IP: Lets look again -- Information Systems Engineering

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Every few years I take out this paper I wrotte in 1985 and see if it is
still current and has things gotten better. Sad to say not very much better.


You might enjoy re-reading this (for old IPers) and reading it for the new
IPers.


Dave (on shipboard nearing Stockholm enroute from Helsinki)










Information Systems Engineering Perspectives


David J. Farber 
The Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunication Systems 
University of Pennsylvania 
Department of Computer and Information Science 
Philadelphia, Pa 19104-6389


Phone:  (215) 898-9508 Internet:  farber () cis upenn edu


15 July 1985


Abstract


This document presents an overview of the state of the information systems
engineering research area. It is found that the situation in the academic
world is far from ideal. A number of areas of research where the nation and
the field could benefit from increased attention are discussed; and equally
importantly, a set of needs is highlighted, which, if satisfied, would
increase the productivity of the academic researcher. Finally, a set of
recommendations will be made for specific activities that could lead to the
creation of a new generation of information systems engineers.


Prepared for the Policy Research and Analysis Section of the NSF, and
presented at the Internal Workshop on opportunities for Engineering Research
Focused on Emerging Engineering Systems July 1985. Introduction


This report will examine the future directions for information systems
engineering at the National Science Foundation. It will address the current
status of the field, its current problems, its importance to the nation, and
potential directions for enhancing the impact of the NSF in this area. In
addition, it will examine a set of alternative scenarios that the NSF could
follow and the impact of each on the future of the field. Finally, it will
propose several potential areas for research concentration that could have
high payoff for the nation.


Background


There have been many studies of the information sciences and technology
areas done over the past several years. Perhaps the most comprehensive of
these studies was one done in 1984 by the Office of  Technology Assessment,
Congress of the United States, entitled Information Technology R & D:
Critical Trends and Issues. A  copy of the summary document has been
attached to this report as Appendix A. It would be appropriate to examine
the principle findings of this report (printed in italics)  and comment on each.


Principle Findings of the OTA Report


Most areas of information technology examined in this study, including
microelectronics, fiber optics, artificial intelligence, computer design,
and software engineering, are still in the early states as technologies. In
particular, in the software engineering area, I and others have pointed out
the lack of coupling of university research activities to the commercial
environment, where large software systems are written. Later on in this
document, I will specifically comment about this and other lapses of
technology transfer.


By most measures, U. S. research and development in information technology
is strong and viable; however, those traditional measures may not be
realistic guides to the future needs of the United States for R & D in these
areas.


In response to these new pressures (foreign competition and profit
motivations), industrial support is growing rapidly for short term  applied
research and development work, both within industrial labs and through
support of university work.  While industry has traditionally looked to the
academic world for basic research support in many other areas of science, it
has over the past decade ceased to expect such in the information systems
engineering area. Many of the joint academic-industrial programs have
resulted in the university becoming a development shop for industrial
researchers. In addition, the quality and quantity of academics who can work
with and understand the industrial sector has decreased in this field due to
the large number of entrepreneurial start-ups motivated and manned by
ex-academics. We are finding faculty positions in academia increasingly
filled by people who have inadequate experience to understand, react, and
deal with the real problems of industrial research and advanced development.


Universities, traditionally viewed as centers for basic research, are
re-examining their roles with respect to applied research and are forming
new types of relationships with industry and government. The OTA report
states that it is too early to say whether or not this will have a negative
or positive response on university. It is my opinion that this has already
been shown to have a negative effect on the underlying academic role of the
university. What has happened in a large number of cases is that the
institutions that have been formed are decoupled from the university, thus
exacerbating the isolation of the teaching program and graduate research
from the institutional activities. The University has effectively created a
corporation for doing external research which is indistinguishable from a
separate R & D entity, usually without gaining the full benefits accruable
from such. This has created  the phenomena of faculty who never teach and
have minimal contact with undergraduates and even with students, because
they spend a majority of their time in these institutes. I strongly question
the advisability of encouraging such directions.


The Department of Defense is the predominant source of federal support of
information technologies research and development, providing nearly 80% of
the funding. Experience has shown that the  spillover from these activities
to the civilian industrial sector is minimal in the information systems area
because the cost effectiveness criteria for military research and
development is totally different from that in the commercial sector. There
are, of course, counterexamples, such as ARPANET. However, many senior
industrial managers believe that such examples of significant spillover are
few and far between, as witnessed by their reluctance to get involved in
some DOD activities, such as the very high speed integrated circuit work.
There are examples within U.S. industry where major corporations refuse to
undertake DOD research or have isolated this work into separate
subsidiaries. Experience has shown that the technology transfer from these
subsidiaries to the mainline commercial areas is essentially nonexistent.
Both the OTA and I strongly believe that increased funding for long-term
research in information systems and technology is needed from non-defense
agencies in order to focus research on areas that will have more civilian
payoff.


There is substantial concern that technical and scientific information flows
between the U. S. and other countries are unbalanced outward. These concerns
have recently surfaced in the form of the new Department of Commerce Export
Control Laws. A tight interpretation of these rules would cause a severe
decrease in the quantity of graduate students available in the information
systems area, since many of these students come from abroad. Additionally,
the decrease in freedom to publish may have a severe impact on our ability
to communicate with our peers, even within the United States. While I do not
advocate a completely open information flow, it must be realized that such
constraints will have a particularly acute impact on the field of
information systems engineering.


Instruments for scientific research are growing more sophisticated and are
becoming obsolete at an increasingly rapid pace. This is particularly
apparent in the area of information systems engineering. The computers used
as research tools become obsolete at a  rapid rate. Such obsolesence
especially causes problems in this field, since research often relies on
advanced hardware and advanced communications facilities. Outdated equipment
puts the academic researcher in a disadvantageous position relative to his
industrial research colleague. This disadvantage accelerates the departure
from the academic world of the talent that is necessary to both properly
train the next generation of students and to insure that active, relevant
research is maintained in the academic community. An area where the lack of
adequate equipment is particularly severe is in the computer architecture
and computer communications disciplines (as well as, of course, in
microelectronics). In these cases, academic researchers who are trying to
investigate new computer organizations or new communications systems are
definitely handicapped by the lack of modern fabrication facilities, of
state of the art CAD systems, and of the support staffs which are norms in
equivalent industrial laboratories. Efforts on the part of non-DOD funding
agencies to attack the equipment problem in information systems engineering
have been minimal as are current efforts to allow the academies effective
access to industrial facilities.


Policies designed to stimulate information technology R & D need to be
evaluated for possible significant tradeoffs and external costs in other areas.


What is the State of Information Systems Engineering Research?


Advanced Computer Architecture


While we have been through what appears to the public to have been several
revolutions in computer architecture, little has been done at the
fundamental organization level. The architecture that are now in use in the
commercial world, with several notable exceptions, were designed over 15
years ago. Even our technological star, the microcomputer, has an internal
organization which has not fundamentally changed over the past decade. There
are many reasons for this phenomena; some are commercial in the sense that
new and innovative designs have been very hard to sell in the commercial
marketplace (-for example, the Intel iAPX 432). Safe, well-understood
designs which are upwardly compatible with past generation computers have
tended to be the norm.


While such conservatism  is not in and of itself bad, it does have a
dampening impact on the innovation that one can expect from the commercial
field. Innovative architectures is an area where the university, with its
studied indifference to commercial viability can have a major impact. One
can argue that the RISC architecture re-spawned from the university
environment has become the basis for several new and innovative
microprocessors (there are also opinions that RISC is just a transient
reaction to technological tradeoffs). Nevertheless, the question of how such
innovation can be encouraged and harnessed is one of the most difficult
issues facing the planners in our national research supporting agencies.


I believe that it is critical to support the academic engineering research
community in the computer architecture area. Such support must lead to the
creation  of an infrastructure which will allow researchers to try their
ideas and to create new designs in a reasonable amount of time. A path
towards attaining this capability could be modeled on the solution to a
similar problem that the NSF faced 20 years ago with the advent of computers
as a research tool. At that time, the NSF undertook a program of hardware
capability grants to the universities on a massive scale to to seed the
computer science programs that were forming at that time. A similar program,
centered about providing state-of-the-art CAD tools, wide spread access to
silicon foundries on a rapid turn-around basis, and  modern architecture
verification and simulation tools running on state-of-the-art engineering
workstations would have a profound impact on the ability of researchers to
operate in the university environment.


I strongly recommend that a major initiative be undertaken to supply to
university departments in the information systems engineering area,
state-of-the-art CAD facilities and widespread access to fast-turnaround
fabrication facilities. These fabrication facilities should include both
board-level and microchip-level capabilities. In addition, a mechanism must
be found to fund adequate technical support staffs so that the maximum
productivity can be achieved by researchers.


Software Engineering


The field of software engineering has received a significant amount of
attention over the past 5 to 10 years as the balance of effort and cost in
the development of new systems shifted primarily to software development.
Many computer companies (especially microcomputer companies) have found,
much to their horror, that their software staffs are 2 to 3 times larger
than their hardware staffs.


Very large, defense-oriented software activities have pointed out the sorry
state of our knowledge of how to write large software systems. The ability
to create relatively  free bug software at a tolerable cost has become
perhaps the deciding factor in the battle for dominance of the computer
industry. It is one of the areas where the United States has shown itself to
be traditionally stronger than our foreign competitors, but is again under
attack by Japan and Europe.


It goes without saying (however, I will say it), that the feasibility of
large weapon systems, such as SDI, depends on strong software engineering
technology. Likewise, the widespread success of large, distributed
applications, such as a fund-transfer systems, automated factory systems,
real-time control systems, etc., depends on low-cost, high-reliability
software systems.


To date, much software engineering research has centered on the theoretical
aspects of software. While such studies may provide the basis for long-term
payoffs, they have yielded little insight that can be used in the short run
by practicing software designers. We have not yet achieved the fundamental
breakthroughs that will be necessary to achieve real success in this field.
In the meantime, the commercial field is suffering from excessively
expensive, ever more fragile software systems.


Perhaps a major reason for this lack of short-term benefits for the field
lies in the lack of exposure of academic researchers to large-scale software
development. Those who do develop skills in this area leave academia to form
private companies. The problem of how to involve academics in large-scale
activities so that they might learn the problems, and thus contribute the
solutions, appears insurmountable. The only path that seems at all viable
lies with industrial/academic collaboration at a level which has not yet
been practical. It would involve a close liason between the researchers and
ongoing industrial software development groups.


Some Common Problems


If one looks at the computer architecture and the software production areas,
one sees a number of common problems. The most fundamental problem seems to
be the management of complexity. For example, recently a microcomputer
design by a key U. S. company had to be dramatically downgraded, not because
of technological problems of chip size, line widths, or similar problems,
but because the design had become so large that the designers were not able
to control it. These chip designers found themselves in essentially the same
position that many software groups have found themselves in, namely that
things had gotten too complicated, and  too large for the management and
design tools that were available (and these designers are reputed to have
had some of the most sophisticated tools around).


I feel that there are possible research paths that can provide payoff in the
management of complexity and thus improve the future ability of the nation
to maintain its leadership. Such paths are most likely similar to those that
the SDI effort must also develop, but again, without a distinct activity
targeted at the civilian sector, our commercial field will most likely not
benefit from the SDI's advances. It is suggested that the Foundation look
seriously at a research program which, for lack of a better term, I will
call ``complex systems engineering.''  One of the functions of this program
would be to help understand and develop tools for the management of complex
systems development. It will have other, perhaps equally important roles,
which I will touch on shortly.


Scaling


In the academic community, we tend to deal with small problems which are
neatly packaged into three-year Ph.D. topics or two-year NSF grant
durations, or, worse yet, three-year tenure decision times.  Many of the
real problems in software or hardware engineering show up only when one
tackles large problems. The problem of building a real compiler shows very
clearly the issues  in this field, (which is not much better than it was 10
years ago). Building a state of the art microcomputer shows the problems of
complexity, while building a small prototype circuit does not. A major
challenge facing the academic research community is how to undertake
research which can help understand the management of complex technical
systems development. Since by the nature of the university, long-term and
large tasks are unattractive, some mechanism must be evolved to expose
academics and students to and involve them in such tasks.


The Convergence of Computers and Communications


Attached as Appendix B is a reprint of a paper, written some eight years ago
(``The Convergence of Computing and Telecommunications Systems,'' by David
Farber and Paul Baran, Science, 18 March 1977). It explores the convergence
of computer technology and communications technology and points out that
future systems will, and must blend together these technologies if such
systems are to be competitive. In the eight years since this paper was
published, the argument has become even stronger. The advent of local
computer networks in the university and government arenas has brought into
day-by-day focus this synthesis. At the same time, the evolution and
transition of technology, such as the DOD networking; from a research tool
to a commercially viable and necessary technology has further strengthened
the argument. The commercial importance of this work can be shown quite
dramatically by the movements in the international arena toward standards in
the store-and-forward data communications area.


In the early 70's, the academic research community was a leader in the
definition and creation of local area network technologies. As is proper,
the leadership in this area has now passed to the commercial area as the
economic importance of the technologies became obvious.


In the main, the continuing contribution from the academic world has
centered on network modeling and measurement techniques. It is the belief of
leaders in this field that the advent of fiber optic technology as a viable
transmission medium offers the opportunity for a resurgence of fundamental
research in local networking. The ability to have bandwidths that approach
those attained on multiprocessor system buses offers the possibility of a
new view of distributed systems. Research activities being undertaken on a
small scale, such as MEMNET at the University of Delaware, are attempting to
optimize the efficiency of the network/processor interface by making them
more `natural.'  Research towards a better understanding of the switching of
very high speed communication facilities is an area that also requires
fundamental understanding (for example, how does one passively switch fiber
links?).


The potential for very high speed, yet relatively high latency, transmission
facilities, such as fibers, calls for increased research to better
understand communications protocols and how they can be created or adapted
to perform better in this environment. There has been some work to date in
this area, dealing primarily with satellite communications. However, I feel
that the problems which arise in local, ground-based systems may require
substantially different solutions due to the extremely high bandwidths
involved and to the uses of these facilities (for example,
processor/peripheral and processor/processor interconnections).


Research involving such high speed media calls for not only encouraging the
development of the appropriate talents within the academic community, but
also for making available state-of-the-art transmission facilities and test
equipment to academic researchers. Also, the very high speeds attained by
these systems makes the fabrication of interfaces inherently dependent on
the use of very high speed logic circuits, with all their attendant design
difficulties.


On a broader scale, when one looks in the academic community for people with
the depth of experience and knowledge of the communications world necessary
to do systems engineering synthesis, one finds a startling shortage of
people.  Such shortages are not unique to academia; there is a major and
severe lack of qualified researchers and developers in the
telecommunications industry as well. This lack portends critical problems
for an industry which needs to create systems that blends communications and
computing. Actions to rectify this shortage should be given the highest
priority and attention on the part of NSF.


The future holds both technological and application imperatives which will
further the symbiotic relationship of computing and communications.
Technologies such as fiber optics offer data bandwidths which approach those
of the internal bus on modern midscale computers. The adoption of standards
such as the ISDN portend an integrated service offering from the data
communications carriers. The health of the computer community within the
United States may depend, in large measure, by on ability to react with
foresight and imagination to the potentials of these technologies. While the
United States research community is still a leader in research in
distributed processing and in local networking, foreign suppliers are
rapidly becoming leaders in the application of this technology to the
marketplace. The future stimulation of university research in these areas
will depend in very large measure on the availability of substantial
hardware commitments so that they may have an environment in which to
perform their research. Trying to understand the impact of fiber optics on
distributed processing systems while being forced to utilize low bandwidth
local networks is a frustrating and non-productive enterprise.


In addition, there are new areas of research activity that are motivated by
the computer-communications synthesis; for example, the problem of privacy
and protection of information in a distributed computer-based office
environment may be critical to the commercial viability of this important
and  large target area. Yet, if one looks within the academic community for
research activities, both technical and social, that deal with this area,
one finds very, very few. The reasons for this are complex and relate both
to the ``military'' image of research in trusted systems and to a lack of
systems oriented research groups within the academic community.


What Can Be Done?


In the early part of this document, I suggested some specific actions that
could be undertaken and alluded to paths that could be used to stimulate
research in the information systems engineering areas. The question remains
of how to tie this disparate suggestions together into a program that could
motivate important research to complement that being done in industrial
laboratories.


I propose that it would be valuable to stimulate a real, traditional systems
engineering perspective to guide and motivate university research in the
information systems areas. The traditional role of systems engineering is to
provide a synthesis of fundamental research, market needs, and technological
feasibility  to create new products and new understanding of a field.
Systems engineering studies traditionally have had a longer term payoff than
the short, advanced, development type of research activities. These studies
also provide a training ground for the development of personnel who have an
appreciation for all aspects of the engineering profession. In the case of
the information systems engineering field, this broad, high-level view is
critical to the evolution of the complex systems we have been discussing.


A systems engineering activity can not, however, exist in a vacuum. In the
industrial world, it is motivated by products. In the military world, it is
motivated by broad initiatives, such as SDI. The academic world, also, must
be motivated by a goal. To provide such a goal, I am proposing that the
National Science Foundation formulate a project which can be used as a
vehicle for hosting both the systems engineering studies as well as the
resulting research activities.


Such a project must integrate communications, computing, software
engineering, human interface design, and information privacy. Further, it
must result in improvements in university information systems design and
fabrication facilities, as well as yielding insights into the management of
complexity.


A project which fits these goals would be the development of a advanced
national network. This network would be based on the most modern
transmission technology including, but not limited to, fiber optics and
satellite links. It would interconnect every engineering researcher in the
United States. The network project would provide these researchers with
advanced Engineering Workstations, high speed multimedia communications both
within and without their campuses, and access to the information and data
bases that they need in order to carry out their day-by-day activities.
Further, it would provide an appropriate level of information privacy
protection for all network users.


The engineering workstation would be an excellent vehicle for the
exploration of human interfaces symbolic algebra, and expert systems
technology when applied to a technical environment, as well as providing a
test bed for the most advanced notions in microprocessor architecture. The
definition, design, modeling, construction and performance measurement of
such a system would focus the attention of the information systems
engineering research community on:


1)  system level problems


2)  a complex design which will require the development of tools for dealing
with this complexity,


3)  a training ground for future researchers, and


4)  a set of understandings and an environment which would greatly enhance
their productivity as researchers.


Additionally, the fallout of such an activity into the industrial sector in
the form of new product ideas, new ways of using communications, new
man-machine interfaces, etc., would have a stimulating and valuable impact
on the national scene and on our international competitiveness. It would
also have the potential for producing major improvements in the productivity
and quality of life for the academic researcher.


It should be emphasized that this project is designed to develop and mature
fundamental research in the areas covered. It is not intended to just be
another facility; thus, it is important that it be managed as a research
project, drawing together the best people that the industrial and academic
research communities can offer. We expect that the technology developed
within this activity will be pioneering, and not just another case of
rehashed, 10-year old ideas. There are models of similar projects in Japan
and in the United Kingdom. In all these cases, the activities have had a
stimulating widespread effect on the research capabilities of the countries,
as well as having provided a motivation for effective joint
academic/industrial collaboration.


The Alternatives


If we continue at our current level of activity in the information systems
engineering areas, we will become more and more a customer country for
advanced technical products. We already see in Japan and in Europe strong
indications that this will happen. Further, the academic community's
capability to train people in information systems technology  will continue
to decline as faculty who are interested in systems-level issues leave for
industry. Our faculty will become more and more comprised of people who are
not interested in doing, but just theorizing. Our future computer engineers
will not be well-trained by exclusively theoreticians.


Small additions in funding will probably have minor impact on the situation
we have talked about. In order to provide the stimulus for a major push in
the academic community, a significant amount of money must be targeted into
a real, concrete initiative which can fire the imagination and creativity of
our scientists and engineers.


It is my view that the atmosphere in Congress is receptive to such
initiatives and that, ongoing NSF-sponsored activities can provide some, but
not all, of the infrastructure and additional motivation for such an effort.


Acknowledgement


I would like to acknowledge the authors of the two attachments for their
contribution to my thinking processes, as well to Gary Delp, Peter von
Glahn, and Manny Farber for their useful insights and help.