Infrastructure Services

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Infrastructure Services

• Eric A. Brewer

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Goals

• Broad audience (not just CS hackers)
• Easy to use -- solves problems!!
• Extensible -- add resources over time
• Efficient -- share resources well

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Target Community

• Sophisticated computational scientists
• willing to author new applications
• push the state of the art
• Researchers that want easy-to-use tools
• some computer knowledge, but just a tool
• Example maximum likelyhood calculations for
  evolutionary biology
• Students

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Approach Focus on Services

• Most users use services (only)
• such users dont need accounts on all systems
• easier to use, output is graphs/visualization
• enables easy student/class usage
• services solve specific problems
• protein folding, SVD, simulations, ...
• Some users will still log in, write apps
• Easy conversion of apps to services

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Service Economics

• Services make economic models simpler!
• Services simplify resource tracking over time
• Build models for each service
• can tie resource needs to service inputs
• can bid well based on history
• Services are well defined gt pay per use
• Services abstract resources
• enables high availability
• enables varying resources over time

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Economics

• Two levels
• resource usage/allocation
• pay-per-use services
• Prototype Digicash
• secure currency
• demo pay-per-use printer

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TACC Cluster-Based Services

• Transformation/Aggregation/Caching/Customization
• Framework for services that provides
• scalability
• availability
• manageability
• service composition
• See TACC poster, PalmPilot browser

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Economics Summary

• Secure currency for resources
• Service focus
• reach a broad audience
• simplifies economic decisions
• Evolve ecomony over time
• Evolve algorithms/services tomake decisions based
  on underlying costs