GVU Technical Report Number:
GIT-GVU-98-18
Title:
A Framework for the Development of Wide Area Distributed Applications
Authors:
Brad Byer Topol
Abstract:
The growth in popularity of the World Wide Web has resulted in the
development of a new generation of tools tailored to Internet computing
activities. Prominent examples include the Java programming language and
Java capable Web browsers. These Web spinoffs are having a profound
impact on the field of distributed computing. Whereas distributed
computing has traditionally focused on improving the functionality of
local clusters of computers, technology is progressing such that wide
area computing networks are now becoming a popular target environment
for research in distributed computing.
With wide area distributed computing environments, geographically
distributed resources such as workstations, personal computers,
supercomputers, graphic rendering engines, and scientific instruments
will be available for use in a seamless fashion by parallel
applications. Many envision that it will be possible to transport
application code to remote sites in the wide area virtual computer where
it may be executed in the presence of needed resources. The area of
research devoted to bringing this vision to reality in the context of
scientific applications is referred to as metacomputing.
Metacomputing environments are useful for a variety of distributed and
parallel applications, particularly those which need access to remote
resources or applications that are able to effectively utilize a
substantial number of computing resources that the Internet may
easily provide. Moreover, other wide area distributed computing domains
such as electronic commerce home service applications require more
advanced capabilities than those provided by a standard web browser.
Such capabilities must address issues such as heterogeneity, object
sharing, and failure resilience in wide area environments.
In this thesis, we investigate the design and implementation of a Java
based middleware infrastructure system to enable wide area applications.
We then provide an empirical evaluation of our prototype system for
local area, wide area, and home service network environments. We also
illustrate the system1s ability to support the development of several
classes of applications which include electronic commerce home service
applications, failure resilient scientific applications, and traditional
computer supported cooperative work applications. Finally, we present a
design for the monitoring and visual presentation of activities
associated with wide area distributed computing.
Keywords:
World Wide Web, Internet tools, wide are distributed computing environments
You can access this technical report via:
PDF
Postscript
|
