software Persistent Memory (SoftPM) infrastructure is necessary for streamlining data management in next generation HEC applications and speeding up scientific discovery. [Read More]
A Research and Educational Framework to Advance Disaster Information Management in Computer Science PhD Programs
The objective of this proposal is to provide an integrated research and educational framework that will advance disaster information management in Florida International University’s (FIU) School of Computing and Information Sciences (SCIS) Computer Science PhD degree program. The outcomes are expected in three areas: (1) increased graduate degrees awarded with Homeland Security-related Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (HS-STEM) related knowledge and skills, (2) engaging early career faculty to pursue HS-STEM research and education activities leveraging senior faculty research agenda in disaster information management, and (3) to enhance our computer science (CS) doctoral degree program course curriculum in areas relevant to HS-STEM. The pursuit of these objectives combined will create a sustainable and replicable research and education program that will create notoriety for FIU in the area of HS-STEM related expertise and will promote further research study at other HS-STEM interested institutions. [Read More]
Research Experience for Undergraduates
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Senior Capstone Project
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Past Projects
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Projects
QoS-driven High-end Computing Storage Management
In today’s high-end computing (HEC) systems, the parallel file system (PFS) is at the core of the storage infrastructure. PFS deployments are shared by many users and applications, but currently there are no provisions for differentiation of service - data access is provided in a best-effort manner. As systems scale, this limitation can prevent applications from efficiently utilizing the HEC resources while achieving their desired performance and it presents a hurdle to support a large number of data-intensive applications concurrently. This NSF HECURA project tackles the challenges in quality of service (QoS) driven HEC storage management, aiming to support I/O bandwidth guarantees in PFSs. [Read More]
QoS-driven Virtualized Computing Resource Management
System virtualization is an increasingly powerful technology that enables the emerging computing paradigms such as public and private cloud systems. It allows applications to be conveniently deployed along with their required execution environments through virtual machine (VMs), and supports them to flexibly share the underlying physical resources with strong isolation. However, there exists an increasingly urgent need for virtualized systems to deliver strong Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees to their hosted applications. The objective of this project is to create a QoS-driven multi-type resource management system to support strong QoS guarantees for applications hosted on virtualized computing systems. [Read More]
DM-CACHE - Dynamic Storage Caching for Cloud Computing Systems
Block-level distributed storage systems (e.g., SAN, iSCSI) are commonly used in the emerging cloud computing systems to provide virtual machine (VM) storage. They allow fast VM migration across different hosts and improved VM availability leveraging typical fault-tolerance measures (e.g., RAID) available in such storage systems. However, as the size of cloud systems and the number of hosted VMs rapidly grow, the scalability of shared block-level storage systems becomes a serious issue. This project proposes to address this issue by using client-side storage to implement block-level caching and exploit the data locality available in VM data accesses. By leveraging the capacity of fast storage devices such as SSD available on the VM hosts, this approach has the potential to substantially improve the performance of VMs and the load on the shared storage system. This approach is implemented upon dm-cache, a generic block-level caching utility. Our current prototype supports cache sharing across different co-hosted VMs in order to maximize cache utilization. [Read More]
vMoodle - Virtual Machine based Online Learning System
Web-based online learning environment (e.g., Moodle, Blackboard, WebCT) has become a widely used and important platform for educators to conveniently create and deliver course materials through the Internet and for students to easily use these materials in an interactive online learning environment. Meanwhile, system virtual machines (VMs, e.g., VMware, VirtualBox) are also emerging as a valuable tool for creating self-contained and portable educational modules that can be transparently replicated and deployed anywhere. Therefore, the combination of these two technologies has the potential to provide an even more powerful education software system, a VM-based online learning environment. The fundamental goal of this project is to develop a VM-based online learning system that allows educators and students to conveniently use VMs for creating and consuming course materials in an online learning environment. [Read More]
Streamlining High-end Computing with Software Persistent Memory
Currently, HEC applications manage persistent data largely by themselves and thus the developer involvement, and consequently, develpment time and cost, is high. Further, the developer needs to be intimately aware of the underlying persistent storage mechanisms to achieve high-performance, which typically requires a greater degree of expertise; this vertical development, unfortunately, also makes the application software less portable. The thesis of this NSF HECURA project is that a lightweight Software Persistent Memory (SoftPM) infrastructure is necessary for streamlining data management in next generation HEC applications and speeding up scientific discovery. [Read More]
A Research and Educational Framework to Advance Disaster Information Management in Computer Science PhD Programs
The objective of this proposal is to provide an integrated research and educational framework that will advance disaster information management in Florida International University’s (FIU) School of Computing and Information Sciences (SCIS) Computer Science PhD degree program. The outcomes are expected in three areas: (1) increased graduate degrees awarded with Homeland Security-related Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (HS-STEM) related knowledge and skills, (2) engaging early career faculty to pursue HS-STEM research and education activities leveraging senior faculty research agenda in disaster information management, and (3) to enhance our computer science (CS) doctoral degree program course curriculum in areas relevant to HS-STEM. The pursuit of these objectives combined will create a sustainable and replicable research and education program that will create notoriety for FIU in the area of HS-STEM related expertise and will promote further research study at other HS-STEM interested institutions. [Read More]
Research Experience for Undergraduates
[Read More]
Senior Capstone Project
[Read More]
Past Projects
[Read More]
VISA Lab's research is sponsored by 
Sidebar
News
- NSF Award on Cloud Resource Management
- vMoodle goes live
- DOD Award on Real-time Virtualization Research
- FAST2013 Presentations
- Fall 2012 Senior Project presentation
- Dr. Zhao Awarded Excellence in Student Mentoring
- ICAC2012 Presentation
- FeedbackComputing2012 Presentation
- Dm-cache in the Cloud (Call for beta testing)
- VISA undergraduates awarded a CREU grant
