Internet Info 1994 March/Internet Info CD-ROM (Walnut Creek) (March 1994).iso/inet/nren/hpca.1991/crecine.txt

Text File | 1991-04-14 | 9KB | 169 lines

 Testimony by
 DR. JOHN PATRICK CRECINE

 PRESIDENT, GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

 for a Hearing of

 THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE AND
 TRANSPORTATION

 March 5, 1991


 Mr. Chairman, it is an honor to be asked to testify to this joint
 hearing on S.R. 272, The High Performance Computing Act of 1991.

 I am John P. Crecine, President of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
 Georgia Tech is a major technological university, with an enrollment
 of approximately 12,000 students, located in Atlanta, Georgia.
 Georgia Tech is one of the nation's leading research universities,
 having conducted over $175 million in sponsored research during the
 past year, almost all in the areas of science, engineering and
 technology.

 I would like to thank this committee, and especially Senator Gore, for
 their continued strong support of computing-related research.  I
 think the committee's focus on computing in the context of national
 competitiveness is an appropriate one, and one that leads to the
 anticipation of critical technologies.  Georgia Tech strongly supports
 S.R. 272, and eagerly awaits possible participation in translating its
 objectives into reality.

 Georgia Tech, as a major technological university, has placed a high
 priority on computing and related facilities.  This may be best
 demonstrated by the creation in 1989 of the College of Computing,
 the nation's first college devoted entirely to computing.  Both within
 the College of Computing, and throughout the rest of the Institute,
 there is a deep and comprehensive involvement with leading-edge
 computational science and engineering. For this reason, the activities
 proposed under the High Performance Computing Initiative are
 eagerly awaited.

 The special importance of creating a high-performance computing
 network like NREN is its impact not only on computing research
 itself, but its creation of a basic "digital infrastructure" for the nation.
 Communications, both simple - like a phone dial tone - and
 complicated - like HDS - will be dependent on digital networks.
 Communications make it possible for the first time to conduct
 research and advance scientific frontiers from afar, combining the
 parts of experimental setups from around the country instead of
 expensively reproducing them in many locations.  Equally important
 to utilizing this network capability is the complementing parts of the
 high performance computing initiative. Thus, the technology of a
 digital network like NREN lies at the heart of most future research
 efforts in science and engineering.

 Specifically, the impact of this legislation on technologically-oriented
 educational institutions like Georgia Tech will be multidimensional.  I
 would like to focus my remarks today on three areas: engineering
 education, computer science, and technological applications.

 Engineering, and engineering education, is Georgia Tech's "core
 business," and stands to benefit greatly from this initiative in high
 performance computing.  As the role of computing has grown, up-to-
 date computing facilities are no longer a luxury, but a necessary,
 integral part in engineering education and research.  For example, at
 the graduate level, we must have the computational facilities that
 will enable us to train our students in computer-based science and
 engineering techniques, skills industry expects our students to have.
 The connectivity in the network already allows our students to use
 remote facilities such as telescopes and high-energy research
 facilities without the cost and capacity constraints inherent in those
 sites.  However, an initiative such as this expands exponentially the
 opportunities available to them.  What NREN does is shift the focus
 from physically having a a high-powered and expensive
 computational device such as a supercomputer to access to one of
 these devices.  In the end, this makes for a much more productive
 and cost-effective environment for creating and disseminating
 knowledge.

 The new capabilities given us by the high performance computing
 initiative have impressive spin-off effects as well.  As more students,
 professors and researchers gain access to advance computing, I
 predict we will see an impressive array of offshoot, but related,
 architectures and systems that will take full advantage of the
 capabilities of this network.  Once again, this is an issue of national
 competitiveness, an area where this initiative gives our universities
 and research laboratories the tools with which to compete.

 Just as engineering has been traditionally important to Georgia Tech,
 we are taking a leadership position in computing with the creation of
 our College of Computing.  This College of Computing, while not
 representing the entire spectrum of computing at Georgia Tech, was
 created as a top-level organization to emphasize computing, and
 speed the integration of computer science and other disciplines. In
 many respects, this organization parallels the objectives of this high
 performance computing initiative and NREN.  Simply put, high
 performance computing is a top priority, one in which we have
 invested in and focused on, and is a natural area for a university like
 Georgia Tech to concentrate in.

 I see a very positive dual flow between the high performance
 initiative and our computer science operations.  First, many of the
 areas we are focusing on, specifically management of large scientific
 databases and distributed operating systems for highly parallel
 machines, are topics important to the success of the HPC initiative,
 and we hope to be able to contribute our expertise in these areas
 toward making the initiative a success.  We are also forming a
 Visualization, Graphics and Usability (VGU) lab under prominent
 national leadership to develop better techniques for visualizing
 scientific data, an critical component of this proposed network.  But
 we also envision that the project will benefit computing at Georgia
 Tech by adding to our own knowledge and expertise, and should aid
 not only Georgia Tech but many other universities nationwide.

 The HPCI will have a major positive affect on many areas of basic
 computer science research, even in ways that are not directly related
 to high performance computing.  For example, the visualization
 advances I just talked about have applicability to low-performance
 computing, and work in user interfaces for all types of computers
 could be aided by work done through the high performance project.
 The third area where I feel the High Performance Computing Act of
 1991 will have a critical impact is in the development of new
 technological applications.  Georgia Tech is not an "ivory tower" - we
 solve some very applied problems, and focus on transferring the
 technology developed in our laboratories to the marketplace.

 I believe we are on the threshold of a revolution in
 telecommunications, a merging of the traditional telecommunications
 industry with the computer and broadcast industries, with the
 common denominator of a digital network tieing them all together.
 This act developments such a network (and the functions that
 support and depend on the network), propelling universities into an
 integrated communications environment that is a natural test bed for
 future communications systems. Other countries have been
 furthering this concept, but development in the United States has
 been hampered by the regulatory environment and hurdles imposed
 by previous paradigms.  In this vision, we should view NREN not so
 much as a way to link scholars or transfer data, but as an
 experimental tool in itself.  The network is then a test of its own
 capabilities, that is, a test of the capabilities of a digital network, its
 speed, volume, and capacity for accommodating different signals.  Its
 success impacts not only the educational community, but
 demonstrates this new model for telecommunications and firmly
 establishes a United States lead in these technologies.

 In the end, the issue becomes one of educational competitiveness.
 Without the resources, opportunities and challenges network-based
 computing opens up for our engineers, we would quickly be non-
 competitive not only nationally, but internationally.  This initiative
 lays important groundwork for the the U.S. to regain the initiative in
 high-performance computing and to increase our edge in network
 technologies.

 In closing, I would like to especially express my support for the
 administration's multi-year approach to this project.  If we are to
 undertake a project of this magnitude, a five-year commitment on
 the part of the government makes it much easier and more efficient
 to both plan for and attract talent to this project.  Georgia Tech is
 especially supportive of the roles of NSF, NASA and DARPA in
 administering this project.  Given their prior leadership and track
 record in running projects of this scope, it makes eminent good sense
 for this triad to lead an initiative as significant as this one.

 This is a remarkable opportunity, and I, as President of Georgia Tech,
 stand ready, as do many of my colleagues in universities around the
 country, to assist in any way possible to make this vision a reality.