Report of Research Activities 2008

Aim and Structure of the Department

The research activities in the Computer Sciences Department aim at bridging computer architecture and application requirements towards the design of future high-performance and supercomputing systems, including both their hardware and software components. The department is structured in 9 groups: 4 of them (which have their roots in the previous Computer Architecture Group) mainly focused on single-core and multicore architecture and the architectural support to the upper software stacks, 2 groups mainly focused on improving the productivity (programming models and performance tools) when developing parallel applications on large scale parallel systems, and 3 groups focusing on programming models and resource management middleware for distributed cluster and GRID architectures, including file systems.

These research activities are undertaken as part of internal BSC-CNS projects, projects in the framework of the European Union or with leading-edge companies in the field. During 2008, the Department participated in 6 IST FP6 projects (ACOTES, BEinGRID, BREIN, SARC, SORMA and XtreemOS), 3 networks of excellence (HiPEAC, CoreGRID and HPC-Europa) and several research contracts with companies (IBM, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems). Two new IST FP7 projects (MERASA and Velox) commenced during 2008, and the HiPEAC network of Excellence was continued. The Department also coordinated the Basic Research in Supercomputing section of the Spanish Consolider program “Supercomputing and eScience”.
The BSC-Microsoft Research Centre (www.bscmsrc.eu) was inaugurated in January 2008. The centre involves researchers from one of the groups in the Department.

Research Activities 2008