14,321 research outputs found
Basis Token Consistency: A Practical Mechanism for Strong Web Cache Consistency
With web caching and cache-related services like CDNs and edge services playing an increasingly significant role in the modern internet, the problem of the weak consistency and coherence provisions in current web protocols is becoming increasingly significant and drawing the attention of the standards community [LCD01]. Toward this end, we present definitions of consistency and coherence for web-like environments, that is, distributed client-server information systems where the semantics of interactions with resource are more general than the read/write operations found in memory hierarchies and distributed file systems. We then present a brief review of proposed mechanisms which strengthen the consistency of caches in the web, focusing upon their conceptual contributions and their weaknesses in real-world practice. These insights motivate a new mechanism, which we call "Basis Token Consistency" or BTC; when implemented at the server, this mechanism allows any client (independent of the presence and conformity of any intermediaries) to maintain a self-consistent view of the server's state. This is accomplished by annotating responses with additional per-resource application information which allows client caches to recognize the obsolescence of currently cached entities and identify responses from other caches which are already stale in light of what has already been seen. The mechanism requires no deviation from the existing client-server communication model, and does not require servers to maintain any additional per-client state. We discuss how our mechanism could be integrated into a fragment-assembling Content Management System (CMS), and present a simulation-driven performance comparison between the BTC algorithm and the use of the Time-To-Live (TTL) heuristic.National Science Foundation (ANI-9986397, ANI-0095988
Dynamically adaptive partition-based interest management in distributed simulation
Performance and scalability of distributed simulations depends primarily on the effectiveness of the employed interest management (IM) schema that aims at reducing the overall computational and messaging effort on the shared data to a necessary minimum. Existing IM approaches, which are based on variations or combinations of two principle data distribution techniques, namely region-based and grid-based techniques, perform poorly if the simulation develops an overloaded host. In order to facilitate distributing the processing load from overloaded areas of the shared data to less loaded hosts, the partition-based technique is introduced that allows for variable-size partitioning the shared data. Based on this data distribution technique, an IM approach is sketched that is dynamically adaptive to access latencies of simulation objects on the shared data as well as to the physical location of the objects. Since this re-distribution is decided depending on the messaging effort of the simulation objects for updating data partitions, any load balanced constellation has the additional advantage to be of minimal overall messaging effort. Hence, the IM schema dynamically resolves messaging overloading as well as overloading of hosts with simulation objects and therefore facilitates dynamic system scalability
Scalable collision detection for distributed virtual environments
PhD ThesisDistributed Virtual Environments (DVEs) provide a mechanism whereby
dispersed users can interact with one-another within a shared \'irtual world.
DVEs commonly allow users to interact with one-another in ways analogous to
the real-world, e.g. mimicking Newtonian physics. A scalable DVE should
enable large numbers of users to participate simultaneously, regardless of the
In geographical location and hardware configurations of individual users.
addition, these users should perceive a mutually-consistent virtual world in
which each user perceives a consistent series of events in real-time.
Collision detection and response is a fundamental requirement of most virtual
environments and simulations. It is a computationally-expensive operation
which must be perfonned at frequent intervals in all virtual environments which
simulate the motion of solid objects. Collision detection has received large
amounts of research interest and as a result a number of efficient collision
detection algorithms have been proposed. However, these collision detection
approaches are designed to detect collisions efficiently in simulations run on a
single machine and are not capable of overcoming problems associated with
scalability and consistency, which are of paramount importance in DVEs. This thesis presents a new collision detection approach, tenned distributed
collision detection, which provides high-levels of scalability, consistency and
responsiveness. This thesis presents the algorithms and theory which underpin
the distributed collision detection approach and provides experimental results
demonstrating its scalability and responsiveness
Middleware services for distributed virtual environments
PhD ThesisDistributed Virtual Environments (DVEs) are virtual environments which allow
dispersed users to interact with each other and the virtual world through the
underlying network.
Scalability is a major challenge in building a successful DVE, which is directly
affected by the volume of message exchange. Different techniques have been
deployed to reduce the volume of message exchange in order to support large
numbers of simultaneous participants in a DVE. Interest management is a
popular technique for filtering unnecessary message exchange between users.
The rationale behind interest management is to resolve the "interests" of users
and decide whether messages should be exchanged between them. There are
three basic interest management approaches: region-based, aura-based and
hybrid approaches. However, if the time taken for an interest management
approach to determine interests is greater than the duration of the interaction, it
is not possible to guarantee interactions will occur correctly or at all. This is
termed the Missed Interaction Problem, which all existing interest management
approaches are susceptible to.
This thesis provides a new aura-based interest management approach, termed
Predictive Interest management (PIM), to alleviate the missed interaction
problem. PIM uses an enlarged aura to detect potential aura-intersections and
iii
initiate message exchange. It utilises variable message exchange frequencies,
proportional to the intersection degree of the objects' expanded auras, to restrict
bandwidth usage. This thesis provides an experimental system, the PIM system,
which couples predictive interest management with the de-centralised server
communication model. It utilises the Common Object Request Broker
Architecture (CORBA) middleware standard to provide an interoperable
middleware for DVEs. Experimental results are provided to demonstrate that
PIM provides a scalable interest management approach which alleviates the
missed interaction problem
Middleware services for distributed virtual environments
PhD ThesisDistributed Virtual Environments (DVEs) are virtual environments which allow
dispersed users to interact with each other and the virtual world through the
underlying network.
Scalability is a major challenge in building a successful DVE, which is directly
affected by the volume of message exchange. Different techniques have been
deployed to reduce the volume of message exchange in order to support large
numbers of simultaneous participants in a DVE. Interest management is a
popular technique for filtering unnecessary message exchange between users.
The rationale behind interest management is to resolve the "interests" of users
and decide whether messages should be exchanged between them. There are
three basic interest management approaches: region-based, aura-based and
hybrid approaches. However, if the time taken for an interest management
approach to determine interests is greater than the duration of the interaction, it
is not possible to guarantee interactions will occur correctly or at all. This is
termed the Missed Interaction Problem, which all existing interest management
approaches are susceptible to.
This thesis provides a new aura-based interest management approach, termed
Predictive Interest management (PIM), to alleviate the missed interaction
problem. PIM uses an enlarged aura to detect potential aura-intersections and
iii
initiate message exchange. It utilises variable message exchange frequencies,
proportional to the intersection degree of the objects' expanded auras, to restrict
bandwidth usage. This thesis provides an experimental system, the PIM system,
which couples predictive interest management with the de-centralised server
communication model. It utilises the Common Object Request Broker
Architecture (CORBA) middleware standard to provide an interoperable
middleware for DVEs. Experimental results are provided to demonstrate that
PIM provides a scalable interest management approach which alleviates the
missed interaction problem
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