77,891 research outputs found
The Raincore Distributed Session Service for Networking Elements
Motivated by the explosive growth of the Internet, we study efficient and fault-tolerant distributed session layer
protocols for networking elements. These protocols are
designed to enable a network cluster to share the state
information necessary for balancing network traffic and
computation load among a group of networking elements.
In addition, in the presence of failures, they allow
network traffic to fail-over from failed networking
elements to healthy ones. To maximize the overall
network throughput of the networking cluster, we assume a unicast communication medium for these protocols. The Raincore Distributed Session Service is based on a fault-tolerant token protocol, and provides group membership, reliable multicast and mutual exclusion services in a networking environment. We show that this service provides atomic reliable multicast with consistent ordering. We also show that Raincore token protocol consumes less overhead than a broadcast-based protocol in this environment in terms of CPU task-switching. The Raincore technology was transferred to Rainfinity, a startup company that is focusing on software for Internet reliability and performance. Rainwall, Rainfinity’s first product, was developed using the Raincore Distributed Session Service. We present initial performance results of the Rainwall product that validates our design assumptions and goals
The GRT Planning System: Backward Heuristic Construction in Forward State-Space Planning
This paper presents GRT, a domain-independent heuristic planning system for
STRIPS worlds. GRT solves problems in two phases. In the pre-processing phase,
it estimates the distance between each fact and the goals of the problem, in a
backward direction. Then, in the search phase, these estimates are used in
order to further estimate the distance between each intermediate state and the
goals, guiding so the search process in a forward direction and on a best-first
basis. The paper presents the benefits from the adoption of opposite directions
between the preprocessing and the search phases, discusses some difficulties
that arise in the pre-processing phase and introduces techniques to cope with
them. Moreover, it presents several methods of improving the efficiency of the
heuristic, by enriching the representation and by reducing the size of the
problem. Finally, a method of overcoming local optimal states, based on domain
axioms, is proposed. According to it, difficult problems are decomposed into
easier sub-problems that have to be solved sequentially. The performance
results from various domains, including those of the recent planning
competitions, show that GRT is among the fastest planners
Distributed match-making
In many distributed computing environments, processes are concurrently executed by nodes in a store- and-forward communication network. Distributed control issues as diverse as name server, mutual exclusion, and replicated data management involve making matches between such processes. We propose a formal problem called distributed match-making as the generic paradigm. Algorithms for distributed match-making are developed and the complexity is investigated in terms of messages and in terms of storage needed. Lower bounds on the complexity of distributed match-making are established. Optimal algorithms, or nearly optimal algorithms, are given for particular network topologies
Networks of Relations
In this paper, we model networks of relational contracts. We explore sanctioning power within these networks under different information technologies depending on the shape of the network. The value of the relational network lies in the enforcement of cooperative agreements which would not be enforceable for the agents without access to the punishment power of other network members. We identify conditions for stability of such networks, conditions for transmission of information about past actions, and conditions under which self-sustainable subnetworks may actually inhibit a stable networkNetworks, Relational Contracts, Collusion, Social Capital
The complexity of resolving conflicts on MAC
We consider the fundamental problem of multiple stations competing to
transmit on a multiple access channel (MAC). We are given stations out of
which at most are active and intend to transmit a message to other stations
using MAC. All stations are assumed to be synchronized according to a time
clock. If stations node transmit in the same round, then the MAC provides
the feedback whether , (collision occurred) or . When ,
then a single station is indeed able to successfully transmit a message, which
is received by all other nodes. For the above problem the active stations have
to schedule their transmissions so that they can singly, transmit their
messages on MAC, based only on the feedback received from the MAC in previous
round.
For the above problem it was shown in [Greenberg, Winograd, {\em A Lower
bound on the Time Needed in the Worst Case to Resolve Conflicts
Deterministically in Multiple Access Channels}, Journal of ACM 1985] that every
deterministic adaptive algorithm should take rounds
in the worst case. The fastest known deterministic adaptive algorithm requires
rounds. The gap between the upper and lower bound is
round. It is substantial for most values of : When constant and (for any constant , the lower bound is
respectively and O(n), which is trivial in both cases. Nevertheless,
the above lower bound is interesting indeed when poly(). In this
work, we present a novel counting argument to prove a tight lower bound of
rounds for all deterministic, adaptive algorithms, closing
this long standing open question.}Comment: Xerox internal report 27th July; 7 page
EOS: A project to investigate the design and construction of real-time distributed embedded operating systems
The EOS project is investigating the design and construction of a family of real-time distributed embedded operating systems for reliable, distributed aerospace applications. Using the real-time programming techniques developed in co-operation with NASA in earlier research, the project staff is building a kernel for a multiple processor networked system. The first six months of the grant included a study of scheduling in an object-oriented system, the design philosophy of the kernel, and the architectural overview of the operating system. In this report, the operating system and kernel concepts are described. An environment for the experiments has been built and several of the key concepts of the system have been prototyped. The kernel and operating system is intended to support future experimental studies in multiprocessing, load-balancing, routing, software fault-tolerance, distributed data base design, and real-time processing
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