Welcome

The Logistical Computing and Internetworking (LoCI) Laboratory, headed by Drs. Micah Beck and James S. Plank of the Computer Science Department of the University of Tennessee, is devoted to information logistics in distributed computer systems and networks. Information logistics, a term coined by Dr. Beck and Associate Director Dr. Terry Moore, is the study of the flexible coscheduling of the fundamental physical resources that underpin computer systems: storage, computation, and data transmission. The term is used in analogy to conventional logistics, which focuses on the coscheduling of the movement, storage and processing of military and industrial material. The approach taken by LoCI Lab researchers focuses on the application of architectural features of the Internet as a data transmission medium to analogous infrastructure for storage and computation. The core mission of the laboratory is the design and implementation of a Resource Fabric, or generalized information logistics infrastructure, to provide support for advanced applications that are not adequately served by the conventional model of Internetworking.

Logistical Networking

Logistical Networking is the coordinated scheduling of data transmission and storage within a unified communications resource fabric. Like conventional logistics, which coordinates transportation lines and warehouses for the distribution of physical goods, Logistical Networking integrates networking and storage to form a coherent system for the distribution, staging, and delivery of data.

Projects

The LoCI people work on several projects: The Internet Backplane Protocol (IBP), the Logistical Backbone(L-Bone), the exNode and the Logistical Runtime System (LoRS). Learn more about our projects and if you have any questions or suggestions, please subscribe to the LoCI interest mailing list or send us an email at .