Open Distributed Processing And Distributed Platforms

Advances in computer networking have allowed computer systems across the world to be interconnected. Open Distributed Processing (ODP) systems are those that support heterogenous distributed applications both within and between autonomous organizations. Many challenges must be overcome before ODP systems can be fully realized. This book describes the recent advances in the theory and practice of developing, deploying and managing open distributed systems. Applications of these systems include but are not limited to telecommunication, medical and large scale transaction processing and electronic commerce systems. All of these are currently developed on distributed platforms. For anybody working in industry or research in this field, Open Distributed Processing and Distributed Platforms will prove an invaluable text.

Client/Server applications are of increasing importance in industry, and have been improved by advanced distributed object-oriented techniques, dedicated tool support and both multimedia and mobile computing extensions. Recent responses to this trend are standardized distributed platforms and models including the Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) of the Open Software Foundation (OS F), Open Distributed Processing (ODP), and the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) of the Object Management Group (OMG). These proceedings are the compilation of papers from the technical stream of the IFIPIIEEE International Conference on Distributed Platforms, Dresden, Germany. This conference has been sponsored by IFIP TC6.1, by the IEEE Communications Society, and by the German Association of Computer Science (GI -Gesellschaft fur Informatik). ICDP'96 was organized jointly by Dresden University of Technology and Aachen University of Technology. It is closely related to the International Workshop on OSF DCE in Karlsruhe, 1993, and to the IFIP International Conference on Open Distributed Processing. ICDP has been designed to bring together researchers and practitioners who are studying and developing new methodologies, tools and technologies for advanced client/server environ ments, distributed systems, and network applications based on distributed platforms.

The need to support multimedia in Open Distributed Processing (ODP) environments is a major challenge when setting up distributed network systems. This book has been written specifically to address the problems of supporting multimedia applications, such as desktop conferencing, multimedia email, video-on-demand systems and virtual reality environments, in ODP standards and platforms. This book provides: an introduction to the field of ODP, with detailed descriptions of ISO's RM-ODP, OMG's CORBA and Open Group's DC a description of the requirements of distributed multimedia applications (in terms of support for continuous media, quality of service, real-time synchronization and multiparty communications an evaluation of these ODP platforms with respect to their support for multimedi a detailed description of an architecture for ODP standards and platforms supporting multimedi a description of two proof-of-concept demonstrators focusing on the programming model and on engineering support For information on Middleware '98 , IFIP International Conference on Distributed Systems Platforms and Open Distributed Processing, 15-18 September 1998, link to:

The Reference Model of Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP) is an international standard that provides a solid basis for describing and building widely distributed systems and applications in a systematic way. It stresses the need to build these systems with evolution in mind by identifying the concerns of major stakeholders and then expressing the

Welcome to Middleware'98 and to one of England's most beautiful regions. In recent years the distributed systems community has witnessed a growth in the number of conferences, leading to difficulties in tracking the literature and a consequent loss of awareness of work done by others in this important field. The aim of Middleware'98 is to synthesise many of the smaller workshops and conferences in this area, bringing together research communities which were becoming fragmented. The conference has been designed to maximise the experience for attendees. This is reflected in the choice of a resort venue (rather than a big city) to ensure a strong focus on interaction with other distributed systems researchers. The programme format incorporates a question-and-answer panel in each session, enabling significant issues to be discussed in the context of related papers and presentations. The invited speakers and tutorials are intended to not only inform the attendees, but also to stimulate discussion and debate.

Open Distributed Processing contains the selected proceedings of the Third International Conference on Open Distributed Systems, organized by the International Federation for Information Processing and held in Brisbane, Australia, in February 1995. The book deals with the interconnectivity problems that advanced computer networking raises, providing those working in the area with the most recent research, including security and management issues.

Abstract Machine Models have played a profound though frequently unacknowledged role in the development of modern computing systems. They provide a precise definition of vital concepts, allow system complexity to be managed by providing appropriate views of the activity under consideration, enable reasoning about the correctness and quantitative performance of proposed problem solutions, and encourage communication through a common medium of expression. Abstract Models in Parallel and Distributed computing have a particularly important role in the development of contemporary systems, encapsulating and controlling an inherently high degree of complexity. The Parallel and Distributed computing communities have traditionally considered themselves to be separate. However, there is a significant contemporary interest in both of these communities in a common hardware model; a set of workstation-class machines connected by a high-performance network. The traditional Parallel/Distributed distinction therefore appears under threat.

Originally published in 2002, this book presents techniques in the application of formal methods to object-based distributed systems. A major theme of the book is how to formally handle the requirements arising from OO distributed systems, such as dynamic reconfiguration, encapsulation, subtyping, inheritance, and real-time aspects. These may be supported either by enhancing existing notations, such as UML, LOTOS, SDL and Z, or by defining fresh notations, such as Actors, Pi-calculus and Ambients. The major specification notations and modelling techniques are introduced and compared by leading researchers. The book also includes a description of approaches to the specification of non-functional requirements, and a discussion of security issues. Researchers and practitioners in software design, object-oriented computing, distributed systems, and telecommunications systems will gain an appreciation of the relationships between the major areas of concerns and learn how the use of object-oriented based formal methods provides workable solutions.