Arun K. Somani

Arun K. Somani is Associate Dean for Research of College of Engineering, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Philip and Virginia Sproul Professor at Iowa State University. Somani is Elected Fellow of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for “contributions to theory and applications of computer networks”^[1] from 1999 to 2017 and Life Fellow of IEEE since 2018. He is Distinguished Engineer of Association for Computing Machinery(ACM) and Elected Fellow of The American Association for the Advancement of Science(AAAS).

Biography

Somani received a B.E. (Hons.) degree in Electronics Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani in 1973, an M.Tech. in Computer Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology in 1979 and an MSEE in Electrical Engineering from McGill University in 1983. In 1985, after completing his Ph.D. at McGill University, he joined the faculty of Electrical & Computer Engineering Department at University of Washington, serving as assistant professor from 1985 to 1990, associate professor from 1990 to 1995 and professor till 1997.

In 1997, he joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Iowa State University. He served as David C. Nicholas Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 1997 to 2002, Jerry R. Junkins Endowed Chair Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 2002 to 2014, Director of Information Infrastructure Institute from 2002 to 2015 and Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department from 2003 to 2010. He is serving as Anson Marston Distinguished Professor since 2007, Associate Dean for Research of College of Engineering since 2013 and Philip and Virginia Sproul Professor since 2014, all at Iowa State University.

During 2010–2011, Somani served as Ram Rajindra Malhotra Professor at Indian Institute of Technology. He also served as an honorary distinguished professor at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (Taiwan Tech) since 2010 and a visiting professor at Gujarat Technological University. Professor Somani also is serving as a Fulbright Specialist from 2019 to 2024.

Early life and family

Arun Somani was raised by Dulari Somani and Kanwarlal Somani in Beawar, India, and attended Government Patel Higher Secondary School before pursuing his engineering degrees and joining the workforce. His education was partially supported by a National Scholarship in India and Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship. He and his wife, Manju Somani, raised three children.

Contributions

System-Level Diagnosis is a field of study in which computing units can be utilized to test each other to locate faulty units. Somani developed a generalized theory for system-level diagnosis ^[2] in the presence of an arbitrary fault set in a multi-computer system. He characterized diagnosable systems in terms of their testing requirement under various model of test result interpretation and faults scenarios where faults occur sequentially or simultaneously. He also developed distributed fault diagnosis algorithms ^[3] for applications in multi-processor systems that exploit the regularity and symmetry of interconnection topology to diagnose larger sized fault sets correctly with a very high probability ^{[4][third-party source needed]}

In fault tolerant computer system architecture area, Somani developed MESHKIN,^[5] a new fault tolerant computer system architecture based on distributed fault diagnosis and reconfiguration approach to tolerate multiple faults and maintain high reliability while minimizing the hardware complexity and performance penalty for the Boeing company implemented. The Boeing company implemented a fault tolerant computer system based on this work.^{[citation needed]}

Analyzing highly reliable systems is a complex process.^[6] The primary reason for the complexity is because these systems operate in multiple phases ^[7][8] with different requirements and follow involute maintenance schedules . Hierarchical Modelling and Analysis Package (HIMAP) ^[9][10] developed for the Boeing Company by Somani facilitate such complex system analysis. HIMAP has also been used by other companies and universities.^{[third-party source needed]}

Most parallel computing is performed using cluster computing today. Somani designed and implemented a fully reconfigurable ^[11][12] high-performance system, Proteus, for computer vision applications in 1990's that allows overlapping of computation and communication to minimize communication penalty and optimize performance.^[13][14] This system used a large grain message passing network model at high level and shared memory multiprocessor node at the lowest level with software-controlled cache coherency and optimization in cache design.^{[third-party source needed]}

The Proteus design utilized universal interconnection topologies Enhanced Hypercube (EHC),^[15] Generalized Folding Cube (GFC),^[16] and Helical Binary-cube (HBC) ^[17] for embedding any arbitrary permutation routing requests in circuit switched mode.

Wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM)-based Fiber-optics form the basis of today backbone network and wavelength conversion is considered a performance improving concept. Somani's research group characterized the role of wavelength converters ^[18] in optical WDM network and showed the concept is most valuable only in a class of networks. His research also developed efficient algorithms for placement of converters and then focused on a practical and cost-effective solution leading to development of alternate architecture ^[19] that employs no wavelength conversion and uses multiple fiber with fewer wavelengths on each fiber.^[20][21] Several efficient mechanisms for traffic grooming architectures, algorithms, and frameworks for resource allocation of efficient traffic grooming also resulted from this research ^{[22][23][24][third-party source needed]}

In high-speed network such as WDM-based optical network, fiber failures are not only common, but also have disastrous effects. Somani's research led^{[third-party source needed]} to development of dependable routing ^[25][26] and connection management method,^[27][28] attack detection ^[29] and diagnosis techniques in WDM-based fiber-optic networks, and effectiveness study of these techniques ^[30]

Dependability of computer systems in the presence of transient and soft faults is a major concern in processor and memory system designs. Somani studied the error propagation characteristics due to transient faults in processor registers, logic, and cache memories ^[31] and developed low-overhead techniques to enhance system robustness. The shadow caching ^[32] for multi-bit error correction in cache memory system,^[33] and circuit and logic level error detection and correction in processor systems ^{[34][third-party source needed]}Most applications running under a given operating environment do not exert the critical path every cycle, leaving room for significant performance improvements that can be achieved through dynamically adjusting clock frequency at run time beyond worst case limits.^[35] To improve both the performance and reliability of processor systems, Somani developed a design methodology to overcome the clock rates upper bound that is determined using the worst-case timing paths to avoid timing errors ^{[36][third-party source needed]}

Works

• Somani, A. K.; Shekhawat, Rajveer Singh; Mundra, Ankit; Srivastava, Sumit (2019). Smart Systems and Iot: Innovations in Computing: Proceeding of Ssic 2019. Springer. ISBN 978-9811384059.
• Somani, A. K. (2017). Proceedings of First International Conference on Smart System, Innovations and Computing: Ssic 2017, Jaipur, India. Springer. ISBN 978-9811058271.
• Somani, A. K.; Deka, Chandra Ganesh (2017). Big Data Analysis: Tools and Technology for Effective Planning. Chapman and Hall/CRC. ISBN 978-1138032392.
• Somani, A. K. (2006). Survivability and Traffic Grooming in Optical Networks. Cambridge Press Book. ISBN 0521853885.
• Somani, A. K.; Mundra, Ankit; Doss, Robin; Bhattacharya, Subhajit (Eds.) (2021). Smart Systems: Innovations in Computing, Proceeding of SSIC 2021. Springer. ISBN 978-981-16-2876-4.

References

1. "IEEE Fellows 1999 | IEEE Communications Society".
2. A. K. Somani, V. K. Agarwal and D. Avis, "A Generalized Theory for System-Level Diagnosis," IEEE Transactions on Computers, Vol. c-36, no. 5, May 1987, pp. 538-546.
3. A. K. Somani and V. K. Agarwal, "Distributed Diagnosis Algorithms for Regular Interconnected Structures," IEEE transactions on Computers, Vol. 41, No. 7, July 1992, pp. 899-906.
4. A. K. Somani and O. Peleg, "On Diagnosability of Large fault Sets and Its Applications to Regular-Interconnected Computer Systems," in IEEE Transactions on Computers, Vol. 45, No. 8, August 1996, pp 892-903.
5. A. K. Somani and M. Bagha, "Meshkin: A Fault Tolerant Computer Architecture with Distributed Fault Detection and Reconfiguration," in G. Gorke and H. Sorensen (eds.), Automation, systems, Methods, and Applications, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 214, (Proc. of 4th Intl. Conf. on Fault Tolerant Computing Systems Baden Baden, September 1989) Springer-Verlag, 1989, pp. 197-208.
6. A. K. Somani, "Reliability Estimates of Fault Tolerant Systems in User Application Environment," SAE Communications in Reliability, Maintainability, and Supportability, An International Journal, Vol. 1, no. 1, 1994, pp. 3-13.
7. A. K. Somani, J. Ritcey, and S. Au, "Phased-Mission Reliability Analysis," in IEEE Transactions on Reliability, December 1992, pp. 504-511.
8. A. K. Somani and K. S. Trivedi, "Phased-Mission System Analysis Using Boolean Algebraic Methods," in Performance Evaluation Review, vol. 22, no. 1., May 1994, pp. 98-107.
9. G. Krishnamurthi, A. Gupta, and A. K. Somani, "The HIMAP Modeling Environment," in Proc. of PDCS-96, Sept. 24-27, 1996, Dijon, France.
10. A. Anand and A. K. Somani, "Hierarchical Analysis of Fault Trees with Dependencies, Using Decomposition," in the Proc. of RAMS-1998, Los Angeles, CA, January 1998.
11. A. K. Somani, C. Wittenbrink, R. M. Haralick, L. G. Shapiro, J. N. Hwang, C. Chen, R. Johnson, and K. Cooper, "Proteus System Architecture and Organization," in the Proc. of 5th International Parallel Processing Symposium, June 1991, pp. 287-294.
12. R. M. Haralick, A. K. Somani, C. Wittenbrink, R. Johnson, K. Cooper, L. G. Shapiro, I. T. Phillips, J. N. Hwang, W. Cheung, Y. H. Yao, C.-H Chen, L. Yang, B. Daugherty, B. Lorbeski, K. Loving, T. Miller, L. Parkins, and S. Soos, "Proteus: A Reconfigurable Computational Network for Computer Vision," Machine Vision and Applications, 1995, Vol. 8 (no. 2), pp. 85-100, February 1995.
13. A. K. Somani and A. Sansano, "Achieving Robustness and Minimizing Overhead in Parallel Algorithms Through Overlapped Communication/Computation," The Journal of Supercomputing, Vol. 16, no. 1-2, pp. 27-52, May 2000.
14. C. J. Kleinheksel and A. K. Somani, "Efficient Distributed All-Pairs Algorithms: Management using Optimal Cyclic Quorums," in IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 2017, Volume 29, Issue 2, pp. 391-404, DOI10.1109/TPDS.2017.2707417.
15. S. B. Choi and A. K. Somani, "Rearrangeable Circuit-Switched Hypercube Architecture for Routing Permutations," JPDC, Vol. 19, 1993, pp. 125-133.
16. S. B. Choi and A. K. Somani, "The Generalized Folding-Cube Network," NETWORKS, An International Journal, Vol. 21, March 1991, pp. 267-294.
17. A. K. Somani and S. Thatte, "The Helical Cube Network," NETWORKS, An International Journal, Vol. 26 (1995), pp. 87-100.
18. S. Subramaniam, M. Azizoglu, and A. K. Somani, "All-optical networks with sparse-wavelength conversion," in IEEE Transactions on Networking, Volume 4, Issue 4, August 1996, pp. 544-557.
19. S. Thiagarajan and A. K. Somani, "Optimal Wavelength Converter Placement in Arbitrary Topology Wavelength-Routed Networks," in Elsevier Computer Communications, Vol. 26, Issue 9, June 2003, pp. 975-985.
20. L. Li and A. Somani, "A New Analytical Model for Multifiber WDM Networks," in IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications, Vol. 18, Issue 10, Oct. 2000, pp. 2138-2145.
21. A. K. Somani, M. Mina, and L. Li, "On Trading Wavelengths with Fibers: A Cost-Performance Based Study," in IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 12, Issue. 5, October 2004, pp. 944 - 951.
22. S. Ramasubramanian and A. K. Somani, "Analysis of optical networks with heterogeneous grooming architectures," in IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, vol. 12, no. 5, October 2004, pp. 931-943.
23. A. K. Somani, "Survivability and Traffic Grooming in Optical Networks," Cambridge Press Book, 436 pages, 2006.
24. S. Thiagarajan and A.K. Somani, "Traffic Grooming for Survivable WDM Mesh Networks," in Special Issue on Protection/Restoration Meets the Reliability Challenge for the Optical Internet, Optical Networks Magazine, May/June 2002, pp.88-98.
25. M. Sridharan, A. K. Somani, and M. Salapaka, "Approaches for Capacity and Revenue Optimization in Survivable WDM Network," in Special issue on Survival Network, Journal of High Speed Network, vol. 10, no. 2, August 2001, pp. 109-125. -47
26. G. Mohan, A. K. Somani, and C. S. R. Murthy, "Efficient Algorithms for Routing Dependable Connections in WDM Optical Networks," in IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 9, Issue 5, October 2001, pp.553 -566.
27. M. Sridharan, M. V. Salapaka, A. K. Somani, "A Practical Approach to Operating Survivable WDM Networks," in the Journal of Selected Areas in Communications: Special Issue on WDM-based Network Architectures, January 2002, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 34-46.
28. L. Li and A. K. Somani, "Dynamic Wavelength Routing Using Congestion and Neighborhood Information," IEEE/ACM Trans. On Networking, Volume 7, No. 5, October 1999, pp. 779-786.
29. T. Wu and A. K. Somani, "Crosstalk Attack Monitoring and Localization in All-Optical Networks," in IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, December 2005, pp. 1390-1401. doi: 10.1109/TNET.2005.860103.
30. R. Srinivasan and A. K. Somani, "On achieving fairness and efficiency in high-speed shared medium networks," in IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 11, No. 1, February 2003, pp. 111-124.
31. A. K. Somani and K. S. Trivedi, "A Cache Error Propagation Model," in the Proc. of 1997 Pacific Rim International Symposium on Fault Tolerant Systems, Teipei, Taiwan, pp. 15-21, December 1997.
32. S. Kim and A. K. Somani, "Area Efficient Architectures for Information Integrity Checking in Cache Memories," in the Proceedings of International Symposium on Computer Architecture, May 1999, pp. 246-256.
33. R. Yelaswarapu and A. K. Somani, "Addressing multiple bit/symbol errors in DRAM" in PeerJ Computer Science journal 7:e359. Jan 2021, https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.359.
34. N. D. P. Avirneni and A. K. Somani, "Low Overhead Soft Error Mitigation Techniques for High-Performance and Aggressive Designs," IEEE Transactions on Computers, April 2012, Vol 61(04), pp. 488-501.
35. N. D. P. Avirneni and A. K. Somani, "Countering power analysis attacks using Reliable and Aggressive Designs," IEEE Transactions on Computers, Vol. 63(6), 2014, pp. 1408-1420, DOI: 10.1109/TC.2013.9.
36. N. D. P. Avirneni, Prem Kumar, and A. K. Somani, "Managing contamination delay to improve Timing Speculation architectures," PeerJ Computer Science 2:e79, 2016, https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.79.

External links

• Personal website [1]
• Department profile [2]
• Google Scholar page [3]