The Middleware (M-Ware) project in Georgia Tech's College of Computing addresses future distributed applications subject to performance constraints when moving and operating on large data volumes. Our vision is to develop middleware with which it is easy to create self-managed -- autonomic -- distributed applications. Such applications are characterized by their:

1 - agility, their ability to both adapt application components using novel runtime specialization or composition techniques, and to dynamically deploy new components and change component structures;
2 - resource- and needs-awareness, dynamic knowledge about current resource availability and application needs through online monitoring;
3 - runtime management, the use of online quality management policies, driven by resources monitoring and by assessing current user needs; and
4 - open infrastructure, the ability to inject general and application-specific adaptation functionality `into' middleware, system, and network levels, to continually match execution platforms to application behaviors.

The general class of applications addressed by the M-Ware project are shared with those explored in the Infosphere project at Georgia Tech: we are focused on information flow rather than computing. Specific examples studied by our group include the sensor data driven applications in the mobile domain with soft real-time or energy constraints (see the MORPH project), large data applications for remote science and online collaboration (see the SmartPointer application), and the event-driven operational information systems used in large enterprises (in collaboration with companies like Delta Air Lines, HP, IBM, and Worldspan).

The M-Ware project addresses the dynamic nature of its heterogeneous target systems and applications:

to provide efficient middleware solutions for representing computational data streams on heterogeneous target software/hardware platforms,
to develop runtime algorithms and support for (re)configuring and adapting streams to better match their behaviors to current user needs and platform resources, and
to understand and develop the system- and network-level support required for high performance and for predictability in stream execution (addressed in the DEOS and ASAN projects, respectively) on dynamic platform.

Our prior work focused on the publish/subscribe paradigm for high performance distributed interactions, creating the PBIO, ECho, JECho, and IQ-ECho artifacts. Our current work is creating and studying overlay-level mechanisms to enable the construction of such efficient large-scale middleware for the more general class of high end information flow applications. Specific ongoing research includes adaptive methods for network- or platform-aware middleware operation, online methods for bottleneck detection or performance isolation, efficient `in-flight' data manipulation, flexible methods for high reliability and trust in information flows, and the creation and integration of network- and system-level support for application-level data movement and manipulation. Artifacts resulting from current work include the EVPath data movement overlays, dynamic binary code generation and data morphing techniques, and the IFLOW methods and tools for deployment and online adaptation of information flows.

Code distribution

inTransit - INfrastructure for disTributed stReam mAnagaement usiNg Self organIzing neTwork-overlays

IQ-ECho - IQ-ECho : Interoperability and Quality of Service Across Heterogeneous Hardware/Software Platforms

PDS - a Proactive Directory Service

ECho - Event Delivery System: An efficient and flexible event notification system that uses dynamic code generation

JEcho- a Java-based communication infrastructure for collaborative high performance applications.

MOSS - an implementation of the Mirror Object Model, a new approach to program monitoring and steering.

PBIO - Portable Binary Input/Output. A binary data meta-representation library.

Most recent publications

Vibhore Kumar, Zhongtang Cai, Brian F. Cooper, Greg Eisenhauer, Karsten Schwan, Mohamed Mansour, Balasubramanian Seshasayee, Patrick Widener, ``Implementing Diverse Messaging Models with Self-Managing Properties using IFLOW, 3rd IEEE International Conference on Autonomic Computing (ICAC 2006), Dublin, Ireland.

Zhongtang Cai, Greg Eisenhauer, Qi He, Vibhore Kumar, Karsten Schwan, Matt Wolf, ``IQ-Services: Network-Aware Middleware for Interactive Large-Data Applications'', In Journal of IEEE Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, 2006.

Zhongtang Cai, Vibhore Kumar, Brian Cooper, Greg Eisenhauer, Karsten Schwan, Robert Strom, ``Utility-Driven Proactive Management of Availability in Enterprise-Scale Information Flows'', ACM Middleware, 2006

Zhongtang Cai, Vibhore Kumar, Karsten Schwan, ``IQ-Paths: Self-regulating Data Streams across Network Overlays'', IEEE Symposium of High-Performance Distributed Computing(HPDC), 2006. Best Paper Award.

Karsten Schwan, Brian Cooper, Greg Eisenhauer, Ada Gavrilovska, Matt Wolf, Hasan Abbasi, Sandip Agarwala, Zhongtang Cai, Vibhore Kumar, Jay Lofstead, Mohamed Mansour, Balasubramanian Seshasayee, and Patrick Widener, ``AutoFlow: Autonomic Information Flows for Critical Information Systems''. Autonomic Computing: Concepts, Infrastructure, and Applications, ed. Manish Parashar and Salim Hariri, CRC Press, 2006.

Vibhore Kumar, Brian Cooper, Zhongtang Cai, Greg Eisenhauer, and Karsten Schwan, ``Middleware for Enterprise Scale Data Stream Management using Utility-Driven Self-Adaptive Information Flows'', to appear in Cluster Computing Journal (invited), 2006.

Greg Eisenhauer, Fabian Bustamante, and Karsten Schwan, ``Publish-subscribe for High-performance Computing'', IEEE Computing, Special issue on Message-oriented Middleware, Jan/Feb. 2006.

Mohamed Mansour, and Karsten Schwan, ``I_RMI: Performance Isolation in Service Oriented Architectures'', Proceedings of the 6th ACM/IFIP/USENIX Int'l Middleware Conference (Middleware 2005), Nov. 2005.
PDF Format [218K]
Yuan Chen, and Karsten Schwan, ``Opportunistic Overlays: Efficient Content Delivery in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks'', Proceedings of the 6th ACM/IFIP/USENIX Int'l Middleware Conference (Middleware 2005), Nov. 2005.
Matthew Wolf, Hasan Abbasi, Benjamin Collins, David Spain, and Karsten Schwan, ``Service Augmentation for High End Interactive Data Services'', Proceedings of Cluster 2005, Sep. 2005.
Ada Gavrilovska, Sanjay Kumar, Srikanth Sundaragopalan, and Karsten Schwan, ``Platform Overlays: Enabling In-Network Stream Processing in Large-scale Distributed Applications'', NOSSDAV, ACM, Jun. 2005.
PDF Format [162K]
Vibhore Kumar, Brian Cooper, and Karsten Schwan, ``Utility-Driven Self-Adaptive Middleware'', Proceedings of the Int'l Conference on Autonomic Computing (ICAC), Jun. 2005. (best paper award)
PDF Format [542K]
Vibhore Kumar, Brian Cooper, and Karsten Schwan, ``Resource-Aware Distributed Stream Management using Dynamic Overlays'', Proceedings of the Int'l Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), Jun. 2005.
PDF Format [260K]
Sandip Agarwala, Greg Eisenhauer, and Karsten Schwan, ``Lightweght Morphing Support for Evolving Data Exchanges in Distributed Applications'', Proceedings of the Int'l Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), Jun. 2005.
PDF Format [392K]
Ada Gavrilovska, Sanjay Kumar, Srikanth Sundaragopalan, and Karsten Schwan, ``Advanced Networking Services for Distributed Multimedia Streaming Applications'', to appear in Journal on Multimedia Tools and Applications (invited), 2005.
Mohamed Mansour, Matthew Wolf, and Karsten Schwan, ``StreamGen: A Workload Generation Tool for Distributed Information Flow Applications'', Proceedings of the International Conference on Parallel Processing (ICPP-04), Aug. 2004.
PostScript [556K]
Sandip Agarwala, Greg Eisenhauer, and Karsten Schwan, ``Morphable Messaging: Efficient Support for Evolution in Distributed Applications'', Proceedings of the IEEE Workshop on Challenges of Large Applications in Distributed Environments (CLADE) , in conjunction with the 13th International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC-13),, June 2004.
PDF Format [65K] | PostScript [204K]
Zhongtang Cai, Greg Eisenhauer, Christian Poellabauer, Karsten Schwan, and Matthew Wolf, ``IQ-Services: Resource-Aware Middleware for Heterogeneous Applications'', Proceedings of the 13th Heterogeneous Computing Workshop (HCW 2004) (invited paper), April 2004.
PDF Format [260K] | PostScript [1.1M]
Sandip Agarwala, Christian Poellabauer, Jiantao Kong, Karsten Schwan, and Matthew Wolf, ``System-Level Resource Monitoring for Distributed Applications'', Journal of Grid Computing (invited), 1 (3): 273-289, 2004.
PDF Format [638K]
Balasubramanian Seshasayee, Karsten Schwan, and Patrick Widener, ``SOAP-binQ: High-Performance SOAP with Continuous Quality Management'', Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), March 2004.
Mohamed Mansour, Matthew Wolf, and Karsten Schwan, ``Dynamic Traffic Behaviors - The GT Mirror Traces'', High Performance Grid Computing Workshop, IPDPS'04, March 2004.
Yair Wiseman, Karsten Schwan, and Patrick Widener, ``Efficient End-to-End Data Exchange Using Configurable Compression'', Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), March 2004.
Patrick Widener, Karsten Schwan, and Fabian Bustamante, ``Differential Data Protection in Dynamic Distributed Applications'', Proc. 2003 Annual Computer Security Applications Conference, December 2003
Christian Poellabauer, Karsten Schwan, Sandip Agarwala, Ada Gavrilovska, Greg Eisenhauer, Santosh Pande, Calton Pu, and Matthew Wolf, ``Service Morphing: Integrated System- and Application-Level Service Adaptation in Autonomic Systems'', Proceedings of the 5th Annual International Workshop on Active Middleware Services (AMS 2003), June 2003.
PDF Format [348K] | PostScript [3.3M]

Sandip Agarwala, Christian Poellabauer, Jiantao Kong, Karsten Schwan, and Matthew Wolf, ``Resource-Aware Stream Management with the Customizable dproc Distributed Monitoring Mechanisms'', Proceedings of the 12th IEEE International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC-12), June 2003
PostScript [289K] | PDF Format [148K]

Dong Zhou, Karsten Schwan, and Santosh Pande, ``Method Partitioning - Runtime Customization of Pervasive Programs without Design-time Application Knowledge'', International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems, June 2003

Yuan Chen and Karsten Schwan, ``Opportunistic Channels: Mobility-aware Event Delivery'', Middleware 2003, June 2003
PDF Format [300K]

Matt Wolf, Zhongtang Cai, Weiyun Huang, and Karsten Schwan, ``Smart Pointers: Personalized Scientific Data Portals in Your Hand'', Supercomputing 2002, ACM, November 2002
Word [240K]

Fabian Bustamante, Patrick Widener, and Karsten Schwan, ``Scalable Directory Services Using Proactivity'', Supercomputing 2002, ACM, November 2002.

Christian Poellabauer, Hasan Abbasi, and Karsten Schwan, ``Cooperative Run-time Management of Adabtive Applications and Distributed Resources'', ACM Multimedia, October 2002.
PostScript [5045K] | PDF Format [510K]

Patrick Widener, Greg Eisenhauer, Karsten Schwan, and Fabian Bustamante, ``Open Metadata Formats: Efficient XML-Based Communication for High Performance Computing'', Cluster Computing, 2002.

Greg Eisenhauer, Fabian Bustamante, and Karsten Schwan, ``Native Data Representations: An Efficient Wire Format for High Performance Computing'', IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 2002.

Qi He, and Karsten Schwan, ``IQ-RUDP: Coordinating Application Adaptation with Network Transport'', High Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC-11), ACM/IEEE, July 2002.
PostScript [276K]

Ada Gavrilovska, Karsten Schwan, and Van Oleson, ``A Practical Approach for `Zero' Downtime in Operational Information Systems'', International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS-22), IEEE, July 2002.
PostScript [167K]

Yuan Chen, Karsten Schwan, and David W. Rosen, ``Java Mirrors: Building Blocks for Remote Interaction'', International Parallel Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS 2002), April 2002.
PostScript [104K] | PDF Format [53K]

Greg Eisenhauer, Fabian Bustamante, and Karsten Schwan, ``Event Services for High Performance Systems'', Cluster Computing: The Journal of Networks, Software Tools, and Applications, Vol. 3, No. 3, 2001.

Ada Gavrilovska, Karsten Schwan, and Van Oleson, ``Adaptable Mirroring in Cluster Servers'', High Performace Distributed Computing, (HPDC-10), San Francisco, CA, August 2001.
PostScript [183K] | PDF Format [81K]

Patrick Widener, Greg Eisenhauer, and Karsten Schwan, ``Efficient XML-Based Communication for High Performance Computing'', High Performance Distributed Computing, (HPDC-10), San Francisco, CA, August 2001.

Beth Plale and Karsten Schwan, ``Optimizations Enabled by Relational Data Model View to Querying Data Streams'', International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS), May 2001.
PostScript [93K] | PDF Format [56K]

Dong Zhou and Karsten Schwan, ``JECho - Supporting Distributed High Performance Applications with Java Event Channels'', International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS), May 2001.
PostScript [560K] | PDF Format [146K]

Greg Eisenhauer, Fabian E. Bustamante, and Karsten Schwan, ``Event Services in High Performance Systems'', Cluster Computing: The Journal of Networks, Software Tools, and Applications, 2001.
PostScript [232K] | PDF Format [200K]

Ling Liu, Calton Pu, Karsten Schwan, Jonathan Walpole, ``InfoFilter: Supporting Quality of Service for Fresh Information Delivery'', New Generation Computing Journal, Ohmsha, Ltd. and Springer-Verlag, Special issue on Advanced Multimedia Content Processing, Vol.18, No.4, August 2000.

Fabian Bustamante, Greg Eisenhauer, Karsten Schwan, and Patrick Widener. "Efficient Wire Formats for High Performance Computing". Proc. of Supercomputing 2000 (SC 2000), Dallas, Texas, November 4-10, 2000.
PostScript [206K] | PDF Format [98K]

Greg Eisenhauer, Fabian Bustamante and Karsten Schwan. "A Middleware Toolkit for Client-Initiated Service Specialization". Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC 2000) Middleware Symposium, July 18-20, 2000.
Abstract | PostScript [219K] | PDF Format [108K]

Greg Eisenhauer, Fabian Bustamante and Karsten Schwan. "Event Services for High Performance Computing". Proc. of Ninth International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC-2000), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 1-4, 2000.
PostScript [138K] | PDF Format [153K]

Fabian E. Bustamante and Karsten Schwan. "Active I/O Streams for Heterogeneous High Performance Computing". Parallel Computing (ParCo) 99, Delft, The Netherlands, 1999.
PostScript [89K] | PDF Format [139K]

Greg Eisenhauer, Beth Plale, and Karsten Schwan, ``DataExchange: High Performance Communication in Distributed Laboratories'', Journal of Parallel Computing, Num 24, 1998.

Beth Plale, Greg Eisenhauer, Karsten Schwan, Jeremy Heiner, Vernard Martin, and Jeffrey Vetter, ``From Interactive Applications to Distributed Laboratories'', IEEE Concurrency, April-June 1998.

Beth Plale and Karsten Schwan, ``Optimizations Enabled by Relational Data Model View to Querying Data Streams'', to appear in International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS), May 2001.
PostScript [547K] | PDF Format [143K]

Dong Zhou and Karsten Schwan, ``JECho - Supporting Distributed High Performance Applications with Java Event Channels'', to appear in International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS), May 2001.
PostScript [84K] | PDF Format [56K]

Beth Plale and Karsten Schwan, ``dQUOB: Efficient Queries for Reducing End-to-End Latency in Large Data Streams'', High Performance Distributed Computing (HPDC-9), August 2000.
PostScript [209K] | PDF Format [238K]

Beth Plale, Greg Eisenhauer, Lynn K. Daley, Patrick Widener, and Karsten Schwan, ``Fast Heterogeneous Binary Data Interchange for Event-based Monitoring'', ISCA 13th International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing Systems (PDCS 2000), August 2000.
PostScript [259K] | PDF Format [212K]

Carsten Isert and Karsten Schwan, "ACDS: Adapting Computational Data Streams for High Performance", International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS), May 2000.
PostScript [112K]

Dong Zhou and Karsten Schwan, ``Adaptation and Specialization in Mobile Agent Environments'', 5th Usenix Conference on Object-Oriented Technologies and Systems, San Diego, May 1999.
PostScript [206K] | PDF Format [272K]

Dilma Silva, Karsten Schwan, and Greg Eisenhauer, ``Configurable Distributed Retrieval of Scientific Data'', International Conference on Configurable Distributed Systems, May 1998.
PostScript [151K] | PDF Format [76K]

Vernard Martin and Karsten Schwan, ``ILI: An Adaptive Infrastructure For Dynamic Interactive Distributed Applications'', International Conference on Configurable Distributed Systems, May 1998.
PostScript [143K] | PDF Format [94K]