* Telecommunications,
* Computers and Information Technologies
* Advertising & Marketing,
* Insurance & Financial Services, as well as
* Health Care and
* Education.
Technology development industries are generally found in the fields of computing and telecommunications. Most are vendors of high-tech components, systems or integration services. They include leaders in commercial and military telecommunications and computing industries, and specialty software developers (small businesses). In its first year, InfoMall focused on these industrial partners because they are ideal candidates for using high performance computing and communications (HPCC) technology.
The consumer sector of InfoMall includes industries which will realize dramatic benefits from recent advances in HPCC technologies. In its first year, InfoMall identified Health Care and Education as excellent candidates for successful HPCC adoption. In year two, InfoMall will target opportunities in Advertising & Marketing and the Insurance & Financial Services industries. These two important NYS industries will benefit from recent advances in high performance databases and data-mining at NPAC. Other possibilities exist here for high performance applications in insurance or credit care fraud detection.
At InfoMall, the common thread between TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPERS and TECHNOLOGY CONSUMERS is their interest in the advantages of HPCC technology.
Technology developers are natural partners for InfoMall contributing emerging HPCC technology for testing and integration into commercial products. Developers want InfoMall to provide information about state-of-the-art technology development and market trends. They seek access to potential customers or development partners.
Technology consumers are less technically-oriented and participate in InfoMall to learn about new advances in HPCC technology. They are especially interested in demonstrations of likely uses of the technology. They wish to identify and commercialize information products created or enhanced by HPCC technology.
By providing an expertly designed heterogeneous HPCC testbed, InfoMall attracts developers and consumers in the budding HPCC marketplace. Both groups gain hands-on experience with HPCC. Both learn about the other in a neutral setting. In the end, InfoMall helps develop a new HPCC industry by lowering the risk of "shopping" for technology and increasing market awareness and business opportunities.
Correspondingly InfoMall's expertise is broadly based as illustrated by the list of topics in the "Technologies of the Information Age" course that we are currently preparing. The course is described in Appendix B. Notice the mix of emerging technologies (such as ATM networks and parallel databases) with those of today such as multimedia personal computing. The breadth of this technology list illustrates again the rationale for the virtual corporation structure of Infomall. No single university or single company has mastery in all these areas. This list is a sample of InfoMall technologies -- there is another set of the InfoMall technologies needed for simulation and design in manufacturing and engineering.
The GII offers challenges and opportunities for new and established businesses everywhere. InfoMall will enable New York State industry to exploit HPCC technologies to develop new products which both implement and use the GII. InfoMall will accelerate and enhance an inevitable process which will occur nationwide. There will be a direct economic benefit from NYS companies developing systems and software. Equally important, the people and Industry of New York State will benefit from using these new HPCC technologies.
HPCC technology is changing rapidly and expertise is distributed worldwide. Traditional organizations with hierarchies and static structures do not easily adapt to these changes. Rather, a dynamic virtual corporation is an appropriate business structure to successfully develop HPCC products. InfoMall itself is a large virtual corporation with particular products being developed by subteams consisting of a few (maybe just one) of its members. InfoMall has synergistic people and electronic implementations to make this possible.
The success of InfoMall will be built on state-of-the-art facilities (which is a continuing investment as equipment has typically a three year lifetime near the leading edge). The growth of InfoMall will be fueled by injecting new technologies -- a critical role for the academic members of InfoMall -- and exploiting them in the development of new products that link HPCC and non HPCC technologies. Technology insertion and development will be implemented as a set of demonstration projects. Transfer of lessons to throughout InfoMall will occur through training and mentoring services. New York State Industry will benefit from the lessons, demonstrations and collaborations and capitalize on the opportunities they unveil.
Today, the United States is a leader in the development of high performance computing and communications (HPCC) and information technologies. Initial technology development activities typically occur in university or government laboratories and are funded by federal agencies. Eventually, these technologies are adopted by corporations to be integrated into their commercial products. While some new technologies are transferred to industry rapidly, this is not so for HPCC technology which changes very rapidly and requires specialized skills.
Many industries are not exposed early enough to emerging HPCC technology or cannot envision how it can be used to improve their competitive position. Though the United States does not support the technology transfer process to industry, other countries do. Those countries (Germany, Japan, and other Pacific Rim countries) have taken technology developed in the US and reaped great profits from its application. Where US industries are expected to seek and adopt new technologies on their own, their global competitors benefit from the foresight and support of their governments. Without an insightful introduction to HPCC technology, US industry will again let its competitive advantage fall to other nations.
Information technology has been identified as critical growth industry for New York State. In this rapidly evolving industry, it is essential that corporations utilize advanced technology to remain competitive. Yet, the immediate use of highly specialized technologies is difficult for the traditional consumer-focused corporation wishing to develop state-of-the-art products and services. The highly specialized technology requires the skills of a variety of specialists. Most corporations do not employ experts in HPCC technology as this is an emerging field and not yet adopted for most corporate computing infrastructure.
Recently, federal funds have become available to support innovative technology development involving collaborations between leading government, academic and industrial partners. Such partnerships require a long time to develop into a cohesive working collaboration. InfoMall is designed to facilitate such collaborations to foster innovative HPCC technology development and to enable its partners to effectively compete for funds.
Geoffrey C. Fox, Director, NPAC and InfoMall
Professor Fox directs the technical and strategic initiatives of the InfoMall program. Based upon ever-changing technological and business trends, Fox ensures that InfoMall partners and projects respond to the leading edge developments in the HPCC and information technology market. An acknowledged leader in his field, Fox attracts key InfoMall partners who, based upon previous experience, are assured of the soundness of his direction.
Deborah Jones, Executive Director, InfoMall
Ms. Jones assures that the business and program functions of InfoMall meet the needs of its partners and its main sponsor, New York State. She helps to bridge the experience and knowledge gaps between technology developers and the non-technology oriented consumers. Partners are recruited and networked to foster new development and marketing activities. Jones works with InfoMall partners and contractors to develop and distribute information about InfoMall and the opportunities it presents for target industries. She assures that the deliverables of the InfoMall contract with New York State are achieved.
Kim Mills, Associate Director, NPAC and InfoMall
Dr. Mills, in close collaboration with Geoffrey Fox, collects emerging technologies that are relevant to InfoMall partners and activities. He works with technologists from targeted industries and key vendors to determine which technologies are most beneficial to the evolving industries. InfoMall development teams are facilitated by the interaction between industry at large, InfoMall partners, and potential sponsors.
Marek Podgorny, Associate Director, NPAC and InfoMall
Dr. Podgorny directs and manages the HPCC facilities and systems to ensure that the configuration meets the evolving needs of the partners. As the facility includes a complex array of parallel mainframes, workstations and high performance networks, the operation of this facility is a project in itself. The additional dimension of supplying service to InfoMall partners requires unique skills and dedication. Podgorny ensures that the systems and research staff of NPAC work harmoniously to provide excellent service under experimental conditions.
Dennis Eaton, Director, InfoMall Mid-Hudson Valley
Mr. Eaton directs the satellite "Mall" located in Fishskill, NY and serves as a member of the InfoMall management team. InfoMall benefits from his experience as a former executive for strategic marketing at IBM. Eaton works closely with the original Mall to ensure customers from both regions benefit from the resources of InfoMall and its partners.
Sean Branagan, President and Sr. Consultant, Pro-Motions Associates
Mr. Branagan serves as a virtual member of the InfoMall staff under contract to NPAC. He and his associates provide expert state-of-the-market information and consultation. Pro-Motions Associates designed and developed the InfoMall marketing materials in close collaboration with InfoMall management.
Nancy McCracken, Sr. Research Scientist
Dr. McCracken provides consulting, training and user services to InfoMall partners. Her special emphasis is on small business partners who require additional assistance early in their association with the InfoMall facility.
Paul Coddington, Research Scientist
Dr. Coddington also provides consulting and training services to InfoMall partners. He was the project leader for a project with a local utility corporation. This year he will develop and maintain the InfoMall on-line information system. Coddington participates in collaborative projects with industry members.
Kenneth Hawick, Research Scientist
Dr. Hawick is new to the InfoMall team, providing consulting and training services for partners and collaboration on development projects. Hawick will assist InfoMall customers with the development of on-line information systems.
TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPERS
Commercial corporations or academic institutions engaged in commerce with hardware, software, networking or services based upon HPCC technology. Firms in this category are engaged in technology development or systems integration. Vendors seek cooperative marketing of their products to commercial customers through collaborative development teams, joint marketing efforts or through informal association with InfoMall membership.
HPCC Vendors - Hardware, Software & Services
Digital Equipment Corporation
IBM
Maspar
nCUBE
NYNEX
Oracle
HPCC Systems Integrators
Booz.Allen & Hamilton
Harris Corporation
Integrated Systems Solutions Corporation
Sterling Software
Syracuse Research Corporation
Academic Institutions - Technology Development & Applications
CAIP at Rutgers University
Center for Research for Parallel Computation
Columbia University
Cornell University
Marist College
Mississippi State University
New York University
Northeast Parallel Architectures Center
Rice University
SUNY Institute of Technology
Syracuse University
Government Laboratory
Rome Laboratory (also listed below separately)
TECHNOLOGY CONSUMERS
Large NYS-based Industry
Commercial corporations engaged in commerce that is not directly based upon HPCC technology. Industries in this category seek to utilize HPCC technology to enhance a current product, enable a new product or explore possibilities for future products. In all cases, "products" may be actually be "services" rather than physical commodities.
Kodak
Loral
Martin Marietta
NewChannels
NYNEX
Niagara Mohawk
Par Technology
Syracuse Supply
Small NYS-based Industry
Existing or proposed small business seeking to utilize HPCC technologies in its products, processes or services. Small businesses seek exposure to InfoMall partners to serve mentors, sponsors or development partners. Access to InfoMall facilities or consulting may result in new product or corporation.
Abrahms/Gentile Entertainment, Inc.
Applied Parallel Technologies, Inc.
Coherent Research, Inc.
Communigration, Inc.
CompuHelp, Inc.
Interactive Resources, Inc.
Isis Distributed Systems, Inc.
WorldView, Inc.
Market Match
Media International, Inc.
NYSERNet
Progressive Computer Engineering, Inc.
Quantum Development Corporation
ReFlex, Inc.
Sonnet Software, Inc.
TextWise, Inc.
The Portland Group, Inc.
Ultra Corporation
Warzala Associates
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONS
Economic development organizations such as the technology development organizations, small business development centers, chambers of commerce, etc. are important components of InfoMall. They provide both a service, assistance to small and emerging businesses, and outreach to the community. Most early small business contacts were referred by these organizations. Additionally, such organizations serve as program advisors and partners in community ventures.
CASE Center
CNY Technology Development Organization
Legacy Project
Metropolitan Development Association
Mohawk Valley Applied Technology Commission
New York State Science and Technology Foundation
NYC Partnership
NY Photonics Development Corporation
Technology New York
Veteran's Leadership Program
GOVERNMENT LABORATORY
Rome Laboratory may be considered a large industry (military HPCC systems) or a separate resource. Rome Lab has served as a key InfoMall partner as a sponsor of critical applications, technology development partner and in numerous joint marketing events. The Lab directly supports the NYNet facility and program and offers unique technology transfer opportunities to small and large businesses wishing to access the NYNet testbed.
FUTURE TARGET INDUSTRIES
Advertising
Financial Services
Insurance
Marketing
Periodical Publishing
The systems installed at NPAC provide testbeds for a multitude of computationally intensive projects and can be broadly divided into 4 categories:
* Parallel supercomputers
* Clusters of high-performance workstations
* Desktop workstations for program development and data visualization
* Networking infrastructure
In addition to internal resources, InfoMall has access to other HPCC sites, including CRPC sites in Argonne, Caltech, and Los Alamos. These sites offer large scale production machines that can be used to run code developed locally on NPAC's facilities.
As seen in Appendix A, NPAC's facility represents a state of art HPCC center providing its partners with access to the newest technology. The unique capabilities of NPAC's computational infrastructure offers a number of benefits:
* Different parallel architectures are gathered in one place to allow for extensive experiments and for identification of the most suitable architecture for a particular project.
* Distributed systems extend the Center's capability, allowing for integration of the technologies required to solve extremely irregular problems.
* Integration capability is supported by the efficient networking backbone, and this capability will be extended soon to applications running on geographically remote computers, interfacing NPAC to NYNet's high speed network. NYNET will also support applications that require very high bandwidth for data exchange between supercomputers.
* Both traditional ``number crunching'' and data processing platforms are available. This allows the Center to test distributed applications that have both intensive data processing and computational components. Both database applications (parallel database server) and I/O intensive applications (parallel I/O subsystems) are supported.
The parallel machines currently installed in NPAC include a CM5, an iPSC 860, two DECmpp machines, an SP2, and an nCUBE 2. They represent the major current architectural trends for MPP (massively parallel processing) platforms. The configuration and utilization data for these machines are as follows:
The CM5 is a 32 node parallel system from Thinking Machines Corporation. Every node has 32MB of memory and is connected by TMC's proprietary network with a quad-tree topology. The peak computational power of our CM5 is estimated at 3 GFLOPS. The CM5 is used in a number of ways at InfoMall: it supports educational projects, serves as a compute server for a number of research projects, both internal and external, and for experiments in distributed computing.
The iPSC 860 from Intel is a 16 node parallel system with 256 MB of RAM total, and a hypercube interconnect topology. It is used as the main resource for NPAC's High Performance Fortran development project.
Two DECmpp machines from Digital Equipment Corporation are large SIMD systems with 8K and 16K processors respectively, and operate in a data parallel model. DECmpp machines can communicate over a HiPPI interface. The aggregate peak computing power of the DECmpp ensemble is approximately 2.5 GFLOPS. These machines are used in computational science projects, but are also ideally suited for image processing and data compression applications. The DECmpp platforms offer relatively sophisticated and user friendly software support.
The SP1/2 machine is the newest HPCC product of the IBM. This system consists of a relatively small number of very powerful nodes (16 at present, with a maximum of 64 nodes). The node processor of the SP1 is an IBM RISC/6000 processor running at 62.5 MHz, one of the more powerful RISC processors available. The parallel processing environment of SP1 supports both distributed (loosely coupled) and parallel (tightly coupled) programming paradigms. The SP1 platform has been recently upgraded to the intermediate state. Full SP2 configuration will be available in December '94. This provides the machine with storage necessary for database and InfoVision applications.
NPAC's nCUBE 2 is a 64 node, 2 GB RAM machine with a MIMD hypercube architecture. As configured, this system represents the state-of-art in a scalable I/O system, probably the most advanced one in the industry. The nCUBE platform in NPAC supports the Parallel Oracle Database Server, a high performance, high capacity relational database management system. At present, this system is mainly being used for parallel database performance evaluation, but it possesses capability to support large, high performance data processing applications. This system is best suited to serve as a multimedia server testbed and for decision support applications in a number of fields, including finances, health care, and GIS.
The distributed computing facilities in NPAC include two clusters of high performance workstations. The IBM cluster is intensively used by a number of projects in computational physics and chemistry and by the projects funded by InfoMall industrial partners. The DEC Alpha cluster exemplifies Digital's latest approach to distributed computing. Together with DECmpp machines, the cluster is used to demonstrate viability of using highly heterogeneous computing environment to solve computational problems with very irregular structure.
Both clusters of workstations provide InfoMall users with unique distributed processing environment. The clusters support a growing class of computational problems that are both irregular (hence difficult to
parallelize) and non-vectorizable (hence inefficiently running on vector supercomputers).
An ATM-based cluster has been installed to connect the NPAC facility to NYNet, and a number of Sun and SGI workstations supporting digital video and multimedia.
All NPAC facilities are networked with FDDI and ATM networking technology. NPAC is also installing a second networking backbone based on HiPPI technology. (At present, the two DECmpp machines and the SGI Challenge Network server have the HiPPI interfaces.) A HiPPI-to-ATM interface will also allow for long distance high speed communication and support high bandwidth applications. In the near future this capability will be extended to support geographically distributed applications requiring gigabit bandwidth technology.
NYNet, developed by NYNEX, is of special interest to InfoMall members. The backbone of the network is comprised of broadband ATM switches interconnected via SONET trunks. In the NYNet testbed, these trunks will range from OC-3 (155 Mbps) to OC-48 (2.488 Gbps) data rates. NYNET participants are provided access to the ATM backbone via 2 OC-3c SONET links per site which provide excellent application development and performance advantages. (The Syracuse Museum of Science and Technology will attach to the network via a single OC-3c link.)
To interconnect the New York upstate participants to the downstate participants (different LATAs) requires a NYNET interface to a third party network. This can accomplished by means of the ATM Forum specified B-ICI (Broadband Inter-Carrier Interface). The same interface will also be used to connect NYNET to the national computing environment network. Currently, NYNEX expects to partner with a long distance carrier to link upstate to downstate during calendar year 1994. Other links such as to Boston are also planned in the near future. Rome Laboratory links us to Defense networks which span the nation from California to Washington D.C. bitways.
Self-evaluation takes place through informal as well as formal methods. Informally, we ask for and receive feedback on our methodology and effectiveness regularly from our partners. In some instances, we have formed small advisory groups to assist with a particular project such as the development of a marketing brochure. The informal feedback from our partners has helped to shape the InfoMall program to better meet the needs of small and large industries.
Based on our experience with the original program, ACTION-NYS, we chose to replace the industrial and economic development advisory board meetings with personal contact with individual members. We found the one-on-one format to be more efficient and useful as the members shared information and feedback more openly than in a large forum. This was especially true for the economic development members with whom we have developed strong working relationships. The InfoMall meetings have replaced the Industrial Advisory Board meetings. Again, we follow up with individual members in private meetings after the public meetings.
Last year, the formal means of self-evaluation took the form of an InfoMall staff retreat facilitated by a management professional. This method was appropriate for the formative stages of InfoMall's development. Next year we plan to hold a formal evaluation meeting with selected representatives from target industries. This meeting will take place in the second or third quarter of the contract year.
The existence of InfoMall allows many corporations to share the cost and thus the risk of testing and demonstrating new high tech products. The InfoMall facilities are unrivaled as a testbed for commercial development of information technologies using high performance computing and communications. NYNet, the high speed network connecting Rome Laboratory, Cornell University and Syracuse University offers the capability to test products and services built to compete on the Information Superhighway. As that highway does not yet exist, early product development could not be completed without NYNet. Perhaps more important than the infrastructure is the experience team of researchers who collaborate regularly with one another to essentially push out the technology envelope. Vendors of high speed communications products and services are able to demonstrate the capability of their products to their customers without costly infrastructure.
The NPAC store of InfoMall offers unique services to InfoMall partners. The experienced staff at NPAC are able to evaluate a variety of technology solutions for corporations who plan to invest in HPCC systems. NPAC researchers will run benchmark tests using the corporation's representative data in an objective testing environment, suggest optimal system configurations for the specific needs of the corporation, train corporate staff to use and support HPCC systems and develop tools and algorithms to optimize the performance of the new systems to support the corporation's application. The carefully configured facility offers the flexibility to compare, basically mix and match, the performance of the major components commercially available today.
An exciting new service offered by the NPAC store is the design and development of an information server to collect and distribute information about the initiatives and technologies available in an organization. This service enables partners to create their own InfoMall within their organizations.
InfoMall was designed to be a virtual organization, a partnership of key organizations dedicated to the commercialization of emerging information technologies. It is through partnerships between the leaders in the field that accelerated development and adoption of HPCC technology will take place. The strong ties that exist between InfoMall partners is an asset in itself. Industrial technologists have access to the best in their field.
InfoMall benefits from the technology development and integration efforts of NPAC and from the technology and political resources of Syracuse University.
InfoMall draws from the staff resources of NPAC for project leadership and technical participation. As the number of NPAC technical staff is rather small, it is sometimes difficult to "timeshare" with other projects. In spite of the limited number of staff, InfoMall's technologies and facilities are competitive with those of larger organizations. Staff must often function as generalists, gathering, evaluating and integrating new technologies. It is sometimes difficult to attract and satisfy technical staff who are competent to identify new technologies, develop prototypes and assist with implementation in industry.
A second threat is found in the universal conflict between the state-of-the-art (high risk, constantly changing) and state-of-the-market (proven market demand, fairly stable technology, long development process). NPAC technical staff seek latest developments (essential for leading edge Center) while industry seeks emerging stable and tested technology to produce products mainstream market will accept. This issue is especially evident in NYS where risk-taking is perceived at life-threatening. It is of prime importance that InfoMall select technologies that are industry-standard, tested and developed to the point of demonstration before industry will seriously consider adopting. Unfortunately, this process is expensive and is not funded by the federal government as it should be.
By supporting InfoMall, New York State supports business advancement by essentially underwriting some of the risk associated with adopting and using an emerging technology like HPCC. By helping NYS businesses create new competitive advantages, InfoMall will help New York State:
* Maintain its leadership position in industries like Advertising, Insurance, Marketing, Publishing, Banking and Financial Services;
* Develop new footholds for critical growth industries like Information Technologies, Telecommunications, Computers and Computing Services, and Health Care; and
* Establish New York State as a hotbed for the development of completely new businesses in "Information Superhighway" (or GII) Services, Information Providing, and other future industries... along with the wealth-creating, entrepreneurial and synergetic advantages to other NYS industries and regions.
NPAC and its InfoMall partners offer technology solutions that are among the best available in the world. HPCC hardware, software and networking components are commercially available now to provide building blocks for prototype applications. Major industries throughout the US and the world are seeking assistance with the use and integration of HPCC & information technologies. In the spirit of the original ACTION-NYS program, InfoMall offers an innovative opportunity now!
InfoMall is designed to constantly monitor and evaluate the technological environment of its target businesses. This practice involves both traditional means of scanning the literature to determine trends and personal meetings with industries and visits to industrial sites for more in-depth knowledge. Other important sources of information include industrial trade events, conferences and industrial meetings. InfoMall meetings are a good source of information about current trends in member industries. As an organization of Syracuse University, InfoMall takes advantage of the University's excellent Office of Corporate Relations. Director Thomas Harblin visits target industries regularly to gather information on the state of each industry. Dr. Harblin works in close contact with InfoMall.
This year InfoMall introduces a more formal effort to gather state-of-the-market information which will be reported back to New York State and InfoMall member organizations. This information will be gathered through a combination of published information and personal contact with target industries.
1.1 Conduct self-evaluation of the program
1.2 Solicit feedback from members
1.3 Modify program as necessary to meet objectives
1.4 Analyze technical and market trends and advances
1.5 Identify NYS industry abilities and interests
1.6 Identify sponsors, prepare proposals, monitor contracts
2.2 Develop and demonstrate prototypes of applications (2 )
2.3 Assist industries with strategy to adopt HPCC technologies (10 )
2.4 Evaluate and report benchmark and other test results to support corporate purchase of HPCC systems (2)
2.5 Advise corporations on optimal configuration of new systems
2.6 Develop tools and algorithms to optimize applications
2.7 Establish collaborative technology development partnerships (5)
2.8 Include small businesses in technology partnerships (3)
3.2 Investigate and report on current state-of-the-market (1)
3.3 Identify/support small business partners (10 small businesses)
3.3(a) screen to select those likely to succeed and for those which InfoMall can be of greatest help in training, technical development, business development and marketing
3.3(b) provide resources for technical development
3.3(c) refer small businesses to business development partners
3.4 Participate in technology transfer activities with InfoMall partners
3.4(a) Joint marketing activities (5 )
3.4(b) InfoMall meetings, seminars, events (2)
3.5(c) Marketing materials, on-line information services
through the InfoMall World Wide Wed server
4.2 Forecast impact on HPCC for target industries
4.3 Consult with partners to enable them to use HPCC resources
4.4 Train industry staff on use and support of HPCC systems
InfoMall's strategy is to function like a virtual corporation. As with any corporation, it consists of departments or "wings" of the Mall. Our goal is to develop a membership that offers the very best technologies in each wing along with recognized market leaders, small niche software developers, and the economic development "glue" that ties the components together for a common cause. The common cause is the timely development of commercial products using emerging HPCC technologies. The motivation is economic development for New York State through the timely adoption of this technology.
InfoMall's operational strategy is to identify and gather emerging useful technology, to integrate components in a variety of configurations, demonstrate the advantages of each configuration and assist businesses to adopt the technology. New York State offers many opportunties for the use of advanced computing and communications products. To those corporations who are ready to adopt the technology immediately, InfoMall offers an experienced testbed where consumers may "kick the tires" and virtually test drive a variety of systems. Just as we visit showrooms to shop for a car, HPCC shoppers enjoy low risk hands-on experience with the technology before they make their selection. Through the participation of major HPCC vendors and the experience of the NPAC staff, InfoMall represents a showroom that cannot be found elsewhere.
The management strategy of InfoMall is to monitor and report on the current state of the technology and the market. Both technology and program direction are supplied by Geoffrey Fox and his staff of experienced HPCC specialists. The process of maintaining knowledge in this fast moving field requires vigorous participation in the national and international HPCC events. At the same time, InfoMall management must be aware of the current state of the market in order to understand what is useful to the target audience. To accomplish this, NPAC staff assigned to the InfoMall project participate in national HPCC and information technology projects and events. Sometimes this takes the form of conferences or seminars, other times they attend industry specific meetings or users groups. Often, the staff will visit a corporation or host a visit to NPAC. It is through this exhaustive process that the knowledge of the technology begins to transfer in and out of the InfoMall wings.
InfoMall will succeed through the careful orchestration of its membership and resources to enable the demonstration and adoption of useful HPCC technology. InfoMall integrates and demonstrates the use of the technology to the consumers because it is not always obvious how the technology will benefit an industry. The demonstration process often involves a close partnership with technology developer members of the Mall. A typical system consists of various computer and networking hardware and software components. A single system could require the participation of as many as ten different technology vendors. The development and demonstration of a useful system targeted for consumer members of InfoMall requires the careful coordination of a number of commercial and public entities.
InfoMall's strength comes from its membership. An important strategy is to identify and recruit members who can contribute to and benefit from the collaboration. This applies to both technology developer and technology consumer members. It is essential that the current state of the technology and the market drive the membership of InfoMall. As with any corporation, the vitality of the organization comes from the involvement of its members. We expect that InfoMall's active membership will result in relevant and interesting collaborative projects that attract sponsorship and ultimately result in new commercial products and services.
The results of InfoMall program activities conducted by the Northeast Parallel Architectures Center are collected monthly in order to report to the State. Each participant sends electronic mail to the Executive Director who summarizes the information in her report. Likewise, monthly and annual reports are produced by summarizing the information provided by NPAC participants.
InfoMall reports also contain information received from InfoMall partners. This information is submitted voluntarily by participating organizations. In certain instances, partners are specifically asked for information pertaining to results from the InfoMall program. The information is included in the report to New York State.
Institution: Northeast Parallel Architectures Center
Name of Program: InfoMall
Program/Project Number: 1
Program/Project Title: Management of InfoMall
Faculty Personnel:
Geoffrey C. Fox
Deborah A. Jones
Kim Mills
Marek Podgorny
Relevance Center Strategic Plan
Center management provides strategic direction for overall program and supervises the implementation of the plan. Geoffrey Fox directs the technical program including research and development, technical outreach and NPAC facilities initiatives. Deborah Jones oversees the institutional outreach, education/training and technology transfer activities. Center management supplies the InfoMall partners with services, facilities and opportunities to interact with one another to facilitate technology development partnerships. Fox directs activities dedicated to understanding evolving technology and market trends to ensure that InfoMall is focused on latest useful technology of interest to its members.
Deliverables from Section III.B
1.1 Conduct self-evaluation of the program
1.2 Solicit feedback from members
1.3 Modify program as necessary to meet objectives
1.4 Analyze technical and market trends and advances
1.5 Identify NYS industry abilities and interests
1.6 Identify sponsors, prepare proposals, monitor contracts
Project Start Date: 9/1/93
Project End Date: on-going
Sources of Funding:
Source Amount
New York State $159,545
Sponsor Information:
Name of company or organization: NYS Science & Technology Foundation
Contact Person:
Name Theresa Walker
Title Director, University/Industry Programs
Address 99 Washington Ave
City/State/ZIP code Albany, NY
Telephone # (518) 473-9744
Duration of support by this sponsor for this project:
9/1/93 (on-going)
Sponsor expectations:
technology transfer, economic development, assistance to NYS industry
Specific objectives:
Monitor current states of the technology and market to evaluate technical and program direction of InfoMall in terms of relevance to partners and target audience.
Monitor activities and results of InfoMall program and compare with objectives to determine effectiveness of the programs. Take corrective action as necessary
Relevance to the Center's target industry
The goal of InfoMall is to provide a technology transfer program that responds to the plans and requirements of organizations who seek to use HPCC technology to develop commercial information technology products and services.
Plan of approach
Continually evaluate state of the technology and markets to identify emerging key technologies and target audience.
Demonstrate useful enabling technologies to target industry.
Assist target industry with evaluation and selection of optimal system to support their development activities. Industry may choose to use InfoMall facilities for early development activities as well.
Identify and recruit target businesses, laboratories, universities and economic development organizations to join InfoMall for purpose of fostering economic development through collaboration and private development of new commercial information products and services.
Purpose of any planned travel
The process of identifying and reporting on latest developments in state-of-the-art technologies and markets often requires travel to sites of technology development and to conferences and meetings where the information is exchanged.
InfoMall member recruitment requires similar travel to organizations and meetings.
Industry involvement
All InfoMall processes are centered upon the requirements and interests of member organizations. Advisory groups are formed to evaluate alternatives and identify future direction.
Technical innovation
The "Mall" approach to technology transfer is an innovation itself. In addition to providing unique resources and relationships, InfoMall generates new uses for emerging technologies. This process is not duplicated in any public forum that we are aware of. Programs modeled after InfoMall are currently under consideration at Mississippi State and Rice Universities.
Steps to commercialization
As InfoMall is focused on the development of commercial products and services, it is expected that successful members will commercialize their developments.
Progress to date
InfoMall has been in existence for one year. In that short time, it has more than doubled its membership.
Impact to date
The InfoMall program activities has resulted in five sponsored development projects; cemented a critical collaboration between NYNEX, Rome Laboratory, NPAC and Cornell University and produced demonstrations of five critical information technologies.
Program/Project Number: 2
Program/Project Title: Technology Identification and Demonstration
Faculty Personnel:
Geoffrey C. Fox
Kim Mills
Marek Podgorny
Kenneth Hawick
Relevance to the Center Strategic Plan:
The research and development initiatives focus on identification, selection and integration of emerging technologies of interest and relevance to InfoMall partners. The technologies are critical to success of InfoMall as the enable partners to remain competitive with national and international firms who have access to latest technological advances. Emerging technologies are demonstrated for NYS firms who may not realize the potential uses of new technology. Demonstrations are tailored to specific businesses and industries.
InfoMall partners are able to make informed purchasing decisions with assistance from NPAC. NYS firms may benchmark candidate HPCC systems using their actual data. NPAC's experienced technical staff will recommend optimal configurations for specific applications and assist corporations with the installation and support of their new systems. This advise is offered without bias toward a particular vendor.
InfoMall also offers corporate members the opportunity to develop or contract for development of new algorithms or tools to increase usefulness and productivity of new HPCC computer systems.
Deliverables from Section III.B
2.2 Develop and demonstrate prototypes of applications (2 )
2.3 Assist industries with strategy to adopt HPCC technologies (10 )
2.4 Evaluate and report benchmark and other test results to support corporate purchase of HPCC systems (2)
2.5 Advise corporations on optimal configuration of new systems
2.6 Develop tools and algorithms to optimize applications
2.7 Establish collaborative technology development partnerships (5)
2.8 Include small businesses in technology partnerships (3)
Project Start Date: 9/1/93
Project End Date: on-going
Sources of Funding:
Project # Source Amount
2A New York State $87,060
2B New York State (Living Textbook project) $150,000
2C NYNEX $200,000
2D Rome Laboratory $400,000
2E Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation TBD
2F Rome Laboratory $50,000
2G Dun and Bradstreet $33,000
2H WorldView Technologies TBD
Sponsor Information:
Name of company or organization: NYS Science & Technology Foundation
Contact Person:
Name Theresa Walker
Title Director, University/Industry Programs
Address 99 Washington Ave
City/State/ZIP code Albany, NY
Telephone # (518) 473-9744
Sponsor expectations
Specific objectives
Identify, collect and integrate best available US computing and communication technologies
Demonstrate usefulness of technologies to target industry
Evaluate and report to New York State industry, acting as a "consumer reports" on HPCC technologies.
Transfer knowledge and ability through software development partnerships between NPAC, small business, corporate, and research laboratory developers.
Relevance to the Center's target industry
The central focus of InfoMall's activities is information technology development (Infotech), building partnerships of public, private, university and industry teams to build new HPCC commercial software (InfoTeam), developing new markets and finding new project partners (InfoMarketing) for HPCC applications in business
InfoMall is umbrella for special projects such as InfoVision (multimedia Information, Video, Imagery, and Simulation On demand), and new initiatives such as HPCC in education
Plan of approach
Coordinated activities in technology evaluation and development, marketing, and project team building combining NPAC staff with external partners
Prototype demonstration development of communications and computing technologies, participation in small business innovative research grants as research partner
Development and dissemination of educational materials on InfoMall
technology transfer process through conference presentations, publications, interactions with community groups, consulting with corporate InfoMall partners
Purpose of any planned travel
Meeting with industry partners
Attendance at important national conferences
Meetings with vendors, research institutions developing key HPCC technologies
Industry involvement
InfoMall is based on industry involvement and is made up of one third large businesses, one third small business, and one third research institutions, government, and community organizations
Technical innovation
InfoMall is an innovative program that uniquely combines state of the art HPCC technologies, technological expertise, business development. For many businesses, InfoMall serves as a high tech chamber of commerce.
Steps to commercialization
InfoMall projects develop pre-commercial HPCC software products through partnership activities. Commercialization is final step in process that includes basic research, vendor development, technology evaluation, and prototype development. Commercialization is the primary responsibility of InfoMall partner in small or large business.
Progress to date
InfoMall membership includes over 55 organizations
A set of InfoVision information-on-demand prototype demonstrations were developed and shared with InfoMall partners - financial modeling, electromagnetic simulation, video and imagery on demand, large scale (parallel) database applications.
InfoMall partners successfully bid for SBIR grants for software development.
Impact to date
New industry/university/government laboratory partnerships were formed to cooperatively develop applications and technology to support commercial product development. The high speed network, NYNet provides a foundation for a close collaboration between NYNEX, Rome Laboratory, Syracuse University and Cornell University in Upstate New York. New technology demonstration and experimentation initiatives such as the Living Textbook grew from the NYNet collaboration of InfoMall.
InfoMall projects provide useful information for strategic planning of large corporation technology investment (e.g. Dun & Bradstreet database, NYNEX multimedia information services).
Name of company or organization: NYS Science & Technology Foundation
Contact Person:
Name Theresa Walker
Title Director, University/Industry Programs
Address 99 Washington Ave
Albany, NY
Telephone # (518) 473-9744
Duration of support by this sponsor for this project:
7/1/94 - 6/30/95
Sponsor expectations
Demonstration of use of advanced technology in NYS classrooms
Report on issues involved in integration of new technology in the classroom
Specific objectives
Develop a set of multimedia information on demand instructional applications for delivery over NYNET commercial gigabit network for use in K-12 education
Relevance to the Center's target industry
The field of education is naturally suited for the use of high performance computing and communications as this technology allows the students and teacher to access to relevant information through a variety of media. Rapidly aging textbooks can be replaced by dynamic databases of multimedia information. Students and teachers will delight with the ability to see, hear and observe the subject of their discussions in addition to reading about it. The information delivered through HPCC technology will grow and change with new trends.
InfoVision develops database Information, Video, Imagery, and Simulation On demand technologies and applications. The Living Textbook project is InfoVision applied to K-12 education.
Plan of approach
Project tasks are based on partnerships with Syracuse University School of Education, and NYNEX. Our approach is to integrate technology development activities with instructional design, development, and
evaluation. We use the InfoMall model of university - industry partnerships for HPCC software development--two subcontracts with small software businesses are budgeted by NPAC. We also seek corporate/institutional support of the project by InfoMall partners.
Purpose of any planned travel
Visits to school districts participating in the project
Visits to industry partners
Visits to potential multimedia information content providers including New York State
Participation in educational conferences
Industry involvement
There is direct industry involvement in this project through NYNEX's contribution of school links to the NYNET network. NPAC will subcontract with two small software businesses, WorldView Inc. of Cortland NY, and ReFlex of Syracuse, NY. Both subcontracts establish InfoMall partnerships and support base technology development that will be reused in commercial markets. InfoMall is soliciting contributions of equipment, technical expertise,
and information content from corporate partners such Rome Laboratory, Kodak, Scholastic, and CNN.
Technical innovation
This project applies state of the art computing (InfoMall's parallel supercomputers, databases, and multimedia information servers) and telecommunications (NYNEX's NYNET network) technologies to K-12 education. InfoMall will use this project to evaluate component technologies
and system integration issues to capture, store, index, and deliver multimedia information on demand over wide area high-speed networks.
Steps to commercialization
NYNEX and small business partners will commercialize the services and content developed through this project. Project activities are designed to develop and deliver prototypes of educational software products based on high-performance computing and communications technologies. The results of this project will serve as a model for small software businesses to use in developing follow-on commercial software products for educational markets and Information Superhighway delivery.
Progress to date
This project awaits formal approval by the New York State Science and Technology Foundation. Thus far, representatives from NYNEX, Rome Laboratory, Syracuse University School of Education, NPAC and the participating schools have met to decide upon a common development platform and networking infrastructure. Components have been ordered and are expected to arrive in September. An early demonstration of the technology is planned for October 1994.
Impact to date
While we are still in the project planning stage, this project demonstrates the InfoMall model of partnerships between the university, small software businesses, and large corporations. InfoMall forged a working collaboration between InfoMall partners, NYNEX, Rome Laboratory, Syracuse Language Systems, MapPower, NPAC, Syracuse University School of Education, Columbia Teachers College and several NYS middle schools.
Contact Person:
Name Thomas Mushow
Title Director, Economic Development
Address Washington Street
City/State/ZIP code Syracuse, New York
Telephone # (315) 479-8246
Duration of support by this sponsor for this project
9/1/94 - 8/31/95 with plans for possible second year
Sponsor expectations
Demonstration of possible applications of new technology to serve as basis for new services.
Evaluation of cost/performance of various candidate HPCC systems.
Specific objectives
This project is designed to develop a set of marketing demonstrations of high performance multimedia technologies and digital services for NYNEX. Four application areas are targeted--government, education, health care, and home markets.
Relevance to the Center's target industry
The telecommunications industry is undergoing a revolution that is enabled by the emerging technologies related to high performance computing and communications. The basis for the revolution is the creation of the information superhighway. New services will be demanded by new customers seeking congruence between home, office and school where they will learn, shop and conduct business electronically. NYNEX and its competitors are in fierce competition to capture this emerging market. InfoMall offers the knowledge and facilities to exploit the development of emerging technologies to enable NYNEX to offer their services early in the revolution. The project described above is a key step in the development of video-on-demand services utilizing high performance computers to store and serve videos to the home, office and school via high performance networks.
The outcome of this project will be a set of demonstrations that help communicate the potential of high-performance multimedia information services in commercial markets important to NYNEX.
Plan of approach
NPAC will work closely with NYNEX to carry out four main steps in this project: market study, technical evaluation, prototype design, and application demonstration. We plan to solicit feedback from an advisory committee developed from NYNEX and InfoMall contacts to representatives of government, education, health care, and home information markets.
Purpose of any planned travel
Local travel to NYNEX customer sites in Central New York
Visits to NYNEX Science & Technology in White Plains
Travel to national meetings on multimedia technology development
Industry involvement
NYNEX and Rome Laboratory will participate in this project to learn about the potential uses of HPCC multimedia-on-demand in both domestic services and military decision support. The facilities of each partner will play a critical role in the evaluation and development of resulting technologies.
Input from business representatives of government, education, health care, and consumer information markets will be solicited.
Technical innovation
High-performance multimedia technologies such as parallel computers, databases, and multimedia information servers have not yet been applied in commercial markets. This project will carry out technical evaluations and develop market demonstrations for these new technologies. While component technologies are well understood, large scale system integration issues and cost-performance at a commercial scale are not well defined.
Steps to commercialization
NYNEX will commercialize the services and technologies developed and demonstrated in this project. This project will develop a set of market demonstrations for potentially new telecommunication services. The lessons that InfoMall learns from technology evaluation and demonstration development will have general application to many small software business markets.
Progress to date
Though a contract has not been completed, NPAC has a commitment from NYNEX to support this project. We await formal approval and funding.
Impact to date
NPAC created a suite of multimedia information-on-demand applications for InfoMall demonstration. Although still in the planning phase, we anticipate that this work will result in new InfoMall contracts in health care, education, and community organizations.
Name of company or organization: Rome Laboratory
Contact Person:
Name Daniel McAuliffe
Title Branch Chief
Address Rome Laboratory
City/State/ZIP code Rome, NY 13440
Telephone # (315) 330-7667
Duration of support by this sponsor for this project (start/end dates)
Sponsor expectations
Development of a video testbed to be used by the US Air Force to model future military command and control environments.
Specific objectives
To build a testbed of distributed networks, video servers, video network service and user interfaces. The video service testbed will be used to evaluate and develop video input, compression, storage, network delivery, and search capabilities. NPAC will demonstrate the use of multiple video streams delivered to multiple users for educational and other applications.
Relevance to the Center's target industry
Delivering video services based on high-performance computing and communications technologies provides a prototype of the systems needed to implement the National Information Infrastructure. These same systems have direct dual-use application in military command and control operations.
Plan of approach
We plan to build a video testbed that extends our locally linked workstation network to include parallel and distributed computers on the wide area NYNet network. We will evaluate current technologies and design development activities to address key deficiencies. Our work will be carried out in the context of InfoMall with the national research and development community, promoting synergy and collaboration with the work of others.
Purpose of any planned travel
Visits to Rome Laboratory
Travel to national research meetings
Travel to key HPCC vendors
Industry involvement
This project will be closely coordinated with the NYNEX video on demand project. Where the NYNEX video project emphasizes market applications, this video project emphasizes base technologies and systems integration. Computing and communications vendors in this field contribute to this project by providing access to system level proprietary software and early access to application software releases.
Technical innovation
Desktop multimedia systems are available from commercial sources. The high-speed wide area NYNET network, and the parallel and distributed computers from eight different vendors at NPAC provide unique resources for this project which will pioneer video delivery in a high-performance multimedia computing and communications environment. This approach is necessary to support large scale commercial applications on the National Information Infrastructure, and future military command and control environments.
Steps to commercialization
The video service testbed developed in this project must be further refined by industry partners such as NYNEX or Rome Laboratory contractors to develop commercial software products.
Progress to date
We have a verbal commitment of funding from Rome Laboratory and are awaiting the completion of contract negotiations.
Impact to date
This project is still in the planning phase, impacts include our interactions with computing and communications vendors such as being selected as one of five world wide beta test sites by the Oracle Corporation for parallel text retrieval software (used to index video service).
Name of company or organization: Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation
Contact Person:
Name Sid Lipton
Title R&D department
Address 300 Erie Blvd West
Syracuse NY 13202
Telephone # (315) 428-6926
Duration of support by this sponsor for this project (start/end dates)
Proof-of-concept and prototyping phases from 6/16/93 to 4/16/94. Implementation phase planned for the late 1994.
Sponsor expectations
An overview of how high-performance parallel computing can help utility industry operations, and some software in specific areas such as transient stability analysis for real-time simulation of faults in power networks.
Specific objectives
To explore uses of HPCC in the utility industry, and to develop software for NIMO applications.
Relevance to the Center's target industry
This project is specifically designed to assist one target industry with their information and simulation needs.
Plan of approach
Proof-of-concept and prototype phases have been completed. An overview of possible applications of parallel computing to the utility industry has been presented. Testing of the prototype transient stability analysis program will follow, with an implementation of application software in the next phase.
Purpose of any planned travel
To attend meetings and conferences on state-of-the-art computer applications in the utility industry.
Industry involvement
Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation (NMPC) is one of the largest utilities in New York State. We are also investigating involvement with other New York State utilities, the New York Power Pool (NYPP), and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the utility industry national research arm.
Technical innovation
High-performance parallel computing has great potential for improving real-time simulations of the stability of the electrical power network, as well as many other utility applications.
Steps to commercialization
Any production-level software will be used by NMPC and possibly also commercialized for resale by EPRI.
Progress to date
A proof-of-concept has been presented, algorithms developed, and some prototype software has been implemented.
The project resulted in unexpected discoveries that have delayed the final report until September 1994.
Impact to date
The software has not yet been used or tested by NMPC, however there has been some interest in the use of parallel computing at NMPC and NYPP.
Name of company or organization: Rome Laboratory
Contact Person:
Name John Graniero
Title Chief Scientist
Address Rome Laboratory,
City/State/ZIP code 525 Brooks Road. Griffiss AFB NY 13441-4505 Telephone # (315) 330 3174
Duration of support by this sponsor for this project (start/end dates)
Pilot Project complete (3/1/94-6/31/94), Dates for Renewal under negotiation.
Sponsor expectations
Demonstration of the InfoMall process for integrating technology transfer efforts within Air Force Materiel Command.
Monitor current states of the technology and market to evaluate technical and program direction of InfoMall in terms of relevance to partners and target audience.
Specific objectives
Organizations like the US Air Force Materiel Command (USAFMC) must be able to respond rapidly and effectively with decision making in areas of complex technology. The recent pilot project has demonstrated the capabilities of an "Electronic InfoMall" in providing a suitable infrastructure for the rapid exchange of multimedia information for decision support and collaborative purposes. InfoMall provides a useful model for USAFMC sites to collaborate and contribute to a distributed database system. The next phase of work is likely to investigate the High performance Computing and Communications software and hardware technology necessary for several AFMC sites to participate.
Relevance to the Center's target industry
Rome Laboratory and NPAC together are in a unique position to demonstrate this type of intersite collaboration through the availability of the NYNEX's high speed digital network NYNet that connects both sites. This network can act as a prototype to demonstrate this multimedia collaboration capability which will justify the advance of other networks, both commercial and military.
Plan of approach
This is currently under negotiation, but broadly will involve demonstrating additional technical capabilities of the multimedia collaboration system (such as distributed database systems) across other USAFMC sites.
Purpose of any planned travel
The pilot project required demonstration of the system at USAFMC Headquarters Wright Patterson Air Force Base as well as at Rome Laboratory, for senior USAFMC officers. Further project work will require similar travel to demonstrate the system.
Industry involvement
A major contribution to this project to date has come from the provision of the NYNet digital network by NYNEX. Further work on this project will make even more intensive use of the high speed capabilities of NYNet.
Technical innovation
The pilot project demonstrated the innovative coupling together of multimedia software modules. Extensions to this work will investigate the integration of existing database systems, commercial and military into the distributed multimedia information delivery system.
Steps to commercialization
The prototype system demonstrated uses public domain software modules linked together to make a whole that is more powerful than the individual parts. This could become a commercialized dual-use multimedia product.
Progress to date
The demonstration pre-prototype system is complete. Some additional technical capabilities require investigation.
Impact to date
The potential impact from a system like that demonstrated in justifying the continued distribution of personnel across USAFMC sites nationwide rather than centrally is considerable.
Name of company or organization: Dun & Bradstreet
Contact Person:
Name Robert L. Hill
Title Manager, Advanced Development Technology
Address 660 W. Germantown Pike
City/State/ZIP code Plymouth Meeting, PA 19462
Telephone # 215) 834-6589
Duration of support by this sponsor for this project (start/end dates)
7/1/94 (on-going)
Sponsor expectations
Comparative technology evaluation for the "data factory" project
Specific objectives
Implement their benchmark on three different hardware/software platforms
Relevance to the Center's target industry
Methodology developed for this project is easily transferable to
similar project involving information processing customers in New York State.
Plan of approach
Design and install required infrastructure. Implement benchmark, measure performance, analyze results.
Purpose of any planned travel
Receive training from vendors in installation and tuning of the
software tools.
Industry involvement
Vendors provide free software access and support.
Technical innovation
NPAC is only non-industrial center with capability to carry out this type of project.
Steps to commercialization
The consulting services related to parallel database technology have clear commercial potential. A spin-off will be considered if sufficient customer base can be identified.
Progress to date
Evaluation of one platform has been completed. Infrastructure for two additional platforms has been installed and tested.
Impact to date
A contract with an industry leader like Dun & Bradstreet provides opportunities for similar contracts with other organizations. The main impact of this project is not on vendors but on target consumer oriented businesses. For non-technical businesses, it is important to have access to an independent technology evaluator. The availability of this service will enable faster implementation of the parallel database technology in the industry with positive impact on its competitiveness.
Name of company or organization: WorldView Information Technology Corporation
Contact Person:
Name Victor Siegle
Title WorldView Information Technology Corporation
Address 17 Main St. Suite 313
City/State/ZIP code Cortland NY 13045
Telephone # 607-756-5550
Duration of support by this sponsor for this project (start/end dates)
9/94 through 6/95
Sponsor expectations
Creation of a realistic real-time rendering program specifically for rendering terrain models in a Geographical Information System.
Specific objectives
To develop a working sequential renderer that will then be parallelized and finally optimized to run in real time on any computer architecture.
Relevance to the Center's target industry
The software developed in this project is a component of the set of information on demand technologies developed by NPAC and industry partners. This project will deliver the results to school districts participating in the Living Textbook project. Fast three dimensional graphics routines are useful in many applications including multimedia educational software, edutainment, and visualization of computer simulations.
Plan of approach
Software development activities between WorldView and NPAC staff include sharing software, designing interfaces between software environments, modifying existing WorldView software to be easily accessible by school children, and writing new parallel terrain rendering software to support WorldView support over a network link.
Purpose of any planned travel
To attend conferences to keep abreast of the state-of-the-art in 3-D graphics software and algorithms.
Industry involvement
Collaboration with two New York state companies who wish to use the developed programs in commercial products.
Technical innovation
Very few parallel renderers currently exist, and none are portable and run in real-time across a variety of different computer architectures.
Steps to commercialization
Software is planned to be commercialized by the companies involved.
Progress to date
We currently have a working sequential renderer, and have developed a parallel algorithm which will be implemented in the next few months.
Impact to date
This project was begun recently. Software and development plans are still being developed.
Program/Project Number: 3
Program/Project Title: Reporting, Marketing & Outreach to InfoMall Partners
Faculty Personnel:
Geoffrey C. Fox
Kim Mills
Deborah A. Jones
Nancy McCracken
Paul Coddington
Denny Eaton
Sean Branagan
Relevance to the Center Strategic Plan
The foundation of InfoMall is built upon partnerships with public and private entities who have a vested interest in the commercialization of products and services based upon HPCC technology. This includes the identification and integration of large and small businesses, involvement of economic development organizations, and the services and facilities of universities and government laboratories. The institutional relationships between the InfoMall partners, NPAC and the State of New York are managed by the team listed under Outreach and Technology Transfer.
Deliverables from Section III.B
3.2 Investigate and report on current state-of-the-market (1)
3.3 Identify/support small business partners (10 small businesses)
3.3(a) screen to select those likely to succeed and for those which InfoMall can be of greatest help in training, technical development, business development and marketing
3.3(b) provide resources for technical development
3.3(c) refer small businesses to business development partners
3.4 Participate in technology transfer activities with InfoMall partners
3.4(a) Joint marketing activities (5 )
3.4(b) InfoMall meetings, seminars, events (2)
3.5(c) Marketing materials, on-line information services
through the InfoMall World Wide Web server
Project Start Date: 9/1/93
Project End Date: on-going
Sources of Funding:
Source Amount
New York State $291,845
Sponsor Information:
Name of company or organization: NYS Science & Technology Foundation
Contact Person:
Name Theresa Walker
Title Director, University/Industry Programs
Address 99 Washington Ave
Albany, NY
Telephone # (518)
Duration of support by this sponsor for this project (start/end dates)
9/1/93 (on-going)
Sponsor expectations:
Technology transfer, economic development, assistance to NYS industry, assistance to businesses to develop new commercial products and services using HPCC technology.
Specific objectives
Study the relationship (or gap) between the existing state-of-the-market and the emerging state-of-the-art technologies to determine which NYS industries are likely to seek and benefit in the near term from the use of HPCC-based information technologies.
Solicit participation by organizations who are likely to benefit from near term use of HPCC-based information technologies, and who are able to contribute to the mission of InfoMall.
Identify and recruit participation from potential sponsors of InfoMall development projects
Participate in joint marketing and economic development activities with InfoMall partners and sponsors.
Relevance to the Center's target industry
Target industries stand to gain a competitive advantage through participation in InfoMall. Many may not realize the relevance of HPCC technologies to their organizations, or be aware of the state-of-the-art in these technologies. The outreach and technology transfer activities of InfoMall serve to education, introduce and convince partners to join InfoMall for their mutual benefit.
Plan of approach
Based on current projects and participants of the Mall, we will target appropriate industry or technology
Use the current state of technology development within each industry to serve as a starting point for discussions, education and development activities
Collaborate with established InfoMall partner industry and organizations to gain the trust of target industries. establish credible track record with current InfoMall partners who will serve as references with target industries.
Host meetings and other events to introduce partners to emerging technologies and issues of technology transfer. encourage interchange of information and technology between partners. education partners and sponsors of state-of-the-Mall (markets and technologies) through reports on trends and current events.
Purpose of any planned travel
By their nature, outreach activities frequently involve travel to the site of a prospective partner or to industry conferences or meetings to give presentations about InfoMall.
Industry involvement
Outreach activities of InfoMall are often performed jointly by InfoMall staff and key partners such as Booz.Allen & Hamilton, NYNEX and Rome Laboratory. Additional outreach efforts are contributed to InfoMall by other partners who represent the Mall and refer contacts to us. These efforts are funded by the partners.
Technical innovation N/A
Steps to commercialization N/A
Progress to date
Outreach efforts to date have resulted in many inquiries about the InfoMall program. Our experiences with the InfoMall meetings and participation conferences and trade shows has enabled us to determine which events are likely to result in useful contacts or new partners.
Impact to date
As the result of outreach efforts during the past year, InfoMall membership has grown from 23 members to over 55 members. Five technical projects were initiated and proposals are under consideration for ten new projects.
Program/Project Number: 4
Program/Project Title: Consulting, Mentoring and Training
Faculty Personnel:
Nancy McCracken
Paul Coddington
Relevance to the Center Strategic Plan.
This activity has the greatest impact on the small business partners of InfoMall who generally require personal assistance to get started using the facilities. InfoMall consultants are able to suggest the best approach for development using HPCC technologies. Other businesses will benefit from consultation on the state-of-the-market. Qualified small businesses may spend time at the NPAC facilities for greater access to intellectual and computer resources. With effective screening of candidate small businesses, InfoMall will enable the development of new products, introduce small businesses to potential customers and include small businesses in large development projects. Before this can be achieved, the small businesses must be able to contribute to the current state of the art technology and marketplace.
Deliverables from Section III.B
4.2 Forecast impact on HPCC for target industries
4.3 Consult with partners to enable them to use HPCC resources
4.4 Train industry staff on use and support of HPCC systems
Project Start Date: 9/1/93
Project End Date: on-going
Sources of Funding:
Project # Source Amount
4A New York State $49,893
4B National Science Foundation $50,000
Sponsor Information:
Name of company or organization: NYS Science & Technology Foundation
Contact Person:
Name Theresa Walker
Title Director, University/Industry Programs
Address 99 Washington Ave
Albany, NY
Telephone # (518)
Duration of support by this sponsor for this project (start/end dates)
9/1/93 (on-going)
Sponsor expectations
Economic development through new and expanding small software businesses in NYS
Specific objectives
Prepare small businesses to engage in commerce in area of information technologies using HPCC technology
Relevance to the Center's target industry
Small businesses represent an important source of new technology development and integration. By enabling new small businesses to offer state-of-the-art products, InfoMall's technology development projects will benefit from a rich source of third party niche software developers.
Plan of approach
Screen interested small businesses to determine which are most likely to benefit from the resources of InfoMall and plan to participate in large development projects in the future.
Provide tailored assistance to small businesses to accelerate the development of their commercial products and services. This assistance will be provided in the form of individual consulting on an as-needed basis, small group training sessions on a particular topic and on-line tutorials. We expect that small businesses may be able to take advantage of consulting or training in such topics as accessing the Internet, using an HPCC software package that can be re-used in a commercial product, or programming a high performance computer to assist in product development.
Introduce small businesses to InfoMall partners who can provide specific resources, mentoring, sponsorship or business opportunities.
Include qualified small businesses in InfoMall technology development projects.
Purpose of any planned travel
Visit InfoMall partners to identify resources and opportunities for small business partners. Visit small businesses for demonstration and evaluation.
Industry involvement
Established InfoMall partners seek relationships with qualified small businesses who offer niche technology development or whose commercial product offers new commercial opportunities. InfoMall partners welcome demonstrations and small business technology development plans for their review.
Technical innovation
Small businesses offer specialized technology innovations that larger businesses cannot produce. We look to the small businesses for development of commercial products offering specific content (ex. education software), specialized technology components and integration services.
Steps to commercialization
Small businesses seek to develop commercial products. InfoMall partners may chose to purchase such products to include in their commercial products and services as well.
Progress to date
Though we have identified over 20 interested small businesses, InfoMall has not yet developed a screening mechanism to select those most likely to benefit from the finite resources of NPAC and other partners. Additional InfoMall resources are necessary to begin the process of choosing small businesses, developing a plan to provide consulting services and to provide a follow-up evaluation of their progress. InfoMall resources will allocated on a limited basis for next year to implement consulting, mentoring and training activities.
Impact to date
Preliminary review of issues related to supporting small businesses is complete. Support activities will begin on limited basis in next year of the contract.
Name of company or organization:
National Science Foundation Center for Research on Parallel Computation
Contact Person:
Name Ken Kennedy
Title Director
Address Rice University
City/State/ZIP code 6100 S. Main Street, Houston, TX 77025
Telephone # (713) 285 5180
If the contact person is not at a New York address, describe the company's operations in New York.
The Center for Research on Parallel Computation (CRPC) is a distributed organization consisting of: Rice University; the Northeast Parallel Architectures Center at Syracuse University; the University of Tennessee; California Institute of Technology; Los Alamos National Laboratory; Argonne National Laboratory. The CRPC is concerned with all aspects of High Performance and Parallel Computing and Communications. The applications effort and industrial outreach components of CRPC's efforts are coordinated by Geoffrey C Fox at NPAC in Syracuse.
Duration of support by this sponsor for this project (start/end dates)
Sponsor expectations
The CRPC is supported by the NSF to make parallel computing systems truly useful, both for academic, industrial and government end users.
Specific objectives
Through its work with industrial partners, the Northeast Parallel Architectures Center has helped transfer many of the HPCC technologies that have originated in the CRPC or have been collected together and integrated by the CRPC. A recent major development is the formation of a National Software Exchange, which will provide a distributed mechanism for making software for HPCC systems available to a very wide range of users across the Internet. NPAC will be working with its industrial partners to ensure they get the maximum benefits from the availability of this software.
Relevance to the Center's target industry
The CRPC provides links to the best HPCC software both nationally and internationally and is thus a source of great importance to InfoMall industrial partners in maintaining a competitive edge by using the most advanced HPCC software available.
Plan of approach
NPAC makes Internet assets from the CRPC and elsewhere available to its InfoMall partners already, and also offers them the opportunity to place specific contracts with NPAC for additional help, consulting, or specific porting or implementations to fully exploit these software assets.
Purpose of any planned travel
Although a great deal of intersite collaboration is done using electronic methods within CRPC, inevitably some personal interaction is necessary from time to time to ensure NPAC personnel remain fully abreast of the latest CRPC technological assets.
Industry involvement
NPAC has worked with several industrial partners to help them exploit CRPC software products. A specific example is work carried out for Syracuse Research Corporation to help them make full use of the ScaLAPACK scaleable linear algebra software for HPCC systems.
Technical innovation
NPAC's unique dual role as the industrial interface to the nation's leading Parallel Computing Research organization as well as being a research participant allows it to assist industrial partners exploit CRPC software and ideas in innovative ways, but also provides "real world" feedback to the research efforts so that the next generation technical innovations to emerge from CRPC will be even more useful and applicable for wealth creation. A good example is NPAC's High Performance Fortran Applications Evaluation project, where NPAC staff are evaluating the High performance Fortran language - a recent technically innovative product from CRPC - from an end user applications perspective. The results of this study (including industrial observations) will be fed back into the CRPC to help direct the next generation of the HPF language.
Steps to commercialization
NPAC works with industrial partners either in a general consultative fashion or more effectively as specific technology integration contracts to turn the CRPC research products into real commercial applications products.
Progress to date
Syracuse Research Corporation and IBM are two examples of companies that have benefited from CRPC technology that has been integrated into their own products by NPAC.
Impact to date
Impact from these projects has been new products that the companies could not have otherwise offered as well as extensions to the lifetimes of existing products.
Program/Project Title: InfoMall HPCC Facility Development
Faculty Personnel:
Marek Podgorny
Roman Markowski
Relevance to the Center Strategic Plan
This activity is central to the success of InfoMall. It is essential that the InfoMall facilities remain state-of-the-art in the areas of interest and relevance to InfoMall partners. It is perhaps even more important that the facilities are of vital interest to potential InfoMall partners if the Mall is to thrive. To accomplish this, the facility must be managed by experts in the field of HPCC and information technologies who have a keen understanding of the current state-of-the-market. Additionally, the facility must be dynamic enough to respond to evolving technological advances and trends yet stable enough to provide services for current InfoMall partners and clients. The maintenance of this balance is indeed a challenge to InfoMall management!
Deliverables from Section III.B
Project Start Date: 9/1/93
Project End Date: on-going
Sources of Funding:
Project # Source Amount
5A New York State $1,800,000
5B Oracle Corporation $250,000
5C IBM $250,000
5D NYNEX $1,000,000
Sponsor Information:
Name of company or organization NYS Science & Technology Foundation
Contact Person:
Name Theresa Walker
Title Director, University/Industry Programs
Address 99 Washington Ave
Albany, NY
Telephone # (518) 473-9744
Duration of support by this sponsor for this project (start/end dates)
Sponsor expectations
The InfoMall facility must provide resources and services that enable InfoMall partners to develop competitive new products and services.
Specific objectives
Maintain state-of-the-art in identified technology areas. Provide large enough system to test and develop applications.
Chose systems and networking that represent all major candidate systems for target applications. Maintain working heterogeneous environment.
Experiment with emerging systems to determine cost/performance of each. Share findings with InfoMall members and participating vendors.
When contract stipulates, provide evaluation services that are proprietary to sponsor. Seek right to share non-proprietary information with membership at large.
Relevance to the Center's target industry
The facility is designed to be responsive to the needs of participating and potential InfoMall industrial partners. For small businesses who cannot afford HPCC systems of their own, InfoMall offers access to newest technology on which they may develop innovative applications.
Plan of approach
Observe and evaluate emerging technologies to identify those with the
most promise for future commercial applications. Invest in selected technologies and integrate them with Center's existing infrastructure to provide fully functional facility. Enhance available technology by elements needed for implementation of InfoMall participants projects. Provide guidance and support for the Center users to ease the transition to the newest technology.
Purpose of any planned travel
The identification, integration and maintenance of emerging technologies is itself a research and development activity requiring a great deal of personal investigation and evaluation. The InfoMall facility manager and his NPAC staff attempt to conduct as much investigation as possible from our location in Syracuse. Often, however, they must visit vendor sites for training, attend conferences to learn of the latest advances and visit industrial sites to exchange information.
Industry involvement
Industry involvement is critical to the success of InfoMall. The emerging technologies can only be exploited in close cooperation with the vendors. Since for this type of technologies, standard vendor support is either non-existent or immature, it must be replaced by working relationships with technology developers. InfoMall builds development-focused relationships, often taking form of the beta test agreements, allow access to the technology still in the development phase and accessible on the market.
Technical innovation
The entire project relies on installation and application of the innovative technology.
Steps to commercialization
The InfoMall facility is designed to provide information and experience to industrial partners seeking to produce commercial products and services.
Progress to date
During the calendar year 1993, the NPAC facility has been restructured from the traditional HPCC simulation applications to commercially useful information processing technology. The vital new components installed during last year involve modern networking technology and the equipment enabling both commercial database applications and the InfoVision project. InfoVision will enable delivery of the prototype network services to the NYNET participants.
Impact to date
InfoMall enabled the evaluation and development of new products and services for its members. Two large projects are the parallel database benchmarking and the Living Textbook projects.
* Parallel database benchmarking project: NPAC built a unique capability to benchmark and evaluate parallel database servers from different vendors, running on different hardware platforms. The first contract for such an evaluation has be awarded to NPAC by Dun & Bradstreet. NPAC has also been enlisted by IBM for beta-testing evaluation. and enhancements to their parallel DB2 product. Given current increase of interest in MPP-based database technology, this puts NPAC in a position for providing unique services and to build in Central New York a pocket of expertise vital for the banking, insurance, and information processing industry of the region.
* Living Textbook project: the on-going integration of the HPCC resources with multimedia technology (InfoVision) enabled an innovative project to deliver educational material from the Center supercomputers to schools. This project has potential for creating new telecommunication services and new form of industry.
A. Name of company or organization Oracle Corporation
Contact Person:
Name Irwin Glenn
Title Database and Network Specialist
Address 290 Woodcliff Drive
City/State/ZIP code Fairport NY 14450
Telephone # (716) 264-4524
Duration of support by this sponsor for this project (start/end dates)
6/1/93 (on-going)
Sponsor expectations
Cooperation in promoting their parallel database technology, implementation of pilot projects, testbed and technology evaluation for new products.
Specific objectives
Implement one or more applications based on Oracle technology at an InfoMall participant site.
Relevance to the Center's target industry
Provide supported access to early versions of very expensive and complex software.
Serve as a beta test site for proposed releases of high performance database products.
Plan of approach
Complete benchmarking and technology evaluation projects sponsored by an InfoMall participant using free software access provided by sponsor. Build a working relationship with InfoMall participant by maintaining technical during the evaluation procedure. Design and implement an application relevant to the InfoMall participant business if evaluation positive.
Purpose of any planned travel
None planned at this time
Industry involvement
Oracle provides free software license, product support and technical collaboration.
Technical innovation
Develop new approaches and uses for emerging parallel database technology.
Steps to commercialization
Oracle's parallel database is a commercial product upon which new products and services may be built. Consulting services related to parallel database technology have clear commercial potential. A spin-off will be considered if sufficient customer base can be identified.
Progress to date
Expertise and infrastructure have been built that allow for benchmarking of customer applications of any size.
Impact to date
There is an immediate impact on product quality: the extensive testing of the products results in numerous bug fixes. Oracle seeks technology proliferation through the development of applications identified during the evaluation phase. We anticipate that during the next year we will implement one or two applications.
Name of company or organization IBM Corporation
Contact Person:
Name David V. Gelardi
Title Manager, Commercial Market Support
Address Neighborhood Rd
City/State/ZIP code Kingston, NY 12410
Telephone # (914) 385-8219
Duration of support by this sponsor for this project (start/end dates)
1/1/93 - 12/31/94
Sponsor expectations
Implementation of novel algorithms and applications on IBM's parallel platforms. On-going consulting process and product evaluation.
Specific objectives
Implement one or more applications based on the IBM technology
at an InfoMall participant site.
Relevance to the Center's target industry
IBM hardware and software is frequently used as a component of industrial data processing applications. We anticipate that IBM's parallel systems will be in great demand by the industrial community.
Plan of approach
Install a state-of-the-art system with a configuration capable of supporting data-intensive applications. Install relevant software. Evaluate both products for the purpose of large commercial applications. Use InfoMall's expertise to improve the software. Identify an InfoMall participant who needs to use the technology and design and implement an application using it.
Purpose of any planned travel
None planned at this time
Industry involvement
IBM will collaborate with NPAC and other InfoMall partners to test and develop their systems to meet demand of industrial customers.
Technical innovation
The project involves installation of the newest hardware and evaluation and benchmarking of the not yet available software products.
Steps to commercialization
IBM's parallel system is a commercial product. The consulting services related to parallel database technology have clear commercial potential. A spin-off will be considered if sufficient customer base can be identified.
Progress to date
Expertise and infrastructure have been built that allow for benchmarking of customer applications of any size.
Impact to date
IBM seeks technology proliferation through the identification and development of applications. In collaboration with InfoMall partners, we anticipate developing one or two applications in the next year.
Name of company or organization NYNEX
Contact Person:
Name Tom Mushow
Title Director, Economic Development
Address 300 East Washington Street
City/State/ZIP code Syracuse, NY 13202
Telephone # (315) 4798246
Duration of support by this sponsor for this project (start/end dates)
1/1/93 (on-going)
Sponsor expectations
Implementation of a set of demonstrations and pilot applications exploiting features of the ATM networking technology. NYNEX expects to turn some of these demonstrations into commercial projects by developing them into future services. Specifically, NYNEX will gain insight into the use of the HPCC technology for network services.
Specific objectives
To identify applications for future telecommunication services offered on the "Information Superhighway". The project focuses on non-entertainment sector, looking for uses in fields like education, telemedicine, and community information systems.
Relevance to the Center's target industry
HPCC technology will enable new telecommunications services that will most likely be provided by telephone and cable companies. There is also good potential for small businesses to develop content-based products.
Plan of approach
Build the necessary infrastructure. Implement a number of applications and test them to evaluate their viability as prototypes of commercial services.
Industry involvement
NYNEX provides networking infrastructure for the wide area ATM network. Health care and education professionals are working in teams with NYNEX, Rome Laboratory, Cornell and Syracuse Universities to develop leading edge uses for the technology.
Technical innovation
The ATM network being built and its integration with InfoMall HPCC resources creates one of the most advanced testbeds in the nation.
Steps to commercialization
NYNEX and its partners are looking for opportunities to identify and develop commercial services based upon HPCC technologies.
Progress to date
Most of the infrastructure is in place. A number of demonstrations have been prepared and presented.
Impact to date
NYNEX has received significant ideas regarding possible applications. During the next year, the project is expected to result in clearly identified and defined commercial applications.