UB research to improve cloud computing earns NSF grant

A UB project that aims to significantly advance the state-of-the-art in cloud computing research has received a $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The award, given by the NSF’s Division of Computer and Network Systems in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering program, will fund a two-year study into the availability, performance and reliability of cloud computing — software applications and services delivered via the Internet. Research is set to begin this month.

“Services like Google Apps, Dropbox and Hootsuite are transforming the landscape of the IT industry and increasing business and personal productivity on a grand scale,” says Sanjukta Das Smith, associate professor of management science and systems in the School of Management. “But for them to be truly valuable in the workplace, they need to be secure and available at all times. Otherwise, productivity grinds to a halt.”

Smith, along with Chunming Qiao, professor of computer science and engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Ram Ramesh, professor and chair of the management science and systems department in the School of Management, will conduct the research. Thomas Furlani, director of UB’s Center for Computational Research, and Gregor von Laszewski, assistant director of the Community Grids Lab at Indiana University, will provide the data and test beds for validating the research models.

The study’s findings could lead to improvements in cloud service availability, performance and resource allocation while minimizing costs and reducing losses in revenue due to service outages. The research also could aid in the development of new, cloud-based services and applications.

This study builds upon previous research by Qiao, Smith and Ramesh that focused on cloud availability prediction. That project was funded by a grant from Google Research Awards.