LARCC (Laboratory of Advanced Research on Cloud Computing)
LARCC is the abbreviation name for the Laboratory of Advanced Research on Cloud Computing, which is located at Faculdade Três de Maio (SETREM) and registered in the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq). The goal is to develop advanced research in computer science in order to contribute with new technologies, techniques, analysis, algorithms, mechanisms, methodologies, and new solutions that may apply to or use in cloud computing. This is the name for the laboratory (our infrastructure) and research group. It was created due to the demand for research and technology about cloud computing around the world. LARCC is composed of a team of people and partners, which collaborate throughout financial and intellectual support for scientific and technological advances.

From the laboratory perspective, LARCC aims to offer an excellent infrastructure for developing research with internal or external partners and members of the team. As a research group, LARCC aims to develop excellence and international research level, and contribute with the training/graduation of researchers for the society. Therefore, objectively, LARCC’s goals are:

  • Develop research projects with relevant scientific contributions;
  • Establish partnerships with public and private institutions or information technology companies;
  • Generate new trends, results, and new paradigms for computing;
  • Produce knowledge through scientific articles, presentations, workshops, courses, training, and lectures;
  • Offer physical and computational infrastructure to other educational institution unites;
  • Bring academic research closer to companies/institutions to meet the evolving needs and technological transformations, through collaborative research projects.

Since its foundation in 2014, LARCC has been developing research and innovation projects with companies in the northwest region of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, such as the projects: AGROCOMPUTAÇÃO with TECNICON Sistemas and HiPerfCloud with Abase Sistemas. There are also projects developed with government agencies such as the ParaElastic with FAPERGS (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Rio Grande do Sul) and SParCloud with CNPq. The research that is carried out covers several areas of computing and has/promotes collaboration with other areas, such as agriculture, health, and engineering.

During these years, some national and international partnerships and cooperation have been made with people from different academic and research institutions. This has enabled greater collaboration and evolution of the projects that are carried out in the laboratory. National cooperation is established with researchers/professors from SETREM, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Federal University of Pampa (UNIPAMPA), University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS) and Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). In the international context, collaborations exist with Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), from Germany, National College of Ireland (NCI), Ireland and with Università di Pisa (UNIPI), Italy. With all these universities there are joint research projects or works.

Historic

A brief summary of the evolution of the environment and research group

Environment

LARCC was founded by Prof. Dalvan Jair Griebler on 10/08/2014 with the support of Prof. Fauzi Shubeita and Prof. Vera L. L. Benedetti, after starting the first research project with an information technology (IT) company, the Abase Sistemas e Soluções LTDA. It gave financial support through a scholarship for scientific initiation and donation of equipments, such as servers and network devices. To set up the laboratory, in addition to the donated equipment, disused computers and servers were used, which were part of the SETREM’s Network Laboratory. In other words, LARCC had no environment of its own.

In 2015 we got a space at the back of the SETREM’s Network Laboratory, with the same computational resources and a Nobreak was acquired. Thus, we were able to isolate our computing environment from the classes that took place during the nights inside the laboratory.

Between 2016 and 2017, we expanded the physical space that we had acquired at the back of the SETREM’s network laboratory since we received the donation of computing equipments that were no longer used by Terra company.

In 2018 we got a space totally dedicated to LARCC. We inherited the SETREM’s network laboratory room, where we redesigned the entire physical space and the entire electrical installation was redone. LARCC now has a data center environment and a research environment. New servers and equipment were also acquired with research projects.

In summary, the laboratory has a computational infrastructure of high computational power and workstations with computers to carry out advanced research. Equipment maintenance is carried out by team members and the updating/improvement of the infrastructure is financed by research projects, donations, and by SETREM.

Group

The research group started to form in 2013 through the undergraduate thesis in the field of cloud computing. In August 2014, with the first research project, we obtained fundings for a scientific initiation scholarship. This was essential to have students doing research with exclusive dedication. Other students also started to be part of the group, carrying out an undergraduate thesis in Computer Networks and Information Systems. Most students work on a voluntary and part-time basis. With new research projects, both with companies and government agencies, the number of fellows has increased, balancing the number of full-time and part-time members.

The research produced by the group initially focused on cloud computing infrastructure and management, with strong influence from SETREM’s Computer Networking students until mid-2015. From 2016, it started to work in other areas of computer science, such as databases, artificial intelligence, parallel, and distributed programming and among others with the influence of students from the SETREM’s Information Systems course. The partnership with researchers from other universities also contributed to approach different topics in the computer science field. In recent years (from 2019), the group has also been approaching the agricultural area. The objective is to create/develop innovative solutions using information technology addressing the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and Cloud Computing.

The group’s scientific contributions started at the regional level, expanding to the national and international levels. Publications in journals, conferences, and reports can be accessed on the group’s web page. In addition to producing relevant scientific contributions, the group also seeks to train people for industry and academia. Most members have been able to join the master’s degree at other renowned research institutions such as PUCRS and UFRGS. In addition, graduate students who are not in graduate school are working in information technology companies.