EECS Systems Research in the Post-PC Era

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EECS Systems Research in the Post-PC Era

• David Culler
• U.C. Berkeley
• EECS (ILP) Conference
• Feb 18, 1999
• http//postPC.cs.berkeley.edu

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Format of the Session

• Morning Highlight Talk - Dave Patterson
• Computer Architecture and the Infrastructure
• Systems Research Agenda - David Culler
• Ninja Service Platform Architecture - Steven
  Gribble
• Push scalable services into the infrastructure
• Security in a Pervasive Computing Environment -
  Mike Chen
• distributed due to limits on power and trust
• Comfortable pace Lots of Discussion

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The Emerging Platform Pyramid
SuperComputers
SuperServers
Thousands
Departmental Servers
Millions
Workstations
Workstations
Personal Computers
100 Millions
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Exciting new components

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Natural Tides of Innovation
Innovation
??
Integration
Personal Computer Workstation Server
Log R
Minicomputer
Mainframe
2/99
Time
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Historical Perspective

• New eras of computing start when the previous era
  is so strong it is hard to imagine that things
  could ever be different
• mainframe -gt mini
• mini -gt workstation -gt PC
• PC -gt ???
• It is always smaller than what came before.
• Most think of the new technology as just a toy
• The new dominant use was almost completely absent
  before.
• So where are we headed in the post-PC era?

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Away from the average device

• Powerful, personal capabilities from specialized
  devices
• small, highly mobile or embedded in the
  environment
• Intelligence immense storage and processing in
  the infrastructure
• Everything connected

Devices
Laptops, Desktops
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Complement to industry efforts

• Get maximum number of applications first
• 1990 PC capality in handheld device
• microkernel port of Unix or Windows
• emulate vast API
• Mobile extension of dedicated PC
• take short excursion and synch
• Success of the Palm Pilot with primitive OS and
  split application model is significant
• its the approach, not the technical superiority

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Example - PDA scope

• http//www.21store.co.uk/pdantic/pdachart.htm

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Rich set of new challenges

• Natural, high-content user interfaces
• Sensors, actuators, display, speech
• devices, small OS, low power
• massive distributed system
• Middleware
• Security, privacy, content
• Networking
• Software engineering
• Administration and management
• Extraction of knowledge from activities

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Future Internet-Scale Systems

• 10 Billion of Information Appliances
• 100 Million of Stationary Computers
• Million Scalable Servers

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Natural Convergence at the Extremes

• Internet-Scale gt system reaches everywhere
• small devices will be what is wherever
• powerful servers is where is all goes
• Scalability, efficiency, simplicity,
  availability, adaptation
• commonality in design goals and technology
• federated systems
• The breakthrough ahead is pervasive devices
  communication

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Seeds sewn in many projects

• Devices - Infopad, IRAM
• Scalable Servers - NOW, Millennium
• Storage - Tertiary Disk, Istore, Aetherstore
• Sensors and Actuators - BSAC
• Connectivity - BWRC
• Transcoding Services - Wingman, Mediaboard
• Platform Architecture - Ninja
• Computing/Telephony Integration - Iceberg
• Programming Enviornments and Tools
• User interfaces - Notepals

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A Radical Experiment

• What we need is not just a new research project,
  but a new computing culture
• gt Build a department-wide, universal wireless
  PDA infrastructure and a community to take it
  forward
• Initial Seed Fall 98 with IBM
• 150 IBM workpads lots of cradles IR ???
• Initial community
• Ninja, ICEBERG, MASH grad students
• Senior UI Class (CS 160)
• All interested 1st year CS grads (CS 252, 261,
  262 projects)
• Fill out based on interest, talent and
  availability
• gt ask a good question and get yours seminar

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Fall98 Project Excerpts

• E-Commerce and Security
• Pay-Per-Use Services on the Palm Computing
  Platform (Mike Chen, Andrew Geweke)
• Secure Email Infrastructure for PDAs (Hoon Kang,
  Rob von Behren)
• SyncAnywhere - Secure Network HotSync (Mike Chen,
  Helen Wang)
• Groupware
• Kiretsu - Ninja Instant Messaging Service (Matt
  Welsh, Steve Gribble)
• The MASH MediaPad - Shared Electronic Whiteboard
  for the PalmPilot (Yatin Chawathe)
• NotePals - Lightweight Meeting Support Using PDAs
  (Richard Davis)
• OSKI - Open Shared Kalendaring Infrastructure
  (Jason Hong, Brad Morrey, Mark Newman)
• OS and Communications
• PalmRouter - Networking Sporadically Connected
  Devices (Andras Ferencz, Robert Szewczyk)
• Numerous Architecture Studies
• Excellent UI Projects
• Ink Chat, Nutrition/Excercise Tracker, Rendezvous
  - Meeting Scheduler

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Some Lessons

• Communication is enabling
• low-power wireless needs to be like IP
• Virtual Environment is important
• Devices connect into the infrastructure
• Network HotSync, groupware, centralized e-mail
• gt Need lean, clean communication substrate
• User Service is fundamental
• not just profile and customization info
• routing point for security
• Much room for improvement in devices
• trade BW for compute or storage
• Development effort is the limiting factor
• OSKI 1 person for infrastructure, 2 for WorkPad
• gt need complete distributed system debugging and
  simulation environment

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Momentum Building

• Millennium provides large-scale testbed
• Ninja architecture allows developers to Push
  Services into the Infrastructure
• scalable, available, customizable
• real services deployed and used in Spring 1999

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Emerging Agenda

• Endeavor Expedition (14 Faculty)
• extend pervasive computing view to oceanic
  proportions
• massive, fluid data storage
• devices everywhere
• fluid software
• streaming data management
• automatic management
• social networking
• Pervasive computing stamp on strategic plan
• Causing us to rethink what we need in our
  environment

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University/Industry Roles Collaboration

• Bold, Rich PostPC Agenda Emerging
• Pervasive stamp on strategic plan
• New balance of expertise and technology between
  industry and university
• devices, components, networks, applications,
  users
• foundations for the future vs TTM
• New roles and relationships in collaboration
• how do we share space, environment, culture, not
  just technology
• Fundamentally new demands on the research space
• ability to deploy smart spaces on a large scale
• new modes of human interaction
• Its not just what we build, but how we use it

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Discussion