1999 FCRC in Atlanta a Success!

The Third Federated Computing Research Conference (FCRC) was held Friday, April 30 through Thursday, May 6, 1999, at the Atlanta Hilton and Towers, and was by all accounts a success, with some 1,450 people attending the various events, many registering for more than one. Following on successful events in San Diego (FCRC '93) and Philadelphia (FCRC '96), FCRC '99 was composed of fourteen tutorials plus a record number of Symposia and Workshops (sixteen):

CRA Workshop on Academic Careers for Women in Computing Science (CRA-W)

ACM/IEEE International Symposium of Computer Architecture (ISCA)

ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI)

ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Principles and Practices of Parallel Programming (PPOPP)

ACM SIGMETRICS Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Tools (METRICS)

ACM Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Simulation (PADS)

ACM/IEEE Workshop on I/O in Parallel and Distributed Systems (IOPADS)

ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC)

IEEE Conference on Computational Complexity (Complexity)

ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC)

ACM/UMIACS Workshop on Parallel Algorithms (WOPA)

ACM SIGPLAN Workshop on Computer Support for System Software (WCSSS)

ACM SIGPLAN Workshop on Languages, Compilers, and Tools for Embedded Systems (LCTES)

ACM SIGARCH Workshop on Scalable, Shared-Memory Multiprocessors (WSSMM)

ACM SIGMETRICS Workshop on Mathematical Performance Modelling and Analysis (MAMA)

ACM SIGMETRICS Workshop on Internet Server Performance (WISP)

The high number of events was made possible by the flexibility of this year's financial model for FCRC, in which most costs were bundled into an overall "FCRC fee" charged once to each attendee, thus allowing individual events to have relatively small budgets, and making it easy to add one-day workshops to the schedule, even at a late date.

Another highlight of FCRC '99 was the widely-praised lineup of plenary speakers, selected by a committee headed by Rao Kosaraju, Johns Hopkins University. On Sunday, Shafi Goldwasser of MIT and the Weitzmann Institute spoke on "Testing Global Properties Using Random, Local Data: the Paleontologist Approach to Computer Science." On Monday, John Hennessy of Stanford University gave a talk entitled "Back to the Future: Time to Return to Some Long Standing Problems in Computer Systems?" On Tuesday, 1998 Turing Award winner Jim Gray of Microsoft gave his Turing Lecture "What Next? A Few Remaining Problems in Information Technology Problems." On Wednesday, Ken Kennedy of Rice University spoke on "Future Investment in Information Technology Research: Report of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee." On Thursday, Charles Bennett of IBM Research spoke on "Quantum Information."

The plenary talks were scheduled just before lunch instead of first thing in the morning as in the past, and this proved a popular choice. This FCRC also seems to have been more successful in encouraging attendees to sample the programs of events other than their own. At FCRC, although attendees register for particular events, they are allowed to attend events at other conferences and workshops running on the same days as theirs, and one of the original goals of FCRC was to encourage this. This year, the layout of the hotel and the arrangement of conference rooms made this easier than in the past. In addition, for the first time the organizing committee was able to prepare a "Timeline Schedule" which allowed participants to quickly identify all the talks and sessions going on at any given time.

Conference management and registration services were provided by ACM, under the supervision of Donna Baglio of the ACM staff, who put in long hours on behalf of the conference and is one of the main reasons for its success. The other chief organizer was David Johnson of AT&T Labs and the Computing Research Association Board.

As in the past, about one third of the attendees at FCRC '99 were students. This year their attendance fees were kept low in part by generous subsidies from IBM Research - Almaden, AT&T Labs - Research, Lucent Bell Laboratories, and Telcordia Technologies (formerly Bellcore). In addition, the ACM Special Interest Groups SIGPLAN, SIGACT, SIGARCH, and SIGMETRICS provided "lines-of-credit" that could be used to underwrite the student subsidy if needed, but in the end these appear to have been unnecessary. Preliminary financial reports indicate that the FCRC umbrella organization will run a slight surplus, as opposed to the significant deficits of the first two FCRCs that had to be underwritten by the SIGs.

The surplus resulted from tight financial controls, the replacement of the glossy advance program provided for the first two FCRCs by a postcard and a website, and the decision to have conference management and registration done in-house by ACM. There were some complaints about the web-based advance registration process introduced this year, but this was the first time ACM had tried something of this complexity, and they are already set up to do much better in the future.

As to the future, plans are beginning to take shape. Although originally initiated through the efforts of the CRA, the Federated Computing Research Conference is now a de facto ACM event, and that appears to be the best way for it to continue. For this to happen, the FCRC steering committee needs a permanent organizational parent within ACM. The ACM SIG Governing Board seems a likely possibility, and discussions are ongoing as to how to set this up.

At present, it seems likely that the next FCRC will take place in 2003. This would be a 4-year gap, rather than the previous 3-year gaps--a longer interval will make FCRC seem more special and will impose a less frequent burden on the constituent conferences. More importantly, it would allow more time for planning and site selection, which can contribute greatly to FCRC's success. Anyone with suggestions, ideas, or offers of organization help for future FCRCs is encouraged to contact David Johnson (dsj@research.att.com).