Mardi Gras Conference 2008

The Center for Computation & Technology at LSU, in cooperation with ACM SIGAPP, is hosting the 15th Mardi Gras Conference, 30 January - 2 February 2008, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The Mardi Gras conferences take place annually, concentrating each year on a different computational theme of current relevance. This year's theme will be: from lightweight mash-ups to lambda grids: Understanding the spectrum of distributed computing requirements, applications, tools, infrastructures, interoperability, and the incremental adoption of key capabilities.

News

Photos now on-line.

Scope

The field of distributed computing has been recognized for decades but only in the last few years has there been a vast expansion of distribute. computing approaches and tools that are gaining serious, wide-spread use. This wide-spread use goes far beyond computational science and engineering, to include business, government, art, and popular culture. While the fundamental requirements of distributed computing are generally understood, the ubiquitous availability of networks and servers has enabled the development of many different tools to suit the needs of different communities. Besides what have become traditional grids, there is growing use of lambda grids, enterprise service buses, service-oriented architectures, and Web 2.0. All of these approaches enable the sharing of resources in "virtual organizations" but with widely differing support for discoverability, reliability, security, management, quality-of-service, etc. In all cases, interoperability at the infrastructure level and at the application domain level is a critical issue.

While network connectivity has become ubiquitous, and has enabled the creation of virtual organizations, it is still an open issue how tightly coupled these organizations can be. Bandwidth and latency determine how interactive and collaborative distributed participants can work together. Hence, advanced networks such as lambda networks (dedicated optical networks) have the potential for enhancing interactiveness on a large-scale, and actually being an enabling technology for application domains that require tight coupling.

The goal of Mardi Gras 2008 is to improve our understanding of the drivers for all of these technologies, how they relate to one another, and how user communities can transition from simpler approaches, like Web 2.0 mash-ups, to more full-service grids, when better discovery, reliability, security, etc., are needed -- while achieving sufficient interoperability -- and how tightly coupled virtual organizations can be.

To this end, we are seeking the best, most insightful papers on all of these technologies, and the application domains that are driving their requirements and development.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Application case studies in all areas, e.g., geospatial, disaster response/management, science, engineering, commerce, finance, art, etc.
• Innovative and advanced scenarios, e.g., dynamic data-driven, interactive, collaborative, tele-immersive, adaptive, etc.
• Tools for developing and deploying applications, e.g., middleware, toolkits, portals, problem solving environments, production environments, virtual organizations, etc.
• Application APIs and programming models
• High speed and optical networks
• Distributed algorithms
• Workflow management
• Resource management and scheduling
• Education

Schedule

Workshops will be held on Wednesday, 30 January. Tutorials will be held on the morning of Thursday, 31 January. Conference sessions, including a poster session, will be held on the afternoon of Thursday, 31 January, all day Friday, 1 February, and on the morning of Saturday, 2 February. On Saturday afternoon an optional excursion will take participants to join in the celebrations for Mardi Gras in New Orleans, returning to Baton Rouge on Sunday morning at approximately 2 a.m.