NY Times Coverage of NSF/Microsoft Cloud Computing Research Agreement

On February 4, 2010, In R&D in the Press, Research, By Peter Harsha

John Markoff of the NY Times has coverage of today’s announcement of an agreement between the National Science Foundation and Microsoft that would enable NSF-sponsored researchers free access to Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing services. According to NSF CISE AD Jeannette Wing, NSF will commit $5 million in funding to enable researchers to study new techniques for using advanced cloud computing resources to enable scientific discovery. Microsoft will grant the researchers free access to the cloud services, as much storage as they need, and contribute support and expertise to help the researchers make the best use of this “new computing paradigm.”

Dan Reed, Microsoft’s VP for Technology Strategy and Policy and the Extreme Computing Group, shares his view of the new partnership. And Wing weighs in with a Dear Colleague.

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Cybersecurity Research on House Floor Today

On February 3, 2010, In Funding, Research, By Peter Harsha

The House of Representatives will consider H.R. 4061, the Cyber Security Enhancement Act, today. The bill, which originated in the House Science and Technology Committee, is designed to “improve the security of cyberspace by ensuring federal investments in cybersecurity are better focused, more effective, and that research into innovative, transformative technologies is supported.” It’s actually a combination of two separate S&T committee bills, the Cybersecurity Research and Development Amendments Act of 2009, which deals mainly with cybersecurity research issues and authorizes funding at NSF, and the Cybersecurity Coordination and Awareness Act of 2009, which is primarily focused on cybersecurity activities at NIST. The committee has detailed information on the bill on its website.

Most relevantly for the computing research community, the bill:

  • Requires a federal cybersecurity R&D strategic plan (though this is already underway);
  • Requires social and behavioral research in cybersecurity at NSF and calls out “identity management to be one of the areas NSF supports as part of its cybersecurity R&D;
  • Requires NSF to establish a postdoctoral fellowship program in cybersecurity;
  • Requires OSTP to assess the current and future cybersecurity wrokforce needs to the federal government, including comparison of the skills needed by each federal agency, the supply of talent, and any barriers to recruitment.
  • Establishes a university-industry task force to examine public-private research partnerships in cybersecurity.
  • Directs NIST’s intramural research activity to conduct research into unifying and standardized identity, privilege and access controll management frameworks for the execution of a wide variety of resource protection policies; research into improving the security of systems and networks; improving the testing, measurement, usability and assurance of systems and networks; and research associated with improving the security of industrial control systems;
  • Directs NIST to develop a cybersecurity awareness and education program.

All told, the bill would authorize about $395 million in research funding at NSF over the next five years. It would then be up to congressional appropriators to actually provide NSF with that funding.

CRA joined with ACM’s U.S. Public Policy Committee in November to endorse the bill during its consideration by the committee. Here’s what we said:

Chairman Gordon and Ranking Member Hall:

As representatives of two leading organizations in the computing community — the Computing Research Association (CRA) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) — we are pleased to support your efforts to bolster federal cyber security research through H.R. 4061, the Cyber Security Enhancement Act of 2009.

Information technology constitutes the “control loop” of essentially every aspect of our critical national infrastructure — the electric power grid, the financial grid, the telecommunications grid, the food distribution network — making the computers and communications systems of the nation critical infrastructure themselves. Our organizations, along with the National Research Council and the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee, have all agreed that the most significant long-term step the Federal government can take to protect this information infrastructure is a sustained commitment to IT research and development, specifically in the areas of information and network security.

We are pleased that your legislation endorses this recommendation by providing new authorizations for a number of federal cyber security research programs. Our organizations have also, in the past, raised concerns about the balance in the federal program between short and long-term efforts, and about the level of coordination between federal agencies. Your legislation’s requirement that the participating agencies, with the assistance of the National Coordination Office, develop a strategic plan for federal cyber security research is a major step in addressing this concern.

We thank you for your work on this legislation and for your long-standing leadership of federal cyber security research efforts. We look forward to working with you and your colleagues as you endeavor to move this legislation this session.

Sincerely,

Dr. Eric Grimson
Chair, Computing Research Association

Dr. Eugene H. Spafford
Chair, USACM

The bill is expected to pass, though it faces 25 amendments today. We’ll have details if the bill gets substantially modified in any way.

Update: (Feb 4, 2010) — The bill passed by an overwhelming majority — 422 to 5 — and will head now to the Senate, where its prospects are somewhat murky. Here’s the S&T committee’s press release.

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FY 11 Budget: National Science Foundation

On February 2, 2010, In FY11 Appropriations, By Peter Harsha

As we noted yesterday, the National Science Foundation does very well in President’s Obama FY 11 Budget Request. The President’s plan would provide an 8 percent increase to the agency, $552 million more than the agency’s FY 10 budget. Of that $552 million, $455 million would go to the Foundation’s research accounts (also an 8 percent increase over FY 10). And of those research accounts, no research directorate does better in the President’s plan than NSF’s home for computing research: the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate. Here’s a directorate by directorate breakout (click to enlarge):

The directorate does so well in large degree because its programs match well with the agency priorities, which in turn map well with the President’s priorities. Part of the President’s National Innovation Strategy for FY 11 includes a focus on energy technologies, understanding and mitigating climate change, and promoting green jobs. Under the President’s plan, CISE would participate in two foundation-wide programs that meet this focus:

  • Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) – A $765.5 million program aimed at integrating NSF’s work in climate and energy science to generate the discoveries and tools needed to “inform societal actions that lead to environmental and economic sustainability.” CISE’s $29.3 million role in the program would focus on work with direct impact, like energy-intelligent computing; indirectly, with advances in computing to reduce energy consumption in other sectors (e.g., Smart Grid, Smart Home, Smart Transportation); and foundational, understanding how energy contributes to algorithmic complexity and system performance (i.e., can we develop more energy-efficient algorithms?).
  • Cyberlearning for Transforming Education (CTE) – CISE’s $15 million share of this $41 million program would be used to fund research about “Anytime, Anywhere Learning,” “Personalized Learning” and understanding all four permutations of: “(Cyber) Learning about (Cyber) Learning.” A goal is to develop fundamental knowledge about learning to inform new cyber tools and techniques.

In addition to these two new areas, CISE would continue its participation in two other foundation-wide efforts. Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI) would receive $105.5 million in the agency’s plan, of which $50 million would be shared by CISE. CDI is the agency’s “Computational Thinking for Science and Engineering” program, and CISE AD Jeannette Wing wanted to emphasize that the guidelines for the program map well with the computing community’s strength. After all, she pointed out, proposals should demonstrate how the work does two things: advance innovative uses of computational thinking, and advance two or more disciplines.

The other foundation-wide priority with CISE participation is the Science and Engineering Beyond Moore’s Law program, a $70.2 million program aimed at figuring out where we go when current silicon technologies reach the limits of Moore’s law. CISE would contribute $15 million to the effort, funding research on new computing technologies (including quantum information science), approaches, and models.

Other highlights include a $70 million increase to the directorate’s Trusted Computing efforts, continued work with the ENG directorate on the Cyber Physical Systems program, and significant increases in the CAREER program (7.1 percent increase to $54.6 million in FY11), and a Graduate Research Fellowships program that has grown to $2.55 million in FY11. Wing strongly encouraged more GRF proposals from the computing community.

One program not fully addressed in the budget documentation is the status of the Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) program within CISE. As part of the FY 11 budget, NSF announced a new “Comprehensive Broadening Participation of Undergraduates in STEM,” a $100.3 million effort to “realign and build on existing programs and activities” and break down “programmatic stovepipes.” It’s unclear how BPC fits into the new foundation-wide effort, if at all, and Wing would only say that it was under discussion.

The Office of Cyberinfrastructure would also see an increase in FY11 under the President’s plan. The agency requested $228 million for FY11, an increase of $13.8 million, or 6.4 percent over FY10. Overall, the agency would increase IT research and development funding throughout the agency by 7 percent next year. The agency’s total contribution to the federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program would rise to $1.17 billion in FY 11, an increase of $79.6 million from FY 10.

So, it’s generally very good news from NSF. Computing flourishes at NSF, according to Wing, because computing inherently speaks about innovation (which means jobs), and because “all the Administration’s priorities are well-addressed by our technologies.” Given the numbers, it’s hard to argue.

 
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