Resource Brokering in Grid Computing

Grid Computing has emerged in the academia and evolved towards the bases of what is currently known as Cloud Computing and Internet of Things (IoT). The vast collection of resources that provide the nature for Grid Computing environment is very complex; multiple administrative domains control access and set policies to the shared computing resources. It is a decentralized environment with geographically distributed computing and storage resources, where each computing resource can be modeled as an autonomous computing entity, yet collectively can work together. This is a class of Cooperative Distributed Systems (CDS). We extend this by applying characteristic of open environments to create a foundation for the next generation of computing platform where entities are free to join a computing environment to provide capabilities and take part as a collective in solving complex problems beyond the capability of a single entity. This thesis is focused on modeling “Computing” as a collective performance of individual autonomous fundamental computing elements interconnected in a “Grid” open environment structure. Each computing element is a node in the Grid. All nodes are interconnected through the “Grid” edges. Resource allocation is done at the edges of the “Grid” where the connected nodes are simply used to perform computation. The analysis put forward in this thesis identifies Grid Computing as a form of computing that occurs at the resource level. The proposed solution, coupled with advancements in technology and evolution of new computing paradigms, sets a new direction for grid computing research. The approach here is a leap forward with the well-defined set of requirements and specifications based on open issues with the focus on autonomy, adaptability and interdependency. The proposed approach examines current model for Grid Protocol Architecture and proposes an extension that addresses the open issues in the diverged set of solutions that have been created

Towards a Reference Architecture for Context-Aware Services

This Chapter describes an infrastructure for multi-modal perceptual systems which aims at developing and realizing computer services that are delivered to humans in an implicit and unobtrusive way. The framework presented here supports the implementation of humancentric context-aware applications providing non-obtrusive assistance to participants in events such as meetings, lectures, conferences and presentations taking place in indoor "smart spaces". We emphasize on the design and implementation of an agent-based framework that supports "pluggable" service logic in the sense that the service developer can concentrate on the service logic independently of the underlying middleware. Furthermore, we give an example of the architecture’s ability to support the cooperation of multiple services in a meeting scenario using an intelligent connector service and a semantic web oriented travel service. The framework was developed as part of the project CHIL (Computers in the Human Interaction Loop). The vision of CHIL was to be able to provide context-aware human centric services which will operate in the background, provide assistance to the participants in the CHIL spaces and undertake tedious tasks in an unobtrusive way. To achieve this, significant effort had to be put in designing efficient context extraction components so that the CHIL system can acquire an accurate perspective of the current state of the CHIL space. However, the CHIL services required a much more sophisticated modelling of the actual event, rather than simple and fluctuating impressions of it. Furthermore, by nature the CHIL spaces are highly dynamic and heterogeneous; people join or leave, sensors fail or are restarted, user devices connect to the network, etc. To manage this diverse infrastructure, sophisticated techniques were necessary that can map all entities present in the CHIL system and provide information to all components which may require it. From these facts, one can easily understand that in addition to highly sophisticated components at an individual level, another mechanism (or a combination of mechanisms) should be present which can handle this infrastructure. The CHIL Reference Architecture for Multi Modal Systems lies in the background, and provides the solid, high performance and robust backbone for the CHIL services. Each individual need is assigned to a specially designed and integrated layer which is docked to the individual component, and provides all the necessary actions to enable the component to be plugged in the CHIL framework

Realizing networks of proactive smart products

The sheer complexity and number of functionalities embedded in many everyday devices already exceed the ability of most users to learn how to use them effectively. An approach to tackle this problem is to introduce ‘smart’ capabilities in technical products, to enable them to proactively assist and co-operate with humans and other products. In this paper we provide an overview of our approach to realizing networks of proactive and co-operating smart products, starting from the requirements imposed by real-world scenarios. In particular, we present an ontology-based approach to modeling proactive problem solving, which builds on and extends earlier work in the knowledge acquisition community on problem solving methods. We then move on to the technical design aspects of our work and illustrate the solutions, to do with semantic data management and co-operative problem solving, which are needed to realize our functional architecture for proactive problem solving in concrete networks of physical and resource-constrained devices. Finally, we evaluate our solution by showing that it satisfies the quality attributes and architectural design patterns, which are desirable in collaborative multi-agents systems

From grids to clouds: a collective intelligence study for inter-cooperated infrastructures

Recently, more effort has been put into developing interoperable and distributed environments that offer users exceptional opportunities for utilizing resources over the internet. By utilising grids and clouds, resource consumers and providers, they gain significant benefits by either using or purchasing the computer processing capacities and the information provided by data centres. On the other hand, the collective intelligence paradigm is characterized as group based intelligence that emerges from the collaboration of many individuals, who in turn, define a coordinated knowledge model. It is envisaged that such a knowledge model could be of significant advantage if it is incorporated within the grid and cloud community. The dynamic load and access balancing of the grid and cloud data centres and the collective intelligence provides multiple opportunities, involving resource provisioning and development of scalable and heterogeneous applications. The contribution of this paper is that by utilizing grid and cloud resources, internal information stored within a public profile of each participant, resource providers as well as consumers, can lead to an effective mobilization of improved skills of members. We aim to unify the grid and cloud functionality as consumable computational power, for a) discussing the supreme advantages of such on-line resource utilization and provisioning models and b) analyzing the impact of the collective intelligence in the future trends of the aforementioned technologies

Dpws middleware to support agent-based manufacturing control and simulation

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de ComputadoresIn present manufacturing systems, the current challenge is the development of highly reconfigurable, truly distributed solutions. The tendency is to build manufacturing systems with autonomous, intelligent and distributed components that will support reconfiguration and adaptability. The most promising paradigms for the implementation of such systems are multi-agents and service oriented architectures (SOA), mainly over the DPWS (Device Profile for Web Services) implementation which was aimed at devices. An important limitation of most current multi-agent systems is that the management system is not totally distributed. Failure in the agent responsible for the registry can overthrow the entire system. DPWS does not have this limitation, since the management system is totally distributed. However, DPWS does not support agent autonomy notions as efficiently. The possibility of creating a truly distributed multi-agent system by linking both approaches led to this thesis. A Middleware layer was developed that enables agents to benefit from DPWS functionalities in order to reach the proposed goal. This middleware layer joins agents, databases, hardware, simulators, human interface applications such as production system management, error correction and maintenance, etc. To prove this concept a 3D model of an agent controlled manufacturing system with transporters augmented with DPWS communication interfaces was developed

Industrial agents in the era of service-oriented architectures and cloudbased industrial infrastructures

The umbrella paradigm underpinning novel collaborative industrial systems is to consider the set of intelligent system units as a conglomerate of distributed, autonomous, intelligent, proactive, fault-tolerant, and reusable units, which operate as a set of cooperating entities (Colombo and Karnouskos, 2009). These entities are forming an evolvable infrastructure, entering and/or going out (plug-in/plugout) in an asynchronous manner. Moreover, these entities, having each of them their own functionalities, data, and associated information are now connected and able to interact. They are capable of working in a proactive manner, initiating collaborative actions and dynamically interacting with each other in order to achieve both local and global objectives.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pervasive handheld computing systems

The technological role of handheld devices is fundamentally changing. Portable computers were traditionally application specific. They were designed and optimised to deliver a specific task. However, it is now commonly acknowledged that future handheld devices need to be multi-functional and need to be capable of executing a range of high-performance applications. This thesis has coined the term pervasive handheld computing systems to refer to this type of mobile device. Portable computers are faced with a number of constraints in trying to meet these objectives. They are physically constrained by their size, their computational power, their memory resources, their power usage, and their networking ability. These constraints challenge pervasive handheld computing systems in achieving their multi-functional and high-performance requirements. This thesis proposes a two-pronged methodology to enable pervasive handheld computing systems meet their future objectives. The methodology is a fusion of two independent and yet complementary concepts. The first step utilises reconfigurable technology to enhance the physical hardware resources within the environment of a handheld device. This approach recognises that reconfigurable computing has the potential to dynamically increase the system functionality and versatility of a handheld device without major loss in performance. The second step of the methodology incorporates agent-based middleware protocols to support handheld devices to effectively manage and utilise these reconfigurable hardware resources within their environment. The thesis asserts the combined characteristics of reconfigurable computing and agent technology can meet the objectives of pervasive handheld computing systems

Concept of Socio-Cyber-Physical Work Systems for Industry 4.0

In this paper the concepts of advanced production systems based on the challenges that bring the new industrial revolution named - Industry 4.0 are presented. The presented concept of socio-cyber-physical work systems is based on connecting social, cyber and physical working environments into a single functional, productive entity of the appointed elementary socio-cyber-physical work system.The elementary socio-cyber-physical work system is a basic building block of the cyber-physical production systems at the manufacturing level. The cyber system of the elementary socio-cyber-physical work system enables autonomous decision-making and cooperation in the network system. The possibility of implementing the proposed concept is based on the introduction of agency technologies in the domain of modern production systems and the development of information-communication technologies for the advanced management and control of cyber-physical production systems. Some illustrative examples reflect the experimental results of a research work in the field of cyber-physical systems and demonstrate the potential possibilities of implementing the concept of socio-cyber-physical work systems in the real industrial environment

Context-Aware and Adaptable eLearning Systems

The full text file attached to this record contains a copy of the thesis without the authors publications attached. The list of publications that are attached to the complete thesis can be found on pages 6-7 in the thesis.This thesis proposed solutions to some shortcomings to current eLearning architectures. The proposed DeLC architecture supports context-aware and adaptable provision of eLearning services and electronic content. The architecture is fully distributed and integrates service-oriented development with agent technology. Central to this architecture is that a node is our unit of computation (known as eLearning node) which can have purely service-oriented architecture, agent-oriented architecture or mixed architecture. Three eLeaerning Nodes have been implemented in order to demonstrate the vitality of the DeLC concept. The Mobile eLearning Node uses a three-level communication network, called InfoStations network, supporting mobile service provision. The services, displayed on this node, are to be aware of its context, gather required learning material and adapted to the learner request. This is supported trough a multi-layered hybrid (service- and agent-oriented) architecture whose kernel is implemented as middleware. For testing of the middleware a simulation environment has been developed. In addition, the DeLC development approach is proposed. The second eLearning node has been implemented as Education Portal. The architecture of this node is poorly service-oriented and it adopts a client-server architecture. In the education portal, there are incorporated education services and system services, called engines. The electronic content is kept in Digital Libraries. Furthermore, in order to facilitate content creators in DeLC, the environment Selbo2 was developed. The environment allows for creating new content, editing available content, as well as generating educational units out of preexisting standardized elements. In the last two years, the portal is used in actual education at the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, University of Plovdiv. The third eLearning node, known as Agent Village, exhibits a purely agent-oriented architecture. The purpose of this node is to provide intelligent assistance to the services deployed on the Education Pportal. Currently, two kinds of assistants are implemented in the node - eTesting Assistants and Refactoring eLearning Environment (ReLE). A more complex architecture, known as Education Cluster, is presented in this thesis as well. The Education Cluster incorporates two eLearning nodes, namely the Education Portal and the Agent Village. eLearning services and intelligent agents interact in the cluster