Experiences in Multi-domain Management Service Development

The developers of management systems and the management services that operate over them will be faced with increasing complexity as services are developed for the open service market. This paper presents experiences in the development of management services that span several administrative domains and which are therefore representative of the complexities of the open service market. The work described involved the development of TMN based management systems that provided management services in support of multimedia teleservices operating over broadband networks

Experiences in Integrated Multi-Domain Service Management

Increased competition, complex service provision chains and integrated service offerings require effective techniques for the rapid integration of telecommunications services and management systems over multiple organisational domains. This paper presents some of the results of practical development work in this area, detailing the technologies and standards used, the architectural approach taken and the application of this approach to specific services. This work covers the integration of multimedia services, broadband networks, service management and network management, though the detailed examples given focus specifically on the integration of services and service management

New venture internationalisation and the cluster life cycle: insights from Ireland’s indigenous software industry

The internationalization of new and small firms has been a long-standing concern of researchers in international business (Coviello and McAuley, 1999; Ruzzier et al., 2006). This topic has been re-invigorated over the last decade by the burgeoning literature on so-called ‘born globals’ (BG) or ‘international new ventures’ (INV) – businesses that confound the expectations of traditional theory by being active internationally at, or soon after, inception (Aspelund et al., 2007; Bell, 1995; Rialp et al., 2005). Until quite recently, this literature had not really considered how the home regional environment of a new venture might influence its internationalization behaviour. However, a handful of recent studies have shown that being founded in a geographic industry ‘cluster’ can positively influence the likelihood of a new venture internationalizing (e.g., Fernhaber et al., 2008; Libaers and Meyer, 2011). This chapter seeks to build on these recent contributions by further probing the relationship between clusters and new venture internationalization. Specifically, taking inspiration from recent work in the thematic research stream on clusters (which spans the fields of economic geography, regional studies and industrial dynamics), the chapter explores how the emergence and internationalization of new ventures might be affected by the ‘cluster life cycle’ context within which they are founded. This issue is examined through a revelatory longitudinal case study of Ireland’s indigenous software cluster. The study investigates the origins and internationalization behaviour of ‘leading’ Irish software ventures but, in contrast to many existing studies, it seeks to understand these firms within the context of the Irish software cluster’s emergence and evolution through a number of ‘life-cycle’ stages

Transnational Municipal Networks: Local action on climate change through global networks

Transnational Municipal Networks (TMNs) are prominent networks in the international climate governance arena serving as drivers of and advocates for local action on climate change. The main objective of this exploratory research is to establish the relation between the internal governance structure of the TMNs and their ability to carry out certain types of activities. Internal governance encompasses the means through which a TMN regulates the authority and structure within the organization. External governance refers to interaction of the network with other stakeholders and the ability to respond to external pressures as well as to position the operation of the network in the multi-level climate governance arena. From the examined cases, namely ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40), and 100 Resilient Cities (100RC), and a networking event, it is clear that there is a considerable amount of similar internal governance practices utilised by networks with different historical backgrounds and structures. The applied analytical criteria, based on a framework developed by Kern and Bulkeley (2009), constituted such arrangements as information and communication, project funding and cooperation, and recognition, benchmarking and certification. These can be seen to be instrumental in delineating internal governance formation of the network. Considering key functional aspirations of TMNs which include learning, advocacy and financing, the examination of their internal governance architecture lead to the suggestion that there are preferred methods of internal governing capable of synergistic relation with the external governance dimensions and, hence, facilitating performance of their functions. Established patterns were evaluated in the context of international climate governance to reveal the importance of collaborative and cooperative interactions, climate negotiations and climate financing mechanisms in determining the factors potentially affecting the internal governance composition of TMNs

Prototyping a process-centered environment

This paper describes an experimental system developed and used as a vehicle for prototyping the Arcadia-1 software development environment. Prototyping is viewed as a knowledge acquisition process and is used to reduce risks in software development by gaining rapid feedback about the suitability of a production system before the system is completed. Prototyping a software development environment is particularly important due to the lack of experience with them. There is an acute need to acquire knowledge about user interaction requirements for software environments. These needs are especially important for the Arcadia project, as it is one of the first attempts to construct a process-centered environment. Our prototyping effort addresses questions about effective interaction with a process-centered environment by simulating how Arcadia-1 would interact with users in a representative range of usage scenarios. We built a prototyping system, called PRODUCER, and used it to generate a variety of prototypes simulating user interactions with Arcadia-1 process programs.Experience with PRODUCER indicates that our approach is effective at risk reduction. The prototypes greatly improved communication with our customer. They confirmed some of our design decisions but also redirected our research efforts as a result of unexpected insight. We also found that prototyping usage scenarios provides conceptual guides and design information for process programmers. Most of the benefits of our prototyping effort derive from developing and interacting with usage scenarios, so our approach is generalizable to other prototyping systems. This paper reports on our prototyping approach and our experience in prototyping a process-centered environment

An experimental study of an ejector-boosted transcritical R744 refrigeration system including an exergy analysis

The field of refrigeration witness a massive transition in the supermarket with a strong focus reflected on energy consumption. The use of ejector allows for overcoming the significant exergy destruction lays on the expansion processes of the cooling systems and led to spark improvement in the system performance by recovering some of the expansion work. In this study, a detailed experimental work and exergy analysis on the R744 transcritical ejector cooling system was investigated. The experiment was implemented on the commercial ejector cartridge type (032F7045 CTM ELP60 by Danfoss). The impact of different operating conditions determined by exit gas cooler pressure and temperature, evaporation temperature and receiver pressure was examined. The ejector performance of the pressure lift, mass entrainment ratio, work rate recovery and efficiency were evaluated. In addition, exergy efficiency and the variation of exergy produced, consumed, and destruction were assessed based on the transiting exergy. The result revealed better overall performance when the ejector operated at transcritical conditions. The ejector was able to recover up to 36.9% of the available work rate and provide a maximum pressure lift of 9.51 bar. Moreover, it was found out that the overall available work recovery potential increased by rising the gas cooler pressure. Out of the findings, the ejector could deliver maximum exergy efficiency of 23% when working at higher motive nozzle flow temperatures along with providing lower exergy destruction. The experiment results show that the amount of the exergy consumed and destruction were gradually increased with higher gas cooler pressure and, in contrast, decreasing with higher motive nozzle flow temperature. © 2021 Elsevier LtdacceptedVersio

A Generic Network and System Management Framework

Networks and distributed systems have formed the basis of an ongoing communications revolution that has led to the genesis of a wide variety of services. The constantly increasing size and complexity of these systems does not come without problems. In some organisations, the deployment of Information Technology has reached a state where the benefits from downsizing and rightsizing by adding new services are undermined by the effort required to keep the system running. Management of networks and distributed systems in general has a straightforward goal: to provide a productive environment in which work can be performed effectively. The work required for management should be a small fraction of the total effort. Most IT systems are still managed in an ad hoc style without any carefully elaborated plan. In such an environment the success of management decisions depends totally on the qualification and knowledge of the administrator. The thesis provides an analysis of the state of the art in the area of Network and System Management and identifies the key requirements that must be addressed for the provisioning of Integrated Management Services. These include the integration of the different management related aspects (i.e. integration of heterogeneous Network, System and Service Management). The thesis then proposes a new framework, INSMware, for the provision of Management Services. It provides a fundamental basis for the realisation of a new approach to Network and System Management. It is argued that Management Systems can be derived from a set of pre-fabricated and reusable Building Blocks that break up the required functionality into a number of separate entities rather than being developed from scratch. It proposes a high-level logical model in order to accommodate the range of requirements and environments applicable to Integrated Network and System Management that can be used as a reference model. A development methodology is introduced that reflects principles of the proposed approach, and provides guidelines to structure the analysis, design and implementation phases of a management system. The INSMware approach can further be combined with the componentware paradigm for the implementation of the management system. Based on these principles, a prototype for the management of SNMP systems has been implemented using industry standard middleware technologies. It is argued that development of a management system based on Componentware principles can offer a number of benefits. INSMware Components may be re-used and system solutions will become more modular and thereby easier to construct and maintain