Scale Challenge

The 7th IEEE International Scalable Computing Challenge (SCALE 2014) will be held in conjunction with the IEEE International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud, and Grid Computing (CCGrid) May 26-29th in Chicago, Illinois. SCALE is sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Scalable Computing (TCSC).

Call for Proposals

SCALE is a competition in which the participants demonstrate working solutions to real-world problems that rely on large scale computing. Competitors submit proposals in advance that outline the nature of the problem to be solved, the solution technique, and document the scale achieved in production. From those proposals, finalists will be selected to present their work at the conference, including a demonstration of the system or software in action. The judges will award a first prize winner at the conference.

Competitive submissions will have clearly identified a significant real-world problem that requires large scale computing. The resources harnessed may be of any kind of scalable computing system: cluster, cloud, grid, supercomputer, etc. Scale can be measured in whatever dimensions are most appropriate to the problem at hand, whether it be number of cores, computational throughput, I/O bandwidth, metadata operations, etc. Scaling may also encompass scaling-down to release resources that are no longer needed.

Proposals may be up to 6 pages long in the standard IEEE paper format. Proposals should clearly indicate:

• An overview of the real-world problem that requires scalable computing.
• The dimensions of scale relevant to the problem, such as computation, I/O bandwidth, synchronization, etc.
• The software and hardware systems used to address the problem.
• The scale, performance, and efficiency of the solution.
• An analysis of the impact, significance, and novelty of the solution.

Finalists selected to present their work at the conference will give a technical talk, provide a demonstration of the system, and answer questions posed by the judges.

Proposals will be judged according to the criteria listed above, and finalists will be invited to present at the conference. Per availability of funds from IEEE TCSC, the winning team will receive an award of $1000, and all other finalists an award of $500, to help with travel to the conference. At least one member from each selected team must register, present and demonstrate their project at CCGrid 2014.

Submission

SCALE 2014 proposals can be submitted at the conference submission site: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=scale2014

Important Dates

• Proposal papers due: extended to February 10, 2014
• Finalists selected: March 3, 2014
• Final presentations: May 26-29, 2014

Chair

• Douglas Thain, University of Notre Dame, USA

Award Jury

• Gagan Agrawal, The Ohio State University
• Judy Qiu, Indiana University
• Douglas Thain, University of Notre Dame