The Computing Community Consortium is seeking community input to better understand the potential needs and payoff for additional investments in mid-scale infrastructure for computing research.

NSF spends significantly less on shared research infrastructure for computing research than it does for many other fields. By “shared research infrastructure” we mean experimental hardware and/or software and associated instrumentation that serves a significant portion of the research community (versus a small set of investigators). In other fields, such shared research infrastructure includes equipment such as telescopes, ocean observatories, supercomputers, and field stations.

We specifically are interested in “mid-scale” infrastructure investments, defined as investments of over $4 million but under $100 million. GENI, PlanetLab, Orbit, FutureGrid, and Emulab are examples of mid-scale infrastructure investments with significant impacts on our field.

While it is possible that the current level of investment is appropriate and our field does not require additional investment in shared research infrastructure, it seems equally likely that we are under-investing and that there are some potential investments that would significantly enhance the research capabilities of our field. We would like to solicit your opinions and ideas, in the form of short white papers. What sort of investment in mid-scale infrastructure can you envision that would drive computing research forward?

White papers should not exceed 10 pages in length (shorter is better!) and are due by April 15, 2013. Depending on the level of interest generated by this call for white papers, a follow-on workshop may be held at which papers may be presented. In either case, it is our intention to approach the NSF and other funding agencies with the results of this effort.

White papers should be emailed to CCC’s Program Associate, Kenneth Hines: khines@cra.org

Read more here (including a note concerning the privacy of submissions).

CCC Mid-Scale Infrastructure Steering Committee:

Steve Corbató (University of Utah)
Ed Lazowska (University of Washington)
Bruce Maggs (Duke University and Akamai Technologies)
Dipankar (Ray) Raychaudhuri (Rutgers University)