Mission

The overall mission of the CAC Center is to pursue fundamental research and development in cloud and autonomic computing in collaobraiton with industry and government partners. The technical scope of the Center’s activities includes design and evaluation methods, algorithms, architectures, software, and mathematical foundations for advacned distributed and automated computing systems. Solutions are studied for different levels including the hardware, networks, storage, middleware, services, and information layers.

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Objectives

The CAC is devoted to advanced industry-driven research and development in cloud,
distributed, and autonomic computing methods and their application to a broad range of needs for industry and government partners. Terms of membership are governed by a simple Center-wide membership agreement and associated bylaws through which activities are directed by the members themselves by direct participation on an advisory board that selects projects and activities of the Center.

"Creating Pathways for Innovations and Student Success by Fostering Entrepreneurial Thinking."

Welcome

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Welcome to the NSF Cloud and Autonomic Computing Center.

The Cloud and Autonomic Computing Center is supported through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRC) program. The main purpose of the program is to support and develop long-term partnerships among industry, academe, and government. The IUCRC Centers are catalyzed by an investment from the National Science Foundation and their growth and impact are primarily realized through partnerships from industry members including national laboratories and other federal agencies, with NSF taking the supporting role in the development and evolution of the Center. Each Center is established to conduct pre-competitive industry relevant R&D in unique expertise areas for increased industry engagement and support, new business development opportunities, and research capabilities of the Center faculty. Overall, the IUCRC program contributes to the nation’s research infrastructure base and enhances intellectual capacity of the engineering and science workforce through the integration of research and education. As appropriate, an IUCRC uses international collaborations to advance these goals within the global context.

Expertise

The NSF CAC Center leverages diverse R&D expertise drawn from several university sites and widespread intellectual capacity. Ongoing research carried out at the CAC includes:
  • High-performance/high-end computing data center automation, analytics, and control
  • Data visualization, visual analytics, virtual and augmented reality
  • Big data analysis, data management, memory and storage technologies
  • Automated use of renewable energy sources and energy-efficient cloud data centers
  • Standards and API development for federation, automation, and interoperability
  • Cloud-specific and cloud-native algorithms and frameworks
  • Self-* autonomic computing systems (*secure healing, optimizing, fail recovery, energy, etc.)
  • Computer architecture and reconfigurable computing
  • Cybersecurity and Internet of Things
We apply these research to business areas that can can open up new business development and commercialization opportunities through dedicated R&D.
For current industry sponsored R&D please visit Projects.

Technical Scope

The scope of the CAC center broadly encompasses cloud computing systems at every level, including applications development and the use of autonomic computing methods for the management of these systems. CAC activities on cloud computing cut across several layers of IT systems, including: hardware platforms for computing, storage and networking; design of data centers that aggregate platforms to provide cloud services; systems software and distributed computing middleware providing programming interfaces and management primitives within and across multiple cloud data centers; applications that leverage the on-demand and scalable nature of cloud platforms; and cyber-security. The CAC's current activities focus on improving methods, architectures and technologies for the design, implementation, integration and evaluation of computing systems and applications, especially in ways that are capable of achieving desired behaviors without the involvement of users or administrators. As a forefront research center at the intersection of cloud computing and autonomic computing, the CAC aims to promote automated advanced self-management capabilities within and across the layers of cloud and advanced distributed computing systems and applications in order to enable independent operation, minimize cost and risk, accommodate complexity and reduce technological uncertainty, and enable development of systems of systems with large numbers of components.

Goals

The primary goal of the CAC@TTU is to identify and foster industry-academia-government partnerships on topics directly related to emerging cloud infrastructures, software and standards, including issues related to security, performance, interoperability and workload portability across infrastructure boundaries. A related practical goal is to identify and develop coordinated efforts to organize, classify, and develop reference implementations and software that showcase the benefits of cloud and autonomic computing in areas of real-world applicability to business needs. Ranking equally with these is our goal to create a well-trained workforce through opportunities that relate the domain expertise of faculty and students to important problems and solutions in advanced distributed computing, cloud computing and autonomic computing that is capable of sustaining the activities and opportunities created through this joint effort.

Why Join Us?

  • A targeted, low-risk, and cost-effective complement to selected in-house R&D.
  • Access to research expertise in emerging technologies, standards, and capabilities in Cloud and Autonomic Computing.
  • Proven model optimized for collaboration between industry, government, and academia.
  • Industry-research partnerships leading to new business development and commercialization opportunities.
  • Leveraged "force multiplier" to accelerate generation of new ideas for product innovation.
  • Opportunities to network and partner with technology leaders and innovators.
  • A single point source for emerging technologies and access to trained workforce.
  • Opportunity to establish high-quality, long-term relationships with researchers.
  • Federal funding opportunities for high risk innovations and spin-offs.

How to Join

An organization can join the Center as a Member and sign a membership agreement with any of the participating sites in the Center. Each Member is entitled to a representative on the Industry Advisory Board that governs Center activities. These include project selection, Center bylaws from time to time, and setting new directions. Members have non-exclusive royalty-free access to research conducted by the center. Other licensing agreements are also available. For further information about the Center or memberships, please contact Center and Site Directors listed on the Leadership page. For a a copy of the membership agreement, click here.

Industry Advisory Board

The Center is governed through an Industry Advisory Board, which selects research topics and sets R&D priorities.

Acknowledgement

The Cloud and Autonomic Computing Center is supported by the National Science Foundation through awards CNS-1939140, CNS-1624668, CNS-1362134, IIP-1238338, IIP-0758579.