The n Hottest Topics in Parallel and Distributed Computing for the Next...long while IPDPS Panel May 3, 2000 David E. Culler Computer Science Division University of California, Berkeley

5/3/2000IPDSP Hot Topics2 The Scalability Renaissance We can build systems that work up to ~10,000 parts –ex. EDVAC => EDSAC Parallel systems have been in the nK for a decade microprocessor => system-on-a-chip => MP-on-a-chip => distributed-system-on-a-chip ===> megaprocs, gigaprocs also scaling down on individual component => billions of tiny devices need true scalability, not “doesn’t get too much worse” scalability

5/3/2000IPDSP Hot Topics3 Open, Scalable Service Infrastructure Goal: –the distributed innovation of the PC era –on services delivered to millions –providing vast processing power to each …visualize e-Science… Challenges –generic scalability, availability, fault handling in the platform –global-scale service location service –resource containment, load conditioning –robust, easy, event-based programming environment Harder: open infrastructure services –eg. identity service, extraction, distillation,... Servers Clients Servers Infrastructure Services Open

5/3/2000IPDSP Hot Topics4 serious availability a program that runs for 10 years despite –hardware changes –system upgrades –failures –code enhancements –...

5/3/2000IPDSP Hot Topics5 Trusted operation on untrusted servers Ex: world-wide storage services Provided by “regional” meta-service providers Not enough to encrypt the data Caching:index and block encrypted data Location: search encrypted data Want to perform computation in ‘encryption space’ without revealing contained information Pac Bell Sprint IBM AT&T Canadian Data IBM

5/3/2000IPDSP Hot Topics6 “Expected Case” performance analysis The performance obtained in the middle of the day, not the wee hours of the night under load with other things running perturbations, competition, faults, failures… what you really get?

5/3/2000IPDSP Hot Topics7 Generative construction of dist. systems No more “design, deploy, and turn-on” Built into the environment of interest Self-assembling, Self-monitoring Evolutionary specialization Self-adaptive Implicit Protocols System takes shape as it is used design-free systems

5/3/2000IPDSP Hot Topics8 “Disposable” Parallel & Dist. Systems will see circuits “by the roll” and “by the ton” –semiconductor plastics, chemical fabrication –more exciting than Moore’s law –“and how much computing would you like in that?” deeply “infused” in physical structures –limited processing, storage and communication –vast parallelism –failures, errors, physical constraints power constrained (self-sustaining?) will make ubiquitous computing real a whole new kind of engineering and science IPDPS should lead, ICCD will follow...

5/3/2000IPDSP Hot Topics9 tiny distr. computing gets physical web servers and wireless networks Put on an ‘exponential shrink’ add a few years, system design, intelligence, creativity and software and imagine surgery performed by a teaspoon of tiny devices with MEMS sensors and micro-robots then look back at today’s technology

5/3/2000IPDSP Hot Topics10 But before you Moore’s law for the next Millennium... there is only so much energy in the ground there is only so much heat the oceans can absorb there are only so many species in the world a connected world must be made to be fundamentally more planet-friendly