UW CSE’s Ed Lazowska addresses the National Research Council Computer Science and Telecommunications Board’s “Committee on Future Directions for NSF Advanced Computing Infrastructure to Support US Science in 2017-2020.”
- “We have a crazy obsession with buying shiny objects – the bigger and more expensive, the better!”
- “We’re investing 9:1 in hardware over software – it ought to be the reverse!”
- “We have a dogged resistance to utilizing commercial software, services, and systems. We purchase our own. We operate our own. We roll our own. Often with amateurs. Why?”
- “Establish the use of commercial cloud services as the strong default for science at all scales. Every request to purchase computing equipment that won’t fit on a desktop should be rigorously justified. Invest in intellectual infrastructure, software infrastructure, and outsourced services, not big shiny objects.“
Check out the slides here.