05 Fakultät Informatik, Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://elib.uni-stuttgart.de/handle/11682/6
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Item Open Access A context-aware hoarding mechanism for location-dependent information systems(2000) Kubach, Uwe; Rothermel, KurtWhen used in an outdoor environment mobile information systems often suffer from the disadvantages of wireless WANs, especially low bandwidth, high delay, and frequent disconnections. Hoarding is an effective method to overcome these disadvantages by transferring information which is probably needed by the user in advance. In this paper we propose a generic, context-aware hoarding mechanism. When selecting the information to hoard, it considers the user's future location as well as the expected speed of movement. In contrast to existing hoarding mechanisms it is universally applicable for different types of location-dependent, mobile information systems. Its flexibility allows it to rely on different knowledge sources in order to get information about a user's context.Item Open Access A protocol for preserving the exactly-once property of mobile agents(1997) Rothermel, Kurt; Straßer, MarkusMobile agents are autonomous objects that can migrate from node to node of a computer network. Mobile agent technology has been proposed for various application areas, including electronic commerce, systems management and active messaging. Many of these applications - especially those for electronic commerce - require agents to be performed 'exactly once', independent of communication and node failures. In other words, once a mobile agent has been launched, it must never be lost before its execution is finished. Moreover, each 'portion' of the agent performed at the visited nodes is performed exactly once. Due to the autonomy of mobile agents, there is no 'natural' instance that monitors the progress of an agent's execution. As a result of that agents may be blocked due to node crashes or network partitioning even if there are other nodes available that could continue processing. In this paper, we will describe a protocol that ensures the exactly once property of agents and additionally reduces the blocking probability of agents by introducing so-called observer nodes for monitoring the progress of agents. This protocol is based on conventional transactional technology, such as defined by X/Open DTP or CORBA OTS. It is implemented in the Mole, a mobile agent system developed at Stuttgart University.Item Open Access Application sharing in teaching context with wireless networks(2001) Burger, Cora; Papakosta, Stella; Rothermel, KurtThe success of teaching is depending on a couple of factors: on how far students are involved into lectures, on the material, its completeness and on co-learning of students. Involvement of students into lectures means, being able to follow the thoughts of the teacher, ask questions and make comments. The material must be presented in a suitable form and essential parts of it have to be available during the whole learning process, for preparing participation in lectures and exercises as well as for exams. For more effective learning and training of social abilities, working in groups of co-learners has to be encouraged. Mobile and ubiquitous computing offer new possibilities to achieve these goals by increasing the awareness in class and supporting an active participation of students. By promoting existing concepts and enabling new ways of application sharing, the project SASCIA (System architecture supporting cooperative and interactive applications) aims at developing a framework for multiple applications to support teaching in collocated, remote and hybrid scenarios. Its core is composed of components to capture and distribute context information about sessions, participants and those applications that are used during a lecture or encounter among students. A configurable floor control was designed to cope with a wide spectrum of applications and learning situations. For some cases, even a control for semantic consistency can be necessary. In combination with a suitable user and session management, a whiteboard for annotations and a recording facility to support latecomers as well as subsequent replay, these components are providing the required functionality. As a consequence, SASCIA offers remote control and viewing facilities to all participants during lectures and co-learning sessions.Item Open Access Task allocation in distributed multimedia systems based on the host-satellite model(1998) Dermler, Gabriel; Iqbal, AshrafMultimedia applications require intermediate processing between media sources and sinks. In addition to end-user machines intermediate computers can be used for performing media processing. This possibility leads to the problem of allocating processing components on various computers. In this paper, we study this problem in the context of star-shaped application graphs which have to be allocated between given end-user machines (satellites) and a central computer (host). The problem is formulated in terms of best achievable bottleneck resource usage. Several approaches are considered including anapproximate scheme and two fast-heuristics. Performance measurements show the efficiency of the considered approaches. A discussion of our approach shows important differences to solutions provided for related problems of graph partitioning and mapping.Item Open Access Emulation von Rechnernetzen zur Leistungsanalyse von verteilten Anwendungen und Netzprotokollen(2005) Herrscher, Daniel J.; Rothermel, Kurt (Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Dr. h. c)Um die Leistung von verteilten Anwendungen und Netzprotokollen in Abhängigkeit von den Eigenschaften der verwendeten Rechnernetze zu analysieren, wird eine Testumgebung benötigt, die Netzeigenschaften zuverlässig nachbilden ("emulieren") kann. Eine solche Testumgebung wird Emulationssystem genannt. Bisher existierende Emulationssysteme sind aufgrund ihrer Architektur entweder nur für sehr kleine Szenarien geeignet, oder sie können nur unabhängige Netzverbindungen nachbilden, und schließen damit alle Netztechnologien mit gemeinsamen Medien aus. In dieser Arbeit werden zunächst verschiedene Architekturvarianten für die Realisierung eines Emulationssystems vorgestellt und bewertet. Für die Variante mit zentraler Steuerung und verteilten Emulationswerkzeugen wird dann detailliert die Funktionalität eines Emulationssystems mit seinen wesentlichen Komponenten beschrieben. Das in dieser Arbeit entwickelte Emulationsverfahren greift auf der logischen Ebene der Sicherungsschicht in den Kommunikationsstapel ein. Auf dieser Ebene werden die beiden Basiseffekte Rahmenverlust und Verzögerung durch verteilte Emulationswerkzeuge nachgebildet. Alle anderen Netzeigenschaften können auf diese Basiseffekte zurückgeführt werden. Um Netztechnologien mit gemeinsamen Medien durch verteilte Werkzeuge nachbilden zu können, wird zusätzlich das Konzept des virtuellen Trägersignals eingeführt. Hierbei werden die Eigenschaften eines Rundsendemediums nachgebildet, indem kooperative Emulationswerkzeuge Rundsendungen zur Signalisierung eines Trägersignals benutzen. Somit kann jedeWerkzeuginstanz lokal ein aktuelles Modell des emulierten gemeinsamen Mediums halten. Auf dieser Basis kann auch das Verhalten von Medienzugriffsprotokollen nachgebildet werden. Die Arbeit deckt auch die wesentlichen Realisierungsaspekte eines Emulationssytems ab. Mit ausführlichen Messungen wird gezeigt, dass das entwickelte System für die Nachbildung von Netzszenarien sehr gut geeignet ist, selbst wenn die nachzubildenden Parameter sich dynamisch ändern. Die entwickelten Werkzeuge sind in der Lage, Netzeigenschaften in einem weiten Parameterbereich realistisch nachzubilden. Mit diesem System steht nun eine ideale Testumgebung für Leistungsmessungen von verteilten Anwendungen und Netzprotokollen in Abhängigkeit von Netzeigenschaften zur Verfügung.Item Open Access Das ASCEND-Modell zur Unterstützung kooperativer Prozesse(2002) Frank, Aiko; Mitschang, Bernhard (Prof. Dr.)Es wird eine neue Klasse von kooperativen Prozessen bestimmt und durch Beispiele betrachtet, deren Unterstützung durch das ASCEND Designflow Model(ADM) erfolgen soll. Diesen Prozessen ist der Bedarf nach Interaktion, Kooperation, kooperativer Nutzung gemeinsamer Ressourcen, Delegation von Teilar-beiten, strukturierten und weniger strukturierten Teilprozessen, Integration von Arbeitsergebnissen und Abstimmung von Aktionen gemein. Daraus wird die Forderung an eine geeignete Benutzerunterstützung abgeleitet, die den Nutzern die geeignete Unterstützung in Form entsprechend konfigurierbarer Dienste zur Verfügung stellt. Es werden Technologien vorgestellt und bewertet, die Teile der aufgestellten Forderungen erfüllen können. Der Schwerpunkt dieser Untersuchung betrifft CSCW und Workflow-Management. Eine weitere Klasse von Systemen zur Durchführung von Arbeiten sind CAD-Frameworks, die spezialisierte Dienste für den technischen Entwurf anbieten. Für die Realisierung der von uns gewünschten flexiblen Zugriffsregelung werden außerdem einige Aspekte der Agententechnologie betrachtet, insbesondere Verhandlungsprotokolle. Aufgrund der so gewonnenen Erkenntnisse wird ein Lösungsansatz präsentiert, der auf einer geeigneten Integration dieser Technologien basiert. Dieser Lösungsansatz wird durch das ASCEND Designflow Model umgesetzt. Dieses Modell verwendet drei wesentliche Aspekte: ein Aktivitätenmodell, einen Informationsraum und Interaktionsprotokolle. Workflow-Management stellt eine ideale Technologie für die Automatisierung der Steuerung von strukturierten Teilprozessen dar. Das Aktivitätenkonzept ist eine geeignete Basis zur Repräsentation von abhängigen Arbeitsschritten. Daher werden diese Konzepte weitgehend in das ADM integriert. Das Aktivitätenkonzept zur Modellierung und Durchführung abgegrenzter Arbeitsschritte hilft die Aufgabenverteilung und Vorgehensweise von Entwurfsprozessen, soweit möglich, zu strukturieren. Bspw. nutzt die Delegations-Beziehung des ADM Aktivitäten zur Spezifikation verschiedener Unteraufträge. Außerdem werden sogenannte Workflow-Aktivitäten eingeführt, die alle Eigenschaften eines Workflows übernehmen und innerhalb eines Entwurfsprozesses ausgeführt werden können. Dadurch wird eine geeignete Unterstützung gut strukturierter Teilprozesse erreicht. Weiterhin werden primitive Aktivitäten zum Kapseln von Werkzeuganwendungen und Groupware-Aktivitäten zur Durchführung von wenig strukturierten Teilarbeiten eingeführt. Eine Besonderheit stellen die Designflow-Aktivitäten dar, die durch sogenannte Design-Primitive eine erweiterte Funktionalität realisieren. So können anpaßbare Constraints angewendet werden, welche die Abhängigkeiten zwischen den in einer Designflow-Aktivität enthaltenen Ressourcen und Aktivitäten beschreiben. Durch die weitgehende Definierbarkeit solcher Constraints, besteht die Möglichkeit anwendungsspezifische Abhängigkeiten einzuführen und eine flexible Ablaufunterstützung zu erreichen. Aufgrund der Forderung nach frühem Austausch von gemeinsamen Ergebnissen, der Bearbeitung gemeinsamer Daten und der Abhängigkeiten bezüglich Daten und Ergebnissen, die in verschiedenen Teilprozessen erarbeitet werden, ist eine Abstimmung zwischen den am Prozeß teilnehmenden Personen notwendig. Dafür wird die gemeinsame Nutzung von Ressourcen im Rahmen eines gemeinsamen Informationsraums eingeführt. Dadurch können unvorherbestimmte Abläufe über die Objektzugriffe koordiniert werden. Zur Durchführung und Abstimmung der Nutzung gemeinsamer Objekte werden Protokolle in Konversationsmustern angewendet, die zum einen eine gewisse Weise des Zugriffs vorschreiben, aber auch die Möglichkeit zur Verhandlung anbieten. Diese Verhandlung, wie sie bei konkurrierenden Zugriffen oder bei der Durchführung des sogenannten Delegationsprotokolls auftreten, stellen ein mächtiges Werkzeug zur Interaktion zwischen allen Entitäten des ADM dar, d.h. zwischen Akteuren, Objekten und Aktivitäten. Die Effekte der Interaktionen werden komplett durch das zugrunde liegende System unterstützt, womit eine konsistente Behandlung ermöglicht ist. Die flexible Einsetzbarkeit, die Anpaßbarkeit und die Erweiterbarkeit der Protokolle ermöglicht einen hohen Grad der Anpassung des ADM an verschiedenste kooperative Prozesse. Damit unterstützt das ADM zum einen Entwurfsprozesse, die teilweise gut strukturiert sind. Zum anderen erlauben die eingeführten Entwurfskonstrukte (bspw. Delegation, Objektzugriffe und Constraints), auch schwächer strukturierte Teilprozesse und damit ein wesentliches Merkmal des Entwurfs bzw. der in dieser Arbeit anvisierten kooperativen Prozesse zu unterstützen. Somit wird erreicht, daß die passendste, unterstützende Technologie für den jeweiligen Teilprozeß verwendet werden kann. Dadurch werden die verschiedenen Anforderungen bezüglich koordinativer, wie auch kooperativer Zusammenarbeit erfüllt.Item Open Access Simulation and optimized scheduling of pedestrian traffic : from geometric modeling to pedestrian navigation(2007) Narasimhan, Srihari; Bungartz, Hans-Joachim (Prof. Dr. rer. nat.)Today, more and more simulation tasks with a traditionally non-geometric background need to be embedded into some geometric context, in order to provide spatial context to non-spatial data. This holds especially true for graph-based applications in some location-aware context. As an example, one might think of a theme park or a large commercial center, where the customers shall be provided with some navigation and scheduling information such as where to go and when - either a priori or even in real time via some mobile device. This can be done by analyzing the pedestrian traffic and waiting time situation by simulating the pedestrian movement and using the simulation data to optimally navigate and schedule the tasks that are to be executed by the customer. The main issues addressed in this thesis are as follows. Initially, a flexible simulation framework is built to simulate the pedestrian movement in a 3D scenario, for example, a commercial building. Since the pedestrians strongly interact with the environment surrounding them, the geometry is taken into account. Architectural data such as paths, type and capacity of the paths, destinations and its properties, etc., is extracted from the CAD-model and are organized in a graph structure. The movement of the pedestrians and the waiting queues at the destinations are modeled as queuing systems using the discrete event simulation technique. These queuing systems are then embedded into the geometry model. The necessary input modeling parameters are also defined. The resulting scenario, when simulated, gives an overview of congestions and waiting times across the scenario for different time stages. Apart from the simulation, the geometry data - or here the graph - is hierarchically organized in an octree structure. An octree-based model is chosen since octrees have the natural property of hierarchically storing 3D data. The octree data is used to identify the position of the pedestrian within the scenario. The potential destinations in the neighborhood that can be visited by the customer are also identified using neighbor search algorithms. Combining the simulation data with the octree modeling, the customer is navigated to the optimal destination. Furthermore, when visiting several destinations, combinatorial optimization methods are used to optimally schedule the set of tasks to be executed by the customer. The optimization methods take into account the congestion information obtained from the simulation data, and the octree structure for navigation. This approach results in an effective pedestrian navigation system.Item Open Access Consistent data replication in mobile ad hoc networks(2007) Hähner, Jörg; Rothermel, Kurt (Prof. Dr.)Mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) are used in situations where networks need to be deployed immediately but no network infrastructure is available. If MANET nodes have sensing capabilities, they can capture and communicate the state of their surroundings, including environmental conditions or objects in their proximity. If the sensed state information is propagated to a database to build a consistent model of the real world, a variety of promising context aware applications becomes possible. The models and concepts proposed in this dissertation can be applied to cooperatively maintain a model of the state of physical world objects on devices in MANETs. State information may be updated by independent observers either sequentially or concurrently. Applications that read the state of any object from the model multiple times can rely on the guarantee that every successive read operation will read either the same state information or newer state information that has been reported by an observer after the previously read information. The first contribution of this dissertation formalizes these requirements and defines a novel consistency model called update-linearizability. Secondly, it introduces a new class of data replication algorithms that provably guarantees update-linearizability in MANETs without using synchronized clocks on any pair of nodes in the system. The presented algorithms allow executing read and write operations at any time, which provides high availability of data. These properties are even maintained in networks that are temporarily partitioned and where nodes are highly mobile. Finally the dissertation provides a proof that all replicas held in the system eventually converge towards the most recent state information of the physical world objects which they represent.Item Open Access System support for adaptive pervasive applications(2009) Handte, Marcus; Rothermel, Kurt (Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Dr. h. c.)Driven by the ongoing miniaturization of computer technology as well as the proliferation of wireless communication technology, Pervasive Computing envisions seamless and distraction-free task support by distributed applications that are executed on computers embedded in everyday objects. As such, this vision is equally appealing to the computer industry and the user. Induced by various factors such as invisible integration, user mobility and computer failures, the resulting computer systems are heterogeneous, highly dynamic and evolving. As a consequence, applications that are executed in these systems need to adapt continuously to their ever-changing execution environment. Without further precautions, the need for adaptation can complicate application development and utilization which hinders the realization of the basic vision. As solution to this dilemma, this dissertation describes the design of system software for Pervasive Computing that simplifies the development of adaptive applications. As opposed to shifting the responsibility for adapting an application to the user or the application developer, the system software introduces a component-based application model that can be configured and adapted automatically. To enable automation at the system level, the application developer specifies the dependencies on components and resources in an abstract manner using contracts. Upon application startup, the system uses the contractual descriptions to compute and execute valid configurations. At runtime, it detects changes to the configuration that require adaptation and it reconfigures the application. To compute valid configurations upon application startup, the dissertation identifies the requirements for configuration algorithms. Based on an analysis of the problem complexity, the dissertation classifies possible algorithmic solutions and it presents an integrated approach for configuration based on a parallel backtracking algorithm. Besides from scenario specific modifications, retrofitting the backtracking algorithm requires a problem mapping from configuration to constraint satisfaction which can be computed on-the-fly at runtime. The resulting approach for configuration is then extended to support the optimization of a cost function that captures the most relevant cost factors during adaptation. This enables the use of the approach for configuration upon startup and reconfiguration during runtime adaptation. As basis for the evaluation of the system software and the algorithm, the dissertation outlines a prototypical implementation. The prototypical implementation is used for a thorough evaluation of the presented concepts and algorithms by means of real world measurements and a number of simulations. The evaluation results suggest that the presented system software can indeed simplify the development of distributed applications that compensate the heterogeneity, dynamics and evolution of the underlying system. Furthermore, they indicate that the algorithm for configuration and the extensions for adaptation provide a sufficiently high performance in typical applications scenarios. Moreover, the results also suggest that they are preferable over of alternative solutions. To position the presented solution within the space of possible and existing solutions, the dissertation discusses major representatives of existing systems and it proposes a classification of the relevant aspects. The relevant aspects are the underlying conceptual model of the system and the distribution of the responsibility for configuration and adaptation. The classification underlines that in contrast to other solutions, the presented solution provides a higher degree of automation without relying on the availability of a powerful computer. Thus, it simplifies the task of the application developer without distracting the user while being applicable to a broader range of scenarios. After discussing the related approaches and clarifying similarities and differences, the dissertation concludes with a short summary and an outlook on future work.Item Open Access Spatial aware geographic Forwarding for mobile ad hoc networks(2002) Tian, Jing; Stepanov, Illya; Rothermel, KurtStateless greedy forwarding based on physical positions of nodes is considered to be more scalable than conventional topology-based routing. However, the stateless nature of geographic forwarding also prevents it from predicting holes in node distribution. Thus, frequent topology holes can significantly degrade the performance of geographic forwarding. So far the approaches mostly depend on excessive state maintenance at nodes to avoid forwarding failures at topology holes. In this paper, we propose and analyse spatial aware geographic forwarding (SAGF), a new approach that proactively avoids constant topology holes caused by spatial constraints while still preserving the advantage of stateless forwarding. Geographic source routes (GSR) based on intermediate locations are selected to bypass topology holes. Proactive route selection based on the spatial knowledge is a general approach, and thus can be used with any geographic forwarding algorithms. We evaluate our approach by extending greedy forwarding with spatial knowledge. Simulation results comparing with GPSR show that even simple spatial information can effectively improve the performance of geographic forwarding.