Current Research Projects
- DISSP - Dependable Internet-Scale Stream Processing (funded by the EPSRC 2008-2011)
- In the DISSP project, we investigate techniques for reliably processing large amounts of stream data coming from globally distributed sources, such as sensor networks. In order for a global stream processing system to provide a robust service to thousands of users, we develop approaches that degrade processing quality in a controlled fashion in response to resource shortages caused by failure or overload.
- SmartFlow - Extendable Event-Based Middleware (funded by the EPSRC 2008-2011)
- Current middleware is unable to adapt to the special requirements of healthcare applications in terms of auditing, controlled information flow, privacy and access control. The SmartFlow project investigates a lightweight architecture for building messaging middleware from a set of dynamic middleware extensions. Healthcare applications can express their requirements as extensions and push them into an intelligent middleware layer, simplifying applications design and improving performance.
- Ukairo - Application-specific Detour Routing
- Distributed Internet applications would like to control the quality-of-service (QoS) properties of the communication paths that they use. In the Ukairo project, we investigate scalable detour routing algorithms that can improve Internet QoS properties, such as available bandwidth, loss, latency and jitter, by carefully selecting detour hops in an overlay network. The goal is to enable Internet applications to receive their own, custom-tailored Internet routes.
- Flexible Future Networks (funded by the Mobile VCE and the EPSRC 2009-2010)
- Pyxida / Network Coordinates for Internet Applicatons
- Network coordinates (NCs) embed latency measurements between Internet nodes in a metric coordinate system. We have evaluated NCs as a means for performing nearest neighbour lookups on the Internet. Our research has led to new evaluation metrics and techniques for improving their accuracy and stability. In addition, we have experimented with geometric overlay routing using NCs. In the Pyxida project, we provide an open source implementation of NCs and run a public network coordinate service on PlanetLab.
Past Research Projects
- SBON - Stream-Based Overlay Networks
- An SBON is an overlay network that provides a common substrate for running multiple stream-processing applications on the Internet. It simplifies the construction of stream-processing applications by taking care of query instantiation, resource allocation, and dynamic query optimisation as network conditions change.
- Hermes - Scalable Event-Based Middleware
- Hermes is a scalable event-based middleware that uses peer-to-peer techniques for the content-based routing of events in an overlay network of event brokers.
- DistCED - Distributed Composite Event Detection
- To ensure that event clients are not overwhelmed by the number of low-level events, DistCED is a service that allows the distributed detection of composite event patterns. DistCED uses extended finite state machines to detect event patterns on top of an existing publish/subscribe middleware.
