IEEE

TFCC Newsletter
Volume 1, Number 2, November, 1999

IEEE Computer Society

Comments From the Editor - Dan Hyde, Bucknell University

The IEEE Computer Society Task Force on Cluster Computing (TFCC) has been in existence for almost a year. CO-Chair Rajkumar Buyya received confirmation of the formation of TFCC from the IEEE Computer Society Technical Activities Board last December 17, 1998. And what a fruitful year it has been for TFCC!! Much of our activity is reflected in this the second TFCC Newsletter.

Included below is the Executive Summary and link to the TFCC Annual Report. Also, find a link to a draft of TFCC's White Paper

See below for details on our first conference IWCC'99 in Melbourne, Australia, December 2, 1999. TFCC had a presence at SuperComputing '99 (SC'99) with two BOFs. We encourage you to participate in our second conference CLUSTER 2000 at Technische Universität Chemnitz, Saxony, Germany, November 28 - December 2, 2000. Many other conferences and workshops are listed as well.

TFCC's Educational Promotion Program for Book Donations has been very successful with four books and two journals.

See especially the new book SCI: Scalable Coherent Interface: Architecture and Software for High-Performance Compute Clusters edited by Hermann Hellwagner and Alexander Reinefeld.

See the two short articles on System I/O Effort Renamed InfiniBandTM Trade Association and Sandia's CPLant Cluster Ranked 44th in Top 500 List. Please note that I am seeking short articles on hot topics in cluster computing for the April, 2000 TFCC Newsletter.

I view the TFCC Newsletter as an on-line dynamic document. Therefore, my strategy as Newsletter Editor has been to provide useful links to information in an organized manner. I have organized each Newsletter to be printed as a single document. If any of you have comments or suggestions on the format or contents, please send me a note.

Dan


Announcements about TFCC Activities and Achievements

  • The TFCC Annual Report prepared for the IEEE Computer Society, Technical Activities Board (TAB) Meeting, Nov. 16-17, Portland, Oregon is available at: http://www.dgs.monash.edu.au/~rajkumar/tfcc/tab-report99/ See web site for full report. Below is the Executive Summary.

    Executive Summary

    The IEEE Computer Society Task Force on Cluster Computing (TFCC) has been in existence since early in February 1999. In its short life the TFCC has started to have an impact on the cluster computing research and development community in both academia and industry. Some evidence of this can be seen by the numbers influential people willing to get involved in the TFCC activities. Furthermore, the number of TFCC-based events and numbers of willing volunteers prepared to promote our activities all provide ample evidence that the TFCC is not only being successful, but also having an impact on the community

    One particularly successful TFCC activity has been our cluster computing educational programme. Here we are attempting to promote the inclusion of cluster computing and its related technologies in the core curriculum of universities around the world. Our efforts in this area also include a book donation programme. In conjunction with influential international authors and publishers we have donated more than 250 books to academic institutions around the world.

    The TFCC is also starting to co-organize and sponsor a number of technical events in addition to its own annual event. The first annual (International Workshop on Cluster Computing - IWCC99) event is scheduled to be held in early December 1999, Melbourne, Australia.

  • TFCC's First Conference will be held in Melbourne, Australia, Dec. 2 , 1999
    1st IEEE Computer Society International Workshop on Cluster Computing (IWCC'99) in conjunction with PART '99
    Melbourne, Australia, Dec. 2, 1999
    URL:
    http://www.dgs.monash.edu.au/~rajkumar/tfcc/IWCC99/
    Workshop was highly successful with a rich technical program. Rajkumar has recorded the whole program and plans to put all major talks on the web (streamed audio format). See image of Local Arrangement Committee with Co-Chair Rajkumar Buyya on right.

  • TFCC Birds of a Feather (BOF) Session at Super Computing '99, Portland, Oregon, USA, Wednesday Nov. 17 at 5:30 PM, Room C 120/121/122.
    URL: http://www.dgs.monash.edu.au/~rajkumar/tfcc/sc99bof/
    Co-chair Rajkumar Buyya's slides of his "Introduction to TFCC" presentation at http://www.dgs.monash.edu.au/~rajkumar/tfcc/Intro/
    Our other Co-chair Mark Baker's slides at http://www.dcs.port.ac.uk/~mab/Talks/SC99-TFCC-BOF

  • TFCC Birds of a Feather (BOF) Session High Speed Interconnects for COTS Cluster Computing at Super Computing '99, Portland, Oregon, USA, Tuesday Nov. 16 at 5:30 PM. Presentations are on-line.
    URL: http://www.atoll-net.de/news-bofsc99.html

  • TFCC has draft of a White Paper on Cluster Computing.

  • TFCC has new Regional Web pages at:

  • TFCC in the July IEEE Computer Magazine
    See July, 1999 issue (Vol. 32, No. 7), pages 79-80, 83 for "Cluster Computing: A High-Performance Contender" (pdf) by TFCC Co-Chairs Mark Baker and Rajkumar Buyya; and TFCC Newsletter Editor Dan Hyde.

  • TFCC activities, events, and brief information on Clusters featured in The Age, an Australian National News Paper, 31 August 1999. http://www.it.fairfax.com.au/columns/platform/19990831/A36199-1999Aug29.html
    Scanned paper version

  • TFCC-Education Promotion Program -- Book Donations

    1. Greg Pfister has requested Prentice Hall to donate 25 copies of his book: In Search of Clusters, 2nd Edition, Prentice Hall PTR, NJ, 1998.

    2. Barry Wilkinson has requested Prentice Hall to donate 25 copies of his book: Parallel Programming Techniques and Applications Using Networked Workstations and Parallel Computers, by Barry Wilkinson and Michael Allen, Prentice Hall, 1999.

    3. Wolfgang Gentzsch has requested Elsevier Publisher to donate 25 copies FGCS Special Issue on Metacomputing. The Special Issue will appear in October, 1999, and contains a collection of 23 contributions about metacomputing architectures, building blocks and applications.

    4. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers (US) would like to donate books that may be of interest to the educational community involved in cluster computing (TFCC members): Please select book(s) of your interest from: http://www.mkp.com/books_catalog/areas/parallel_distributed.asp Then fill out the form located at: http://www.mkp.com/orders/exam_form.htm OR directly contact Pamela J. Olheiser (polheiser@mkp.com) by email.

    5. Baltzer Science Publishers is happy to announce the donation of up to 40 copies of Cluster Computing Journal http://www.baltzer.nl/cluster/cluster.asp. TFCC members (preferably faculty members) interested in a copy of the Cluster Computing Journal, should contact: Ms. Monika Grobecker ( mgro@genias.de).

      TFCC members may obtain on-line subscriptions to Cluster Computing Journal at a low-cost of $40. Members should fill in the order form at http://www.baltzer.nl/cluster/cluster.order.html and mention being a "TFCC member". Only individual non-library subscriptions allowed.

    6. The SCI Working Group (SCIWG) offers 50 copies of the book SCI - Scalable Coherent Interface: Architecture and Software for High-Performance Compute Clusters by Hermann Hellwagner and Alexander Reinefeld (eds). Springer State-of-the-Art Surveys LNCS 1734, 1999. ISBN 3-540-66696-6.

      The donation is sponsored by the ESRPIT Network of Excellence, Working Group 22582 (SCIWG). Thanks to Wolfgang Karl, TUM, for making the donation possible. For book requests, please send an email to Mrs. Petra Fehlhauer, fehlhauer@zib.de with your complete postal address.

    Thanks, Greg Pfister, Barry Wilkinson, Wolfgang Gentzsch, Alexander Reinefeld and Wolfgang Karl for your support of the TFCC Education Promotion Program. We would also like to thank the publishers Baltzer Science Publishers, Elsevier Publisher, Morgan Kaufmann and Prentice Hall for their donations.

    If you are interested in using any of the above books or issues in your course, please contact TFCC Co-Chair Rajkumar Buyya.


    Conference Announcements


    Call for Papers - Conferences


    Call for Papers - Journals


    Special Issues on Cluster Computing in Journals


    Workshops


    Tutorials


    Book Announcements


    Product Announcements


    New Web Sites on Cluster Computing


    Short Articles


    Back to TFCC Newsletter Home Page.
    Page maintained by Dan Hyde, hyde at bucknell.edu Last update December 7, 1999
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