Formal Specification and Testing of a Management Architecture

The importance of network and distributed systems management to supply and maintain services required by users has led to a demand for management facilities. Open network management is assisted by representing the system resources to be managed as objects, and providing standard services and protocols for interrogating and manipulating these objects. This paper examines the application of formal description techniques to the specification of managed objects by presenting a case study in the specification and testing of a management architecture. We describe a formal specification of a management architecture suitable for scheduling and distributing services across nodes in a distributed system. In addition, we show how formal specifications can be used to generate conformance tests for the management architecture

Process Management in Distributed Operating Systems

As part of designing and building the Amoeba distributed operating system, we have come up with a simple set of mechanisms for process management that allows downloading process migration, checkpointing, remote debugging and emulation of alien operating system interfaces.\ud The basic process management facilities are realized by the Amoeba Kernel and can be augmented by user-space services: Debug Service, Load-Balancing Service, Unix-Emulation Service, Checkpoint Service, etc.\ud The Amoeba Kernel can produce a representation of the state of a process which can be given to another Kernel where it is accepted for continued execution. This state consists of the memory contents in the form of a collection of segments, and a Process Descriptor which contains the additional state, program counters, stack pointers, system call state, etc.\ud Careful separation of mechanism and policy has resulted in a compact set of Kernel operations for process creation and management. A collection of user-space services provides process management policies and a simple interface for application programs.\ud In this paper we shall describe the mechanisms as they are being implemented in the Amoeba Distributed System at the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam. We believe that the mechanisms described here can also apply to other distributed systems

Advanced software tools space station focused technology

Information is given in outline form on advanced software tools for the Space Station data management system. The Space Station data management system is identified as a highly distributed system with payload users controlling experiments and processing payload data from home facilities

A Management Application for the Small Distributed Generation Systems of Electric Power Based on Renewable Energy

AbstractA multitude of factors, from the technological ones to the availability of primary resources and not least the current trend of electricity production at small capacities, led to a significant development of distributed generation. The problems they bring requires a special attention provided by supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) solutions. These systems can include or can be extended with new facilities such as the one proposed in this paper.The present paper aims to implement a management solution for isolated or connected to local grid systems of energy production from renewable sources, with small production capacity. The idea at the basis of the proposed solution focuses on using the existing energy management principles for distributed energy production facilities and on the accessible existing communication infrastructure. The proposed system allows the management of multiple energy production systems based on renewable energy including the using of mobile devices

Information logistics: A production-line approach to information services

Logistics can be defined as the process of strategically managing the acquisition, movement, and storage of materials, parts, and finished inventory (and the related information flow) through the organization and its marketing channels in a cost effective manner. It is concerned with delivering the right product to the right customer in the right place at the right time. The logistics function is composed of inventory management, facilities management, communications unitization, transportation, materials management, and production scheduling. The relationship between logistics and information systems is clear. Systems such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Point of Sale (POS) systems, and Just in Time (JIT) inventory management systems are important elements in the management of product development and delivery. With improved access to market demand figures, logisticians can decrease inventory sizes and better service customer demand. However, without accurate, timely information, little, if any, of this would be feasible in today's global markets. Information systems specialists can learn from logisticians. In a manner similar to logistics management, information logistics is concerned with the delivery of the right data, to the ring customer, at the right time. As such, information systems are integral components of the information logistics system charged with providing customers with accurate, timely, cost-effective, and useful information. Information logistics is a management style and is composed of elements similar to those associated with the traditional logistics activity: inventory management (data resource management), facilities management (distributed, centralized and decentralized information systems), communications (participative design and joint application development methodologies), unitization (input/output system design, i.e., packaging or formatting of the information), transportations (voice, data, image, and video communication systems), materials management (data acquisition, e.g., EDI, POS, external data bases, data entry) and production scheduling (job, staff, and project scheduling)

The Significance of Knowledge Management in Improving the Quality of Health Care in the Public Sector in Zimbabwe

The research aims to look at the significance of knowledge management in improving the quality of healthcare in the public health facilities. The research looks at the effect of knowledge management process on reducing new-born mortality, improving retention of patients on ART in health facilities and whether the use of information technology and availability of adequate human capital improves the number of pregnant women booking for antenatal care (ANC) and access to child immunisation. Knowledge management in health care is relatively new and this research provides empirical evidence of the relationship between knowledge management and the quality of healthcare measured by: new-born mortality, retention of women in ANC, retention of patients on ART, and access to immunisation by children. Data was collected through questionnaires distributed to randomly selected nurses in selected health facilities. The number of nurses selected was proportionately distributed across the seven districts in Manicaland based on the total number of nurses per district.  Data analysis revealed that there is evidence of knowledge management practices in health facilities. However, the results show that knowledge management does not have an impact on reducing mortality of new-born babies and information technology does not have an effect on the retention of pregnant women on ANC. When it comes to making sure that the HIV positive patients remain on ART, the results show that the knowledge management process affects the retention of patients on ART. Human capital has an impact on access to immunisation by children. These findings show that healthcare is a complex field where knowledge management implementation can affect some of the components of the healthcare and not all of them as the different components of the healthcare are managed differently. An effective knowledge management system should address the acquisition, sharing and utilisation of knowledge within the health sector. Keywords: Knowledge Management, healthcare, health facilities, qualit

CMS software and computing for LHC Run 2

The CMS offline software and computing system has successfully met the challenge of LHC Run 2. In this presentation, we will discuss how the entire system was improved in anticipation of increased trigger output rate, increased rate of pileup interactions and the evolution of computing technology. The primary goals behind these changes was to increase the flexibility of computing facilities where ever possible, as to increase our operational efficiency, and to decrease the computing resources needed to accomplish the primary offline computing workflows. These changes have resulted in a new approach to distributed computing in CMS for Run 2 and for the future as the LHC luminosity should continue to increase. We will discuss changes and plans to our data federation, which was one of the key changes towards a more flexible computing model for Run 2. Our software framework and algorithms also underwent significant changes. We will summarize the our experience with a new multi-threaded framework as deployed on our prompt reconstruction farm for 2015 and across the CMS WLCG Tier-1 facilities. We will discuss our experience with a analysis data format which is ten times smaller than our primary Run 1 format. This "miniAOD" format has proven to be easier to analyze while be extremely flexible for analysts. Finally, we describe improvements to our workflow management system that have resulted in increased automation and reliability for all facets of CMS production and user analysis operations.Comment: Contribution to proceedings of the 38th International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP 2016

Students feedback in selected campus facilities: A case study of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM)

The National University of Malaysia (UKM) is committed to create a sustainable campus. Facilities provided are one of the important agenda in contributing to campus sustainability. This paper looks into the aspect of students perception towards selected facilities provided. Their feedback is important since students are the main clients in the campus and they are the largest group that study and live on campus.The concept of facilities management itself emphasizes on the client feedbacks in providing the continuous quality improvement.The method used to obtain the required data is through 5-point Likert scale questionnaires survey. A total of 200 sets of questionnaires were distributed to student of UKM Bangi campus. The responses are in relation to facilities aspect of convenience and comfort, landscape and environment, circulation system, accessibility, transportation, security, and lighting. The result shows that the overall scale obtained from the questionnaire is 3.17, which is at moderate level.This result indicates that the selected facilities provided in UKM Bangi campus is at moderate level.The impact of this finding is to the UKM Department of Development Management, in which they can use the finding in prioritizing the management of physical development of UKM Bangi campus in reaching the student need