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IBM AIDS GEORGIA TECH AUTONOMIC COMPUTING RESEARCH

The Georgia Institute of Technology says it plans to use IBM hardware and software to advance the university's development of technology for autonomic computing, an emerging development area focused on intelligent, open systems capable of running with minimal human intervention. IBM is supplying Georgia Tech with technology to be used in the university's new Enterprise Computing Laboratory.

"We believe the faculty and students at Georgia Tech have what it takes to help IBM succeed in driving computing into a new era," said Alan Ganek, vice president of IBM Autonomic Computing. "The new lab supports IBM's goals in autonomic computing by pushing the limits of research for reducing the complexity of working with computers."

IBM says its "hardware will be used in the laboratory for research on system functionality, such as self-healing and self-optimizing functions, for enterprise applications specifically focusing on information systems, electronic commerce, Web, digital and media data and related application services. The IBM equipment will also enable the lab to develop software that will make it easier for data to stream through small devices like PDAs and cell phones."

Georgia Tech will integrate IBM's equipment and software systems into existing classes on Linux-based operating systems and real-time adaptive systems. It also plans to introduce a new graduate-level course on e-commerce software.

"Georgia Tech has many crucial links with IBM, including strategic initiatives with Research," said Karsten Schwan, professor director of the Center for Experimental Research in Computer Systems (CERCS). "The grant will enable us to better interact with IBM in our future research and to continue to attract the best and brightest computer science students with unparalleled opportunities to work on cutting-edge projects such as autonomic computing."

Georgia Tech plans to provide a server showcase space so visitors can view IBM's donated server hardware and the hardware can be visibly used in demos. The school also plans to donate lab space for use by students and staff conducting the research and for classes using IBM's WebSphere and DB2 middleware.

IBM hardware to be awarded to Georgia Tech includes 16 front-end workstations, IBM xSeries 345, IBM HS20 BladeServer and an xSeries 360 back-end server. The autonomic computing projects Georgia Tech is working on includes cooperative middleware and system-level methods to guarantee quality of service for continuous data applications, plus Linux kernel support for distributed web services.

IBM's Shared University Research (SUR) program awards computing equipment (servers, storage systems, personal computing products, etc.) to colleges, universities and institutions of higher education around the world to facilitate research projects in areas of mutual interest including: Life Sciences, grid computing, autonomic computing and deep computing. The SUR awards also support the advancement of university projects by connecting top researchers in academia with IBM Research personnel, along with representatives from product development and solution provider communities. IBM awards approximately 50 SUR awards per year worldwide.

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