Open Source Technology Lab Offers Experiential Learning Opportunities to College Students

Sat, 27 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In the rapidly evolving landscape of technology, the demand for skilled IT professionals continues to soar. College students, armed with ambition and a thirst for knowledge, find themselves at the forefront of this digital revolution where softwarization has rapidly reshaped the conventional computing and networking paradigms. Recognizing the importance of staying ahead in the competitive job market, the Open Source Technology Lab (OSTL) has emerged, offering a gateway for students to enhance their skills and unlock exciting career prospects through experiential learning.

At OSTL, our students have been working closely with the engineering teams at Intel, Red Hat and Dell and learning the emerging hardware and software plantforms that are powering cloud computing, software defined networking, 5G VRAN workloads. They are trained on the latest multicore architecture with on-chip acceleration, as well as the container-based software technologies for flexibility and scalability. Interacting with the engineers from the leading companies, our students can bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge gained in classrooms and practical skills demanded by the industry. The students trained at OSTL are well equipped with the industry-relevant skills in cloud computing, programming and problem solving. They have been benefited with unique opportunities of networking and career advancement.

We are expanding the collaboration with the existing industiral members of OSTL in new areas such as machine learning for network traffic analysis, and looking to engage with new partners and recruit additional student interns.

Yan Luo
Professor, Director of OSTL
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Massachusetts Lowell

UMass Lowell Collaborates with Intel and Red Hat to Pilot Open Source Technology Lab

Tue, 23 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As part of the Open Source Technology Lab (OSTL.org) pilot program, Intel, Red Hat, UMass Lowell & Dell collaborated using the Dell 16G XR5610 and Dell XR8000 platforms, which are powered by 4th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors with Intel vRAN Boost®, along with Red Hat OpenShift® Container Platform. This collaborative initiative has showcased the readiness from both a COTS hardware and open container standard software perspective, to deploy vRAN workloads at scale. The demonstration was conducted through an independent third-party process, adding credibility and objectivity to the validation process.

Why Open Source Technology Lab?

Open Source Technology Lab (OSTL) at UMass Lowell carries out open-source software testing, validation, performance evaluation on emerging hardware platforms, and facilitate collaborations and innovation. As a university-industry collaborative, OSTL strives to achieve the following objectives:

Testing: Perform comprehensive functionality and performance evaluations of OSS and deliver written reports on OSS validation, compatibility, and performance
Training: Offer crucial hands-on training to educate future workforce with the state-of-art technological advances
Innovation: Serve as innovation hub to attract open-source community developers, industrial partners, government agencies in advancing OSS technologies
Acceleration: Advance Digital Transformation validating next generation workloads (such as 5G vRAN, machine learning) on open standard platforms

Yan Luo
Founding Director of OSTL
Professor
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Massachusetts Lowell

John Morgan
Founding Director of OSTL
Director Platform Solution Integration
Customer and Ecosystem Enabling Division
Network & Edge Solutions Group
Intel

Rashid Khan
Founding Director of OSTL
Senior Director
Core Platforms – Networking
Red Hat

Heidi Dempsey
Research and Innovation Director, North America
Office of the CTO
Red Hat

Suresh Ramasamy(Raam)
Director, Strategic HW Partnerships
Telecom Systems Business
Dell Technologies