Connect with UNB
Our research is aimed at advancing the performance and concurrency of software executing on multicore systems. Innovations are explored in the context of real-world applications through our industry partnerships, with large and small companies. Working in joint research relationships with commercial partners, valuable insights are discovered that might not be encountered in the university classroom environment alone.
CAS–Atlantic was initiated in 2011 with the purpose of promoting and cultivating collaborative research between IBM and their business units dedicated to research, development and services. CAS–Atlantic provids UNB with a window that spans a relevant cross-section of the corporation. Similar relationships have been established with additional partners.
CAS–Atlantic’s founding project, Accelerating Java Using Massive Multicore Systems, engaged more than 40 students, researchers and faculty and has produced numerous disclosures of invention, patents, journal publications, conference papers, PhD and Master’s theses, technical reports, posters and invited talks.
Past and current partners include IBM Canada Ltd., Huawei Technologies Canada, Google Inc., NB Power, Siemens Canada, Emera, NS Power, 45 Drives Inc. and Red Hat Inc.
The mission of CAS–Atlantic is to conduct research aimed at advancing the performance and concurrency of software executing on multicore systems. Innovations are explored in the context of real-world applications through our industry partnerships, with large and small companies. CAS–Atlantic is a broad-based unit having both educational and research goals.
By working in joint research relationships with commercial partners, valuable insights are discovered that might not be encountered in the university environment alone. Students participate in commercial efforts that complement the university teaching environment. Industrial mentors find that working with university faculty and students is an enriching experience that adds an exciting dimension to their work and provides research expertise in areas of interest.
Partners find that building relationships along with ground-breaking research, and having an institution to cultivate, organize, and maintain their interests, yields a bigger return on their university investments. Corporate investment can leverage additional, significant investments from numerous funding bodies, such as ACOA, NBIF, NSERC, NRC-IRAP and MITACS.
CAS–Atlantic has a proven track record of fostering such relationships. In addition to our founding partner, IBM, the Centre has assisted other large corporations and a number of SME’s in Atlantic Canada with their software development and performance monitoring.
Our experience in investigating leading edge techniques and having much of our work integrated into real commercial products, ideally positions us to bridge the worlds of learning, research and commercial development.
We bring to the table in-depth expertise in a range of technologies, including: Java; the Java Virtual Machine; Node.js; performance measurement and improvement; scalability; parallel, real-time and multithreaded programming; Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) clouds; cloud multitenancy; memory management, compaction and garbage collection; cache performance; simulation; massively multicore and embedded systems; and software engineering.
Dr. Kenneth Kent obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Victoria (Victoria, Canada) in 2003, his M.Sc. from the same in 1999 and his B.Sc. Hons. from Memorial University (Newfoundland, Canada) in 1996. Since 2002, he has been a faculty member at the University of New Brunswick (Fredericton, Canada).
Dr. Kent’s research interests include hardware/software co-design, reconfigurable computing, embedded systems and software engineering. Dr. Kent has completed significant research on Java virtual machine technology including the use of distributed computing and dedicated hardware to accelerate Java execution, the basis of his MSC and PhD thesis respectively.
Recently, Dr. Kent has worked on improving the execution of the Java Virtual Machine in Multicore environments focusing on such issues as garbage collection, multitenancy and reducing startup times. Dr. Kent has also been working on an open-source CAD flow for programming Field Programmable Gate Arrays. Verilog-to-routing is used world wide by many academics and industry experts to include collaborators such as Huawei and Google.
His work has contributed to significant industrial collaborations, supervising over 50 graduate students to completion, 3 patents and over 120 publications in refereed journals and conference proceedings.
Dr. Gerhard Dueck received his BSc, Master, and PhD degrees in Computer Science from the University of Manitoba in 1983, 1986, and 1988, respectively. After completing his PhD he joined St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
In 1991 he spent a year at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, as a research associate. In 1999 he joined the Faculty of Computer Science at the University of New Brunswick where he currently is a professor.
He has published more than 90 refereed papers in journals and conferences. He has been on numerous program committees for international conferences as well as on the editorial board of journals.
Dr. David Bremner holds three degrees in Computer Science, a B.Sc. Hons. from the University of Calgary (1990), an M.Sc. from Simon Fraser University (1993) and a Ph.D. from McGill University (1997).
David spent two years as an NSERC postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Washington from 1997 to 1999. Since 2000 David has been a faculty member at the University of New Brunswick, and is currently a Professor of Computer Science with a Cross Appointment to the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.
David has made extended research visits to the Technical University of Berlin (as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow), the University of Rostok and Kyoto University.
David's research interests include programming languages, computational geometry, and mathematical optimization.
Dr. Suprio Ray is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Computer Science at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of Toronto and M.Sc. in Computer Science from University of British Columbia.
Prior to his academic career, he worked in the software industry for a number of years. His research interests include big data and database systems, spatio-temporal data management, query processing on modern hardware, compiler and runtime support for scalable data science, data provenance and privacy, parallel and distributed systems, and Cloud computing.
He investigates how to build scalable data systems and develop novel approaches for query processing and data analysis. He has been a member of CAS, Atlantic since joining UNB.
He has won two best paper awards and is the co-inventor in a US patent. He also received the Harrison McCain Foundation Young Scholars Award.
sray@unb.ca
Dr. Panos Patros, CPEng is an Adjunct Professor in Computer Science at UNB and Vice President, Engineering at Raygun in Wellington, New Zealand. Previously, he was a Senior Lecturer in Software Engineering at the University of Waikato in New Zealand.
Panos is twice an alumnus of the IBM/UNB Centre of Advanced Studies - Atlantic, where he completed his masters and PhD in Computer Science, conducting research on the IBM project about Optimizing Java for Massively Multicores.
He is interested in Self-Adaptation in Clouds, Language Runtimes and Embedded Systems, focusing on Performance Engineering.
He graduated from UNB with his PhD in July 2018 and then joined the University of Waikato where he started the Oceania Researchers in Cloud and Adaptive-systems (ORKA) lab and participated in various large externally funded projects including, Optimizing Node.js for Cloud Systems with UNB, Ahuora Decarbonizing the Energy and Process Heat Sectors with Adaptive Digital Twins with Waikato, and STRATUS Cloud Security with Waikato.
Computer Science as a discipline started at UNB in the Department of Electrical Engineering in 1968. It became a School within the Faculty of Engineering in 1972, and was made a Faculty in 1990. Various degree programs are offered including research based degrees at the MCS and PhD levels. Computer Science has the oldest and the largest co-op program at UNB (both campuses). The Faculty of Computer Science (FCS) is one of the strongest research Faculties on the campus. The faculty has relationships with the government and regional industry through the Co-op program and the Information Technology Centre (ITC), and our faculty members serve on provincial, national, and industry boards, councils and committees.
Founded in 1785, the University of New Brunswick is the oldest English-language university in Canada. UNB is making a significant difference in New Brunswick and beyond through the creation of knowledge, teaching, and the integration of knowledge into society. UNB conducts nearly 80 per cent of the university-based research in the province and close to 50 per cent of all the research conducted in the province.
IBM Corporation is one of the world’s largest information technology companies, IT consulting companies, and IT research companies. It is among the few companies in the industry that has reinvented itself through multiple technology eras and economic cycles.
IBM is much more than a “hardware, software, services” company; IBM is now emerging as a cognitive solutions and cloud platform company. IBM Canada has been operating in Canada since 1917 and the IBM Canada Software Laboratory (CAS) started in Toronto in 1967 with just 55 employees. This number has grown to over 5,000 spanning 11 sites in eight cities across the country: Edmonton, London, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria and Fredericton.
IBM is a world leader in Java technology with a 100% independent Java Virtual Machine and Class Library implementation known as J9. The design of the J9 VM has been aimed at portability to different platforms, as well as scaling from mobile phones all the way to zSeries mainframes. The J9 VM is the basis of multiple IBM Java offerings, including WebSphere Micro Edition, as well as the basis of all IBM Java Development kits since version 5.
IBM has recently reorganized the runtime components of J9 to separate the pure Java implementation (open-source Eclipse OpenJ9) from the parts that provide key runtime capabilities (open-source Eclipse OMR ).
Founded in 1987, Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. Committed to bringing digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected, intelligent world, they have nearly 194,000 employees, and operate in more than 170 countries and regions, including Canada, serving more than three billion people around the world.
Huawei's end-to-end portfolio of products, solutions and services are both competitive and secure. They are committed to open collaboration with ecosystem partners to create lasting value for customers. They invest heavily in basic research, concentrating on technological breakthroughs that drive the world forward.
45 Drives, a subsidiary of Protocase Inc. of Sydney N.S., designs and manufactures the Storinator, a standard compute server rack component that can support up to 60 secondary storage device, hard disk drives (HDDs) or solid state drives (SSDs). These devices are accessible to the user through an open-source software layer that presents the devices as a large unified storage solution.
Using traditional software solutions, the ultra-large storage provides high capacity, redundancy and bandwidth at a low cost, making the overall solution very attractive for cloud-based storage. Their client base is dominated by big data customers such as movie production studios, astronomy centres, data centres, museums and archives.
Eyesover Technologies provides real-time custom research by finding and analyzing online conversations about the issues that matter to the client’s organization or campaign.
Eyesover identifies the emerging trends with exclusive AI technology that discovers the issues and discussions that a client should be listening to, ensuring that changes in discussions are never missed and always providing updated and relevant information.
NB Power is a Crown corporation and the largest electric utility in Atlantic Canada. The power utility is responsible for supplying energy to over 400,000 direct and indirect customers by way of over 21,000 kilometers of distribution lines, substations, terminals and switchyards that are interconnected by over 6,800 km of transmission lines.
NB Power has developed one of the most diverse generation fleets in North America to meet the unique daily and seasonal power needs of New Brunswick. Electricity requirements are supplied by 13 generating stations spread throughout the province, through wind and other third-party power purchase agreements (PPA’s), or by importing electricity from neighbouring jurisdictions when markets are favourable.
NB Power is committed to a vision of sustainable electricity for future generations. The utility plans to realize this vision by reducing fossil fuel generation through smart grid innovations and energy efficiency programs. A key element of this strategy is NB Power’s Energy Smart New Brunswick (ESNB) Program.
In support of a renewed relationship between the NB Power and UNB, the parties recently entered into two endowed chair agreements, one for the NB Power Industrial Research Chair in Smart Grid Technologies (the NB Power Smart Grid Chair) and a second for the Industrial Research Chair in Cybersecurity (the NB Power Cybersecurity Chair).
Siemens Canada is an electronics and electrical engineering firm and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Siemens AG, headquartered in Erlangen, Germany. Siemens Canada was founded in 1912 and is based in Oakville, Ontario. It has more than 4,500 employees situated in 46 offices, and operates 15 manufacturing and assembly facilities across Canada.
In January 2013 Siemens Canada opened a smart grid centre of competence, and a research and development centre –both in Fredericton, NB. This followed upon Siemens’ multi-year partnership with NB Power, announced in summer 2012.
The new Fredericton office presently employs about two dozen employees, 15 of whom are R&D personnel. Most of the employees are from the local area, reflecting the company’s aim to support local expertise with the best of global smart grid knowledge.
On May 30, 2018 Siemens announced the opening of a Cybersecurity Centre in Fredericton and its intention to create up to 60 jobs, with 30 to be hired by 2020. In support of the Centre Opportunities New Brunswick announced it will provide up to $3.6 million in cash contributions.
The Siemens Cybersecurity Centre, housed at Knowledge Park, aims to bring together Siemens’ expertise in critical infrastructure protection with New Brunswick’s emerging cybersecurity ecosystem, creating potential for global exports of locally created Internet protocol, methods and technology.
Emera Inc. is a geographically diverse energy and services company headquartered in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It has $29 billion in assets and 2017 revenues of more than $6 billion in three business areas: electricity generation, transmission and distribution; gas transmission; and distribution and utility energy services. Its companies (including NS Power) are located in Canada, the USA and four Caribbean countries.
In support of research and development into the new smart grid tools and technologies, Emera and UNB entered into an Endowed Chair Agreement on June 21, 2017. Under the Agreement UNB established the Emera Chair in perpetuity. The role of the Chair is to contribute significantly to the body of scholarship on smart grid technologies through teaching, research and public service.
The Black Arcs is a Fredericton based civic technology company, leveraging analytical monitoring to provide software as a service to facilitate multi-stakeholder land-use planning.
The interface demonstrates land-use scenarios through interactive data visualizations of predictive analytics. These tools allow municipalities and local governments a superior way to collaborate with a larger cross-section of professional staff and citizens, tapping into much broader expertise.
ACOA's Atlantic Innovation Fund encourages the commercialization of research in Atlantic Canada and has been a key driver for many Atlantic Canadian businesses, universities and research institutions. It has enhanced Atlantic Canada's reputation for innovation and, through the success of the projects it has funded, the AIF contributes significantly to the region's research and development capacity and its economic performance.
Funding provided from ACOA was a catalyst to the establishment of CAS Atlantic and its founding research in accelerating Java using massive multicore systems. It is also central in our OMR for the Internet-of-Things and Energy System Platform projects.
The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation (NBIF) is an independent non-profit corporation that specializes in venture capital and research investments. With over $100 million invested, plus $457 million more leveraged from other sources, the NBIF has helped to create over 113 companies, fund 494 applied research projects and recruit 75 professors to the province since its inception in 2003.
Their mission is to help bring innovative research and promising new business opportunities to life. Innovation stimulates the economy, promotes productivity, and has the power to directly impact and improve the everyday lives of New Brunswickers.
NBIF funding has leveraged our contributions in a number of projects including Visualization for Circuit Optimization, OMR for the Internet-of-Things, and Optimizing and Integrating Node.js for Distributed and Multicore Clouds.
Mitacs is a national, not-for-profit organization that has designed and delivered research and training programs in Canada for 20 years. Working with 70 universities, 6,000 companies, and both federal and provincial governments, they build partnerships that support industrial and social innovation in Canada.
Mitacs was founded in 1999 as a Canadian Network of Centres of Excellence, dedicated to supporting applied and industrial research in mathematical sciences and associated disciplines. In 2003, they launched a research internship program designed to increase deployment of highly educated graduates into the private sector.
Open to all disciplines since 2007, Mitacs has expanded in response to industrial and university needs, including programs in R&D management, professional skills development and international research training. Mitacs is committed to its core vision of supporting research-based innovation and continues to work closely with its partners in industry, academia and government.
Mitacs funding has leveraged our contributions in a number of projects including Memory Organization based on Data Temperature, OMR for the Internet-of-Things, High Performance Clustered Secure Storage Solution and Energy System Platform.
The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) aims to make Canada a country of discoverers and innovators for the benefit of all Canadians. The agency supports students in their advanced studies, promotes and supports discovery research, and fosters innovation by encouraging Canadian organizations to participate and invest in postsecondary research projects.
NSERC researchers are on the vanguard of science, building on Canada's long tradition of scientific excellence. The Collaborative Research and Development Grants Program was instrumental in funding a number of past projects and current projects, including Optimizing and Integrating Node.js for Distributed and Multicore Clouds, Memory Organization based on Data Temperature and Load Stall Minimization.
As part of its Industrial and Regional Benefits (IRB) commitments to the Government of Canada, Lockheed Martin Aero has provided funds to assist the University of New Brunswick’s (UNB’s) advancement of cybersecurity applied research. The monies are being used to establish a fund to support cybersecurity, specifically the Lockheed Martin Cybersecurity Research Fund (LMCRF).
Through the LMCRF, UNB will further research in cybersecurity across any discipline. This program is being managed under the auspices of the Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity (CIC). The LMCRF will be used for technology enhancement within the various domains of cybersecurity.
The primary focus for the LMCRF program funds will be projects carried out within the CIC, particularly those that align with clearly identified end-user requirements, both in industrial and public areas of application. It will also enable UNB professors to initiate and sustain multi-disciplinary projects that range from fundamental to applied research in a diverse span of disciplines.
LMCRF is key in advancing our High Performance Clustered Secure Storage Solution project.