Globalization Challenges to Database Community

1. Globalization Challenges to Database Community Rajeev Rastogi Executive Director Bell Labs Research India

2. Bell Labs Research India • Launched in October 2004 Focus: Computing & Communication Software • Low-Cost Networking • Network Monitoring • Data Analysis • Distributed Computing • 3G Wireless Applications Motivation: • Access to global talent • Access to global markets - India, China: a third of world’s population - New products to penetrate markets • Cost savings

3. Impact, Challenges • Impact • High-end R&D jobs, better pay • Reverse brain drain: many returning to avail opportunities back home • Spreading research culture, should boost PhD enrollments • Internet enables research to be done from anywhere! • New research challenges driven by needs of developing countries • Challenges • Recruiting • Very few quality PhDs graduate each year from Indian universities • Defining an independent research agenda • Staying connected to US (email, netmeeting do help!) • Coping with poor infrastructure: roads, traffic, power,….

4. Does Globalization really require us to solve new (research) problems? • My addresses in India US address format Work Bell Labs Research India, Lucent Technologies India Pvt Ltd., Salarpuria Ascent 3rd Floor, No. 77, Jyoti Nivas College Road, Koramangala Industrial Layout, Ward No. 68, Bangalore - 560 095, Karnataka, India Street name City State Zip Country Home 202 Vaswani Exotica, #3 Papanna Street, Off St. Marks Road, Bangalore: 560001, Karnataka, India My personal challenge: Getting these to fit into this

5. So what else is different about India? • 740 million people live in rural villages • Low incomes: monthly per-capita income - $17.50 • Low literacy: 60% • Unreliable power: frequent outages • Low teledensity: 1.5 phones per 100 people • Low PC penetration • Very few Internet users • 22 official languages

6. These lead to new research challenges…. • Low-cost computing devices • Data access using cell phones • Low-cost networks • Data access over unreliable wireless meshes • User interfaces for illiterate people • Multi-lingual information storage, retrieval, and search

7. Research Challenge 1: Low-Cost Computing Devices • Current low-cost PC efforts • One Laptop Per Child (MIT Media Labs - $100 PC) • Eduwise (Intel) • Simputer (Picopeta) • Distinctive features • Thin-clients (network computing),open-source, low power displays • Widespread adoption? • Meanwhile… • 100m mobile subscribers in India growing at 5m a month! • 500m mobile subscribers in China growing at 6m a month! • By 2010, 3.7b worldwide (1.5b 2.5G and above) cell phone subscribers! • Cell phone costs coming down dramatically (< $50) • Could cell phones be the-low cost computing devices of the future? * Source: Pyramid Research

8. Research Challenge 2: Data Access using Cell Phones • Cell phones have many constraints • Low bandwidth (few 10s or 100s of Kbps) • On 2G phones, communication using SMS messages (max size: 160) • Limited memory, battery Possible solutions to conserve bandwidth: • Broadcasts [Imielinski etal, Acharya etal]Query: Find dealer offering max price for wheat in neighboring villages • Broadcast max price dealer in each village • Compute max among neighbors on cell phone • Concise answers (e.g. Skylines) Broadcast Villages

9. Research Challenge 3: Low-Cost Networks • Wireline & cellular technologies too expensive for Internet connectivity • Possible solution:802.11 mesh networks [TIER, DGP] • Low-cost due to competitive mass production • Directional antennas for long-distance communication • Major challenge: Interference, need clever ways to • Assign frequency channels • Schedule link transmissions Interference

10. Research Challenge 4: Data Access over Unreliable Wireless Meshes • Nodes are power-constrained, may be down due to unreliable power • Data cache Data center • Minimize communication to conserve power • Cache items based on access patterns • Batch queries, route results along steiner tree • Route around power outages to maximize throughput • DTNs [Fall 03] Data center Data cache Queries Kiosk

11. Research Challenge 5: User Interfaces for Illiterate People • Text-based interfaces do not work • Need to explore other interfaces • Speech • Visual (images, video) • Benefits • Language independent, global • Challenges • Voice based system needs to learn many accents and dialects • Visual interfaces have limited vocabulary (compared to text)

12. Research Challenge 6: Multi-lingual Storage, Retrieval, and Search • Native English speaking population on internet only 35% • Databases already support multi-lingual data using unicode • Challenge: • Support search in many languages over content in many languages • Possible solution • Translate search keywords to various languages and then search • Challenge • Need search capability for non-English languages • Translations (dictionary, phonetic) need to preserve meaning/intent