Configuration Management for Distributed Software Services

The paper describes the SysMan approach to interactive configuration management of distributed software components (objects). Domains are used to group objects to apply policy and for convenient naming of objects. Configuration Management involves using a domain browser to locate relevant objects within the domain service; creating new objects which form a distributed service; allocating these objects to physical nodes in the system and binding the interfaces of the objects to each other and to existing services. Dynamic reconfiguration of the objects forming a service can be accomplished using this tool. Authorisation policies specify which domains are accessible by which managers and which interfaces can be bound together. Keywords Domains, object creation, object binding, object allocation, graphical management interface. 1 INTRODUCTION The object-oriented approach brings considerable benefits to the design and implementation of software for distributed systems (Kramer 1992). Con..

ARC Computing Element System Administrator Guide

The ARC Computing Element (CE) is an EMI product allowing submission and management of applications running on DCI computational resourc

Integration and testing of a digital transceiver for a dual frequency, pulse-doppler radar

This dissertation focuses on the development of a digital transceiver system for a dual-band, polarimetric radar, which is to form part of the NeXtRAD multistatic radar. NeXtRAD is being developed as an instrument for research into the behaviour of clutter and targets as observed by multistatic radars. The Pentek Cobalt model 71621 software defined radio interface was procured for use as the digital transceiver in the system. The goal was to develop the software needed to use this product as the digital transceiver in a prototype version of the NeXtRAD active node, and to ensure that it could be readily integrated with other subsystems in the final system. The active node is essentially a monostatic pulse-doppler radar. Laboratory tests of the transceiver showed that it was possible to generate and digitize pulsed waveforms at a 125 MHz intermediate frequency which is used by the existing receiver exciter in the system. After extensive laboratory testing and development, phase coherent waveform generation and multichannel digitization was achieved. A low transmit power version of the active node was constructed and tested at both operating frequencies. Equipment used in the testing and development of the digital transceiver included laboratory signal generators, spectrum analyzers and oscilloscopes. The digital transceiver was able to function at pulse repetition rates exceeding 2 kHz, with a single transmit channel and three receive channels active. The lowpowered monostatic prototype system was constructed to test the digital transceiver using a receiver exciter subsystem, RF amplifiers and antennas. This prototype radar was used to take measurements of targets at ranges below 300 m and successfully detected reflections from large structures. Cars and pedestrian traffic were detected by their doppler shifts at both L- and X-band frequencies. The detection of moving and stationary targets confirmed the suitability of the digital transceiver for use in the envisioned multistatic radar system

System structuring: a convergence of theory and practice?

Darwin is a general purpose structuring tool of use in building complex distributed systems from diverse components and diverse component interaction mechanisms. It is in essence a declarative binding language which can be used to define hierarchic compositions of interconnected components. Distribution is dealt with orthogonally to system structuring. The language allows the specification of both static structures and dynamic structures which evolve during execution. The central abstractions managed by Darwin are components and services. Bindings are formed by manipulating references to services. The paper describes the operational semantics of Darwin in terms of the pi-calculus, MilnerÆs calculus of mobile processes. The correspondence between the treatment of names in the pi-calculus and the management of service references in Darwin leads to an elegant and concise pi-calculus model of DarwinÆs operational semantics. The model has proved useful in arguing the correctness of Darwin implementations and in designing extensions to Darwin and reasoning about their behaviour. The paper discusses the reasons why other formalisms fail to capture elegantly the system structuring concepts on which Darwin is based

Vectorization, Obfuscation and P4 LLVM Tool-chain

This thesis broadly focuses on three different areas: Loop Vectorization, Code Obfuscation, and P4LLVM compiler. The work in Loop vectorization starts with a comparison of Auto-vectorization of GCC, ICC and LLVM compilers and show their strengths and weakness. As an attempt to improve LLVM’s Auto-vectorization, we propose to improve Loop Distribution using exact dependences from Polly. Our work on Loop Distribution shows promising results. We developed an LLVM based Code Obfuscation engine with various obfuscation techniques as transformation passes, our techniques are novel and are different from existing works [1]. In hardware circuit obfuscation several methods were proposed at the hardware level to secure the IP. Our approach is to obfuscate the circuits at the software level, using code obfuscation techniques

Armadillo 1.1: An Original Workflow Platform for Designing and Conducting Phylogenetic Analysis and Simulations

In this paper we introduce Armadillo v1.1, a novel workflow platform dedicated to designing and conducting phylogenetic studies, including comprehensive simulations. A number of important phylogenetic and general bioinformatics tools have been included in the first software release. As Armadillo is an open-source project, it allows scientists to develop their own modules as well as to integrate existing computer applications. Using our workflow platform, different complex phylogenetic tasks can be modeled and presented in a single workflow without any prior knowledge of programming techniques. The first version of Armadillo was successfully used by professors of bioinformatics at Université du Quebec à Montreal during graduate computational biology courses taught in 2010–11. The program and its source code are freely available at: <http://www.bioinfo.uqam.ca/armadillo>

Implementing interactive configuration management for distributed systems

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Component-Based Model-Driven Software Development

Model-driven software development (MDSD) and component-based software development are both paradigms for reducing complexity and for increasing abstraction and reuse in software development. In this thesis, we aim at combining the advantages of each by introducing methods from component-based development into MDSD. In MDSD, all artefacts that describe a software system are regarded as models of the system and are treated as the central development artefacts. To obtain a system implementation from such models, they are transformed and integrated until implementation code can be generated from them. Models in MDSD can have very different forms: they can be documents, diagrams, or textual specifications defined in different modelling languages. Integrating these models of different formats and abstraction in a consistent way is a central challenge in MDSD. We propose to tackle this challenge by explicitly separating the tasks of defining model components and composing model components, which is also known as distinguishing programming-in-the-small and programming-in-the-large. That is, we promote a separation of models into models for modelling-in-the-small (models that are components) and models for modelling-in-the-large (models that describe compositions of model components). To perform such component-based modelling, we introduce two architectural styles for developing systems with component-based MDSD (CB-MDSD). For CB-MDSD, we require a universal composition technique that can handle models defined in arbitrary modelling languages. A technique that can handle arbitrary textual languages is universal invasive software composition for code fragment composition. We extend this technique to universal invasive software composition for graph fragments (U-ISC/Graph) which can handle arbitrary models, including graphical and textual ones, as components. Such components are called graph fragments, because we treat each model as a typed graph and support reuse of partial models. To put the composition technique into practice, we developed the tool Reuseware that implements U-ISC/Graph. The tool is based on the Eclipse Modelling Framework and can therefore be integrated into existing MDSD development environments based on the framework. To evaluate the applicability of CB-MDSD, we realised for each of our two architectural styles a model-driven architecture with Reuseware. The first style, which we name ModelSoC, is based on the component-based development paradigm of multi-dimensional separation of concerns. The architecture we realised with that style shows how a system that involves multiple modelling languages can be developed with CB-MDSD. The second style, which we name ModelHiC, is based on hierarchical composition. With this style, we developed abstraction and reuse support for a large modelling language for telecommunication networks that implements the Common Information Model industry standard

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Assessment Teams for First Responders in Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief (HA/DR) Missions

Immediately following a natural disaster requiring Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief (HA/DR), a myriad of organizations respond. Typically, these early responders send small assessment teams to determine critical needs, which are then paired with the resources available. The needs can range from basic subsistence (food, shelter, and water) to transportation and infrastructure, yet the paramount factor among each team is the need to communicate. To assist in this effort, an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) assessment team using standardized tactics, techniques, procedures and training to maximize effectivenessand comprised of members from multiple organizationscould provide a shared prospective among member groups that could ultimately produce a more objective and complete communications assessment. This in turn, could be transmitted immediately to the global response community via appropriate information sharing portals. As no such model exists at present, our research attempts to pioneer and explore this concept and capability by exploring and providing an outline of an ICT assessment team model. In this thesis, we examine its potential structure, methodologies, and equipment, as well as discuss prospective funding sources, and include in the appendices, checklists derived from our findings, thus improving and hastening early responders understanding of a disasters communications situation.http://archive.org/details/informationndcom109456768Lieutenant, United States Nav