Melbourne-Chindia Cloud Computing (MC3) Research Network

Duration: 2014-2016

Network Leader: Prof. Raj Buyya

The scale and pace of Asia's transformation is unprecedented and the implications for Australia are profound. China and India (Chindia) are the two leading Asian giants and they are making significant investment in fundamental and applied sciences. They are producing innovative IT technologies and solutions and have immense potential to transform the society and the economy.

The Melbourne CLOUDS Lab, directed by Prof. Buyya, is one of the world's leading Centres of Excellence for conducting innovative research in Cloud computing. We regularly attract visiting researchers from USA, South America, Europe, and Asia. Our Lab Director served as the foundation Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing. Our software technologies are used by many organisations in 40 countries world-wide; and our IP has led to the successful launch of two Australian companies (Manjrasoft and MetaCDN). We have excellent collaboration with researchers in China and India.

The Melbourne-Chindia Cloud Computing (MC3) Research Network aims at building/strengthening collaboration in the area of Cloud computing with seven elite institutions from China and India. Our collaborators are leading national level projects in their respective countries and have strong track record in Cloud Computing. The research network will take advantage of the particular strengths of each of the organizations in different sub domains of Cloud computing:

The central theme of research will be cost-efficient management of Cloud platforms and their utilisation in creation and delivery of applications in the areas of science, engineering, business intelligence, health care, and life sciences. In collaboration with our partners, we aim at developing new algorithms and techniques that enable applications to be executed in the platform at the minimum possible cost while achieving a Quality of Service that is acceptable by the customers of the platform (i.e., owners and users of the hosted applications). We also aim at developing a prototype platform where the feasibility of the approach will be demonstrated in the context of the selected applications.

The project will deliver high-quality outcomes in many target areas, including (i) exchange of expertise and knowledge via academic missions, where academics and PhD students from Melbourne will be able to join the overseas teams (and vice-versa) for observing and conducting joint research; (ii) development of collaborative work aiming at generating innovative research in Cloud computing and its applications in domains such as health care and business analytics; (iii) development of innovative software systems and applications in science and business domains; and (iv) publication of high quality research papers in top class journals. Finally, it will lead to research projects funded by international funds such as the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund and the Australia China Science and Research Fund.

Key Partners from China and India (Chindia)

Tsinghua University: Tsinghua is consistently ranked as one of the top 2 Universities in China. It is among the top 100 Universities worldwide by both THE (Times higher Education) and QS listings. The University of Melbourne has established agreements with Tsinghua University for academic collaboration and student exchange. CI Buyya has associated as Intellectual Ventures (IV) Endowed Visiting Chair Professor for Tsinghua University.

Peking University: The Peking University is considered the top University in China, being on the worlds top 50 in both QS and THE rankings. Peking University and The University of Melbourne have established agreements for academic collaboration and student exchange.

IIT Bombay: The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) is ranked #2 among the Indian Universities by the QS and THE listing and it is the best amongst all IITs in computer science area. CI Buyya has been collaborating with IITB in the area of Cloud computing.

TIFR: The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (in Mumbai) is an Indian Research Institute specialised in the areas of Mathematics and Science. The collaborator from TIFR (Dr. R. K. Shyamasundar) and the CI Buyya have submitted a joint grant proposal for the 2013 Australia-India Strategic Research Funding, which has been shortlisted by the Indian side and we have high expectation of its success.

Infosys: Infosys is an Indian multinational company in the area of ICT. It employs around 156,000 people worldwide. The CI has collaborated with Infosys and one of his PhD students did an internship in Infosys India (Bangalore) in 2012. This collaboration has resulted in a US patent and a publication.

ISI: The Indian Statistical Institute is an academic institution located in Kolkata dedicated to research, teaching, and application of statistics, natural and social sciences; and information and communication technologies. It focuses mainly on post-graduate studies and research.

ISSc: The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is a premier public institution for scientific and technological research and higher education located in Bangalore. The University of Melbourne has an established agreement with IISc in academic collaboration and student exchange.

IIT Kanpur: The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK) was the first Institute in India to start Computer Science education with the initial "computer-related" courses starting in August 1963 on an IBM 1620 system installed in the nation's first "computer classroom". We have established relationship on student exchange.

Accomplishments/Impact

The impact of this collaboration on CLOUDS Lab's research and innovation outcomes can be noted from its annual reports.

       
Cloud Computing and Distributed Systems (CLOUDS) Laboratory
School of Computing and Information Systems
The University of Melbourne, Australia