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HECURA (NSF 09-530) Grant Opportunity FAQs

What is the HECURA funding opportunity?

The High End Computing University Research Activity (HECURA) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant program that supports research and education efforts to improve the input/output (I/O), file, and storage systems behind modern high performance computing (HPC).

What problem is HECURA trying to solve?

HECURA is motivated by a growing mismatch in advanced computing: processor counts and raw compute capability have increased dramatically, but data movement, bandwidth, and storage access times have not kept up. Many large-scale scientific and engineering applications are increasingly limited by how quickly data can be written, read, found, organized, moved, and managed rather than by compute speed.

What types of computing environments does HECURA focus on?

The program targets extreme-scale, data-intensive environments where high end computing platforms can range from hundreds of thousands to millions of processor cores and where coordinating I/O across distributed memories and large fleets of storage devices becomes a major scalability challenge.

Why does multicore processing make the data bottleneck worse?

The solicitation notes that while multicore processors increase compute capacity, they can reduce the amount of available memory and bandwidth per core. That can intensify data movement constraints even as total computational capability grows.

What kinds of science or engineering workloads motivate this program?

HECURA highlights both observation-driven science (large instruments and sensors producing continuous data streams) and simulation-driven science (large models producing very large output datasets). In both cases, end-to-end data management and high-throughput I/O are central needs.

What is the overall goal of projects funded by HECURA?

HECURA invites proposals aimed at designing efficient, high-throughput data storage, retrieval, and management technologies for extreme-scale computing, including improvements to the software stacks and system approaches needed to handle massive data at scale.

What research topics are explicitly within scope?

The scope includes (but is not limited to): I/O architectures and I/O middleware; archives and backups as extensions to file systems; file system design and file-system-related protocols; metadata research; new access methods; data management systems; security for the I/O and storage layers; novel storage devices integrated into the I/O stack; Quality of Service (QoS) approaches; and methods to improve management, reliability, and availability at scale (often referred to as RAS).

Does HECURA include support for tools and evaluation methods?

Yes. The solicitation calls for enabling tools, including hardware and software for design and simulation of I/O, file, and storage systems, along with practical benchmarking, tracing, performance measurement, and tuning capabilities to evaluate and optimize technologies on realistic workloads and platforms.

Is the focus only on storage hardware?

No. While storage infrastructure is a major theme, the opportunity also emphasizes software and system-level approaches such as I/O middleware, file systems, metadata, protocols, end-to-end data management, security at the I/O and storage layers, QoS, and RAS at scale.

What does RAS mean in this solicitation?

RAS refers to approaches that improve management, reliability, and availability at scale, especially important when systems involve enormous numbers of components and devices.

What is the funding opportunity number for this solicitation?

The NSF funding opportunity number is 09-530, and the solicitation points applicants to NSF Publication 09-530 for the full details.

What CFDA numbers are associated with this opportunity?

The opportunity is associated with CFDA 47.070 (Computer and Information Science and Engineering) and CFDA 47.080 (Office of Cyberinfrastructure).

What is the expected number of awards and total program funding level?

NSF anticipated making about 20 awards, with an estimated total program funding level of $10,000,000.

What is the expected award size range?

Individual awards were expected to range from $500,000 (floor) to $1,000,000 (ceiling).

Is cost sharing or matching required?

No. The solicitation stated that there is no cost sharing or matching requirement.

Who is eligible to apply?

Eligibility is listed as unrestricted, meaning the opportunity is broadly open to applicant types, subject to any clarifications included in the full announcement text (NSF Publication 09-530).

What is the category/type of this grant opportunity?

Administratively, it is a discretionary NSF grant opportunity in the Science and Technology / Research and Development category.

When was the solicitation posted and what was the proposal deadline?

The posted date was January 14, 2009, and the full proposal deadline was April 15, 2009.

Where can applicants find the official solicitation details?

The solicitation directs applicants to NSF Publication 09-530 for full details.

Who should be contacted for Grants.gov access or submission issues?

The solicitation provides an NSF Grants.gov support contact: grantsgovsupport@nsf.gov.

What kinds of improvements does HECURA emphasize for extreme-scale systems?

The program emphasizes higher-throughput I/O, larger and more capable storage infrastructures, better software stacks for end-to-end data management, and new approaches to massively parallel I/O and related system software to handle coordination across enormous numbers of distributed memories and storage devices.