Overview

Current research efforts are funded by federal and industry sponors. They include:

• infrastructures for online system/program adaptation, such as the FARA infrastructure of runtime adaptation of complex distributed and parallel applications subject to constraints in their timing behavior, and the Dionisys infrastructure of adaptation of multiple application and system components cooperating in the execution of a single complex application,
• middleware and software abstractions enabling the runtime control of applications, application components, and system-level services,
• experimentation with specific adaptation techniques, adaptive applications, software and hardware components, and abstractions supporting runtime adaptation, and
• adaptable real-time programs, real-time benchmarks, and real-time protocols:  real-time distributed and parallel programs can exhibit highly dynamic execution behavior. We have developed several distributed and parallel benchmark programs operating on multiple target platforms.  These programs include synthetic applications derived from distributed multimedia and from parallel sensor processing applications, distributed virtual environments, and distributed games and simulations. Jointly, they provide a basis for research on configurable and adaptable distributed programs and communications. Our research addresses the development of on-line adaptation algorithms and methods for parallel, distributed, and real-time applications. Toward this end, negotiation protocols and QoS formulations targeting real-time applications are being investigated, and a framework for dynamic resource management is being constructed.  This project also concerns the evaluation of on-line configurable communication protocols, both with respect to their processing requirements (CPU requirements on SMP platforms) and their networking needs (QoS requirements), jointly with networking faculty.

People

• Professor Karsten Schwan
• Professor Sudha Yalamanchili
• Fabian Bustamante
• Emily Angerer Crawford
• Robin Kravets
• Raj Krishnamurthy
• Vernard Martin
• Daniela Ivan Rosu
• Phyllis Schneck
• Dilma Silva
• Richard West

Papers

Journals:

• Robin Kravets, Ken Calvert, and Karsten Schwan, Payoff Adaptation of Communication for Distributed Interactive Applications, to appear in Journal on High Speed Networking: Special Issue on Multimedia Communications, 1998.
• Bodhi Mukherjee, Dilma Silva, Karsten Schwan, and Ahmed Gheith, KTK: Kernel Support for Configurable Objects and Invocations, Distributed Systems Engineering Journal, IEE, UK, Vol.1, 1995.
• Ahmed Gheith and Karsten Schwan, CHAOS-Arc -- Kernel Support for Atomic Transactions in Real-Time Applications, ACM Transactions on Computer Systems, April 1993. Also reprinted in Advances in Real-time Systems, Prentice Hall, editor: S. Son, 1994.
• Thomas E. Bihari and Karsten Schwan, The Dynamic Adaptation of Real-Time Software, ACM Transactions on Computer Systems, May 1991.

Conferences:

• Robin Kravets, Ken Calvert, and Karsten Schwan, Payoff-Based Communication Adaptation based on Network Service Availability, IEEE Multimedia Systems '98, Aug. 1998.
• Daniela Ivan-Rosu and Karsten Schwan, FARA-- A Framework for Adaptive Resource Allocation in Complex Real-Time Systems, IEEE Real-Time Technology and Applications Symposium, June 1998.
• Dilma Silva, Karsten Schwan, and Greg Eisenhauer, Configurable Distributed Retrieval of Scientific Data, International Conference on Configurable Distributed Systems, May 1998.
• Vernard Martin and Karsten Schwan, ILI: An Adaptive Infrastructure For Dynamic Interactive Distributed Applications, International Conference on Configurable Distributed Systems, May 1998.
• Daniela Ivan-Rosu, Karsten Schwan, Sudhakar Yalamanchili, and Rakesh Jha, On Adaptive Resource Allocation for Complex, Real-time Applications, Real-Time Systems Symposium, San Francisco, IEEE, Dec. 1997.
• Phyllis Schneck, Ellen Zegura, and Karsten Schwan, DRRM: Dynamic Resource Reservation Manager, Proceedings of the IC3N 96, IEEE, October 1996.
• Daniela Ivan-Rosu and Karsten Schwan, Improving Protocol Performance by Dynamic Control of Communication Resources, Second IEEE International Conference on Engineering of Complex Computer Systems, Montreal, October 1996, outstanding paper award.
• Bodhi Mukherjee and Karsten Schwan, Improving Performance by Use of Adaptive Objects: Experimentation with a Configurable Multiprocessor Threads Package, 2nd International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC-2), Spokane, Washington, July 1993.
• Thomas E. Bihari and Karsten Schwan, A Comparison of Four Adaptation Algorithms for Increasing the Reliability of Real-Time Software, Ninth Real-Time System Symposium, Huntsville, AL, Dec. 1988.

Workshops:

• Richard West and Karsten Schwan, Interactors: Capturing QoS and Resource Requirements between Multiple Cooperating Objects, Fourth IEEE Real-Time Technology and Applications Symposium, Work-In-Progress, IEEE, June 1998.
• P. Schneck and K. Schwan, Dynamic Allocation of Security Resources to Client-Server Applications, IEEE Workshop on Dependable and Real-Time E-Commerce Systems, May 1998.
• P. Schneck and K. Schwan, Dynamic Authentication for High-Performance Networked Applications, 1998 Sixth IEEE/IFIP International Workshop on Quality of Service, May 1998.
• D. Silva and K. Schwan, Achieving High Performance through Flexible Software, Proceedings of the XXIV Brazilian Software and Hardware Seminars (SEMISH), Aug. 1997.

Projects and Links

• RT-ARM (in conjunction with Honeywell)
• Dionisys/QoSI
• Critical Systems Lab