We are the Systems Research Group, abbreviated as SRG, and is one of the research groups for the postgraduate studies in the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, the University of Hong Kong. We focus on research in the areas of distributed and parallel computing. Our group is conducting many on-going projects, which aim at solving REAL problems with the use of clusters, high-performance networks and other parallel computing resources. For example, we have been conducting the JESSICA and JESSICA2 projects, which attempt to make a cluster of computers to appear as a single, multi-processor machine to support the parallel execution of multithreaded Java applications.

We are also working on researches in the aspect of grid computing and pervasive computing. We are participating in the Hong Kong Grid Initiative to build a joint universities grid testbed, and we are also taking part in the China National Grid (863) Project, and serving as a grid point. At the same time, we have been conducting the SPARKLE project to implement a component-based software architecture for supporting pervasive computing.

In addition, we have worked on other researches, including a project on solving irregularly structured problems in a cluster of workstations, and a project on performance modeling and benchmarking. There are research works on the provision of low-latency communication support on MPI and DSM for parallel computing. The group is also interested in theoretical problems that have implications in systems building, such as load balancing problems, routing problems, and problems related to the design of parallel architectures.

Currently, we have about 20 postgraduate students, led by Dr. F.C.M. Lau and Dr. C.L. Wang. Our computer laboratory is located at Room 414, Chow Yei Ching Buliding, The University of Hong Kong. We have several PC clusters on which our researches are conducted.

In October 2002, we built the Gideon cluster, which consists of 300 2GHz Pentium IV PCs, connected together with a 312-port switch. We have run the Linpack benchmark and we believe that this is one of the fastest clusters in the academic field in Hong Kong. The performance results have been submitted to the TOP500 list and was ranked 175 on the Nov 2002 listing. Please go to http://www.srg.cs.hku.hk/gideon/ to visit the Gideon homepage for a more detailed description of the Gideon cluster.