[Planetlab-users] grand challenges in distributed systems

[Frans Kaashoek]

if you have ideas for planetlab++, a "new" Internet, or something else
cool related to distributed systems, and you would like to influence
NSF, this is for you.

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			  CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

				 FOR

       NSF WORKSHOP ON GRAND CHALLENGES IN DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS
		    
			Sept 29 and 20, 2005.
				M.I.T.
			     
The National Science Foundation is sponsoring a workshop on Grand
Challenges in Distributed Systems.  The goal of the workshop is to
define a set of important research problems in the systems area.

The workshop will take place at MIT on September 29 and 30, 2005.

Attendance at the workshop is limited and will be by invitation only.
If you are interested in attending, please submit an abstract
describing a grand challenge: a challenging and important problem in
the systems area.  Your abstract should include both a description of
the research required to address the grand challenge and some thoughts
on what infrastructure is needed to support the research.  We
encourage you to explicitly discuss software artifacts that might
support or result from your grand challenge. Grand challenges that
take advantage of or contribute to a clean slate design of a future
Internet are of particular interest.

A grand challenge is a problem whose solution requires 5-10 years of
effort.  There should be a way to decide when the challenge has been
met, and also milestones along the way that allow progress to be
measured.  Ideally the challenge should be described in terms of
societal significance.  However, the research agenda needed to address
the challenge will typically be inward-facing, i.e., it will consist
of specific systems problems that need to be solved.
	
An example of a grand challenge is sequencing the human genome.

Abstracts are limited to one page in length, in ASCII, and should
reflect the position of a single author.  They are due at midnight
(pacific daylight time) on August 15, 2005.  Submissions should be
sent to nsf-grand-submit at pdos.csail.mit.edu. Submitters will be
notified of decisions on August 29, 2005.  Travel expenses for
attending the workshop will be covered by NSF.

There will be no proceedings for the workshop.  Instead, workshop
attendees will contribute to a written report for NSF that will
influence future funding for research in computer systems and support
for infrastructure.

The workshop organizing committee consists of:

	Mike Dahlin, University of Texas at Austen
	Brett Fleisch, NSF
	Steve Gribble, University of Washington
	Anthony Joseph, University of California at Berkeley
	Frans Kaashoek, MIT
	Hank Levy, University of Washington
	Barbara Liskov, MIT
	Andrew Myers, Cornell
	Larry Peterson, Princeton
	Mike Reiter, CMU
	Amin Vahdat, University of California at San Diego