Applying constraint solving to the management of distributed applications

Submitted to DOA08We present our approach for deploying and managing distributed component-based applications. A Desired State Description (DSD), written in a high-level declarative language, specifies requirements for a distributed application. Our infrastructure accepts a DSD as input, and from it automatically configures and deploys the distributed application. Subsequent violations of the original requirements are detected and, where possible, automatically rectified by reconfiguration and redeployment of the necessary application components. A constraint solving tool is used to plan deployments that meet the application requirements.Postprin

Distributed Model Predictive Control with Asymmetric Adaptive Terminal Sets for the Regulation of Large-scale Systems

In this paper, a novel distributed model predictive control (MPC) scheme with asymmetric adaptive terminal sets is developed for the regulation of large-scale systems with a distributed structure. Similar to typical MPC schemes, a structured Lyapunov matrix and a distributed terminal controller, respecting the distributed structure of the system, are computed offline. However, in this scheme, a distributed positively invariant terminal set is computed online and updated at each time instant taking into consideration the current state of the system. In particular, we consider ellipsoidal terminal sets as they are easy to compute for large-scale systems. The size and the center of these terminal sets, together with the predicted state and input trajectories, are considered as decision variables in the online phase. Determining the terminal set center online is found to be useful specifically in the presence of asymmetric constraints. Finally, a relaxation of the resulting online optimal control problem is provided. The efficacy of the proposed scheme is illustrated in simulation by comparing it to a recent distributed MPC scheme with adaptive terminal sets

Logic Programming Applications: What Are the Abstractions and Implementations?

This article presents an overview of applications of logic programming, classifying them based on the abstractions and implementations of logic languages that support the applications. The three key abstractions are join, recursion, and constraint. Their essential implementations are for-loops, fixed points, and backtracking, respectively. The corresponding kinds of applications are database queries, inductive analysis, and combinatorial search, respectively. We also discuss language extensions and programming paradigms, summarize example application problems by application areas, and touch on example systems that support variants of the abstractions with different implementations