Research Report - 2001
Distributed Systems
Academic Staff
A/Prof Jadwiga Indulska
Dr Andry Rakotonirainy
Research Students
Mr Sasi Balasubramaniam
Ms Nicole Dunlop
Mr Matthew Gallagher
Ms Karen Henricksen
Mr David Leonard
Mr Bruce McClure
Mr Nic Williams
Mr Nathan Keynes
Mr Ricky Robinson
Contact Details
A/Prof Jadwiga Indulska
Email: jaga@csee.uq.edu.au
Tel: 3365 2542
Dr Andry Rakotonirainy
Email: andry@csee.uq.edu.au
Tel: 3365 3984
The research carried out by the Distributed Systems group falls into the broad area of distributed computing, distributed operating systems and computer networks' support for distributed systems. The emphasis is on Open Distributed Computing and ubiquitous/pervasive distributed systems. The research in these areas is conducted in conjunction with the Cooperative Research Centre for Distributed Systems Technology. There are two main research areas within the group:
Open Distributed Computing - the research includes:
Interoperability of distributed applications and distributed computing platforms,
Dynamic (run-time) modification of distributed software objects,
Semantics of communication primitives, and
Policy-based management of distributed systems.
Major contributions to this project are also made by DSTC personnel, not listed here.
Ubiquitous/pervasive distributed systems - the research is concerned with
mobility of users,
computers, and
software objects.
The main goal is to achieve pervasive (ubiquitous) computing in which users can gain access to computing services using any computing device and can move with their mobile computers or between computers while continuing their computing sessions. This research on ubiquitous computing includes two levels of support: the distributed computing level and computer networks level. DSTC personnel also make contribution to this project.
Open Distributed Computing
Open Distributed Processing (ODP) introduced a framework for inter- connection of existing, autonomous, heterogeneous systems in order to provide an environment for large scale distributed computing. The purpose of our project is to investigate how this framework can be extended to better support interoperability of heterogeneous distributed applications and distributed environments. The main focus of our research is on differences in type systems of various programming languages used to build distributed applications and on the creation of a type model able to describe distributed objects and their interfaces in order to support interoperability.
In addition, the functionality of the type management system for large, evolving enterprises, policy based management for enterprises, and run-time changes to object's semantics are being investigated.
J. Indulska, Subtyping in Distributed Systems, In the book Formal Methods for Distributed Processing, An Object Oriented Approach, to be published by Cambridge University Press, 2001.
N. Dunlop, J. Indulska, K. Raymond, Dynamic Policy Model for Large Evolving Enterprises, Proc. of the 5th IEEE International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference, Seattle, September 4-7, 2001.
N. Dunlop, J. Indulska, K. Raymond, CORBA and RM-ODP: Parallel or Divergent?, Journal on Distributed Systems Engineering, Vol.2, No 2, June 1999, pp. 82-91.
Nic Williams, Morphable Objects in Smalltalk, Proc. of the Australian Software Engineering Conference (ASWEC'98), Published by IEEE Computer Society Press, Adelaide, November 1998.
W. Brookes, S. Crawley, J. Indulska, D. Kosovic, A. Vogel, Types and their Management in Open Distributed Systems, Journal on Distributed Systems Engineering, 4(4): 177- 190, December 1997.
Pervasive Distributed Systems
Our aim is to investigate, develop and evaluate a distributed computing architecture able to support nomadic computing. One of the fundamental requirements for this architecture is to support users' independence of location and computing device. The nomadic infrastructure must be able to (i) locate users, (ii) provide them with their usual computing environment if they change their computing device, (iii) preserve all their computing sessions if they are changing their computing device and, if necessary, (iv) dynamically adapt the application and/or its communication and/or the distributed computing environment to the current Quality of Service (QoS) provided by the environment.
Our research on nomadic computing involves (i) context description - building a model for the description of objects (users, computers, distributed applications) with regard to allowed disconnections and required QoS to support adaptability to QoS changes, (ii) building context-aware applications, (iii) modifying the semantics of existing communication primitives (Remote Procedure Calls, streams, notifications) to support disconnections and changing QoS, (iv) modifying communication protocols to cope with mobility of computers, users and applications and resulting QoS changes, (v) designing adaptability methods which react to context changes, and (vi) designing a component based architecture for distributed systems able to support adaptive, context aware applications.
K. Henricksen, J. Indulska, A. Rakotonirainy, Infrastructure for Pervasive Computing: Challenges, Proc. of the Informatik 2001: Workshop on Pervasive Computing,, Vienna, September 2001.
A. Rakotonirainy, J. Indulska, S.W. Loke, A. Zaslavsky, Middleware for Reactive Components: An Integrated Use of Context, Roles, and Event Based Coordination. Proc. of IFIP/ACM International Conference on Distributed Systems Platforms. Published by Springer Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany, November 2001.
J. Indulska, S.W. Loke, A. Rakotonirainy, V. Witana, A. Zaslavsky, An OpenArchitecture for Pervasive Systems, Proc. of the Third IFIP WG 6.1 International Working Conference on Distributed Applications and Interoperable Systems. Published by Kluwer, Krakow, Poland, September 2001.
W. Zhu, J. Indulska, Fast Handover in Clustered Wireless ATM, Proc of the Australasian Computer Science Conference (ACSC'2001). Australian Computer Science Communications, Vol.23, Number 1. Published by IEEE Computer Society Press. Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, January 2001, pp. 223-229.
K.Henricksen, J. Indulska, Adapting the Web Interface: An Adaptive Web Browser, Proc of the 2nd Australasian User Interface Conference (AUIC'2001). Australian Computer Science Communications, Vol.23, Number 5, Published by IEEE Computer Society Press, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, January 2001, pp. 21-33.
A. Rakotonirainy, A. Bond, J. Indulska, A. Leonard, SCAF: A Simple Component Architecture Framework, Proc. of the TOOLS Europe'2000 conference. Published by IEEE Computer Society Press, Mont Saint-Mitchel/ST-Malo, France, June 2000, pp. 359-370.
J. Indulska, S.W. Loke, A. Rakotonirainy, A. Zaslavsky, Adaptive Enterprise Architecture for Mobile Computations. Proc. of the IFIP/ACM Workshop on Reflective Middleware, New York, April 2000.
B. McClure, J. Indulska, T.A. Au, Adaptive Middleware for Heteregoneous Defence Networks – An Exploratory Simulation Study, Proc. of the 5th Australasian Computer Architecture Conference (ACAC'2000), Australian Computer Science Communications, Volume 22, Number 4, Published by IEEE Computer Society Press, Canberra, January 2000, pp.57-63.
A.Bond, M.Gallagher J. Indulska, An Information Model for Nomadic Environments. Proc. of the Ninth International Workshop on Database and Expert Systems Applications, Vienna, Austria. Published by IEEE Computer Society Press, August 1998. pp.400-405.
J. Indulska, A. Bond, M.Gallagher, Support for Mobile Computing in Open Distributed Systems, Proc of the IEEE Region Ten Conference, Delhi, India, December 1998, pp.3-6.
M. Gallagher, J. Indulska, A. Bond, Adaptive Communication in a Nomadic Environment, Proc. of the Second IASTED International Conference, Parallel and Distributed Computing and Networks, Brisbane, December 1998, pp.306-311.
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