Improving the Performance, Scalability and Reliability of the Linux Operating System. This project aims to improve the scalability of the Linux operating system to large systems without loss of performance on small, embedded, systems. It will improve Linux robustness and security by de-privileging particularly error-prone code, such as device drivers, without undue impact on performance. It will improve configurability and ease tuning by making critical components, such as processor, disk and me ....Improving the Performance, Scalability and Reliability of the Linux Operating System. This project aims to improve the scalability of the Linux operating system to large systems without loss of performance on small, embedded, systems. It will improve Linux robustness and security by de-privileging particularly error-prone code, such as device drivers, without undue impact on performance. It will improve configurability and ease tuning by making critical components, such as processor, disk and memory schedulers, pluggable and their policies controllable at user level. It will investigate the feasibility and benefits of user-level file systems and processor and memory scheduling and will demonstrate that these can improve system reliability without undermining performance.Read moreRead less
Operating systems meeting the challenges of modern computer architectures. This project will develop operating system techniques that allow extracting the best performance out of modern computer architectures. It will concentrate on the latest architecture, Itanium, whose innovative features make it a particular challenge for operating systems. The techniques will be implemented in the open source Linux operating system and will result in significantly reduced operating system overheads and enh ....Operating systems meeting the challenges of modern computer architectures. This project will develop operating system techniques that allow extracting the best performance out of modern computer architectures. It will concentrate on the latest architecture, Itanium, whose innovative features make it a particular challenge for operating systems. The techniques will be implemented in the open source Linux operating system and will result in significantly reduced operating system overheads and enhanced application performance.Read moreRead less
Mapping Trusted Systems Technologies to E-security Requirements. A new software based approach, strongly guided by national and international security standards based upon mandatory access control, is required to simplify for management the protection of their information infrastructure. This will be in the form of a security definition toolset aligned to trusted systems technologies currently under consideration internationally. No such trusted system has been developed to address current comme ....Mapping Trusted Systems Technologies to E-security Requirements. A new software based approach, strongly guided by national and international security standards based upon mandatory access control, is required to simplify for management the protection of their information infrastructure. This will be in the form of a security definition toolset aligned to trusted systems technologies currently under consideration internationally. No such trusted system has been developed to address current commercial IT product environments. The safety and security of information systems against attack and illicit usage form an essential component of ?National Information Infrastructure Protection (NIIP)?, a move to better ?e-security?. Existing commercial (untrusted) operating systems lack the critical security bases for e-security making e-applications vulnerable to tampering and bypass which can cause failures in overall system security.Read moreRead less
Economic Scheduling for Efficient Management of Clusters and their Cooperative Federation. Clusters of commodity computers have emerged as mainstream parallel and distributed platforms for high-performance computing. They are presented together as a single, unified resource to the end users by middleware technologies such as resource management and scheduling (RMS) systems. However, existing cluster RMS systems continue to use system centric models rather than utility models for the management a ....Economic Scheduling for Efficient Management of Clusters and their Cooperative Federation. Clusters of commodity computers have emerged as mainstream parallel and distributed platforms for high-performance computing. They are presented together as a single, unified resource to the end users by middleware technologies such as resource management and scheduling (RMS) systems. However, existing cluster RMS systems continue to use system centric models rather than utility models for the management and allocation of resources. There is also little emphasis on the construction of a cooperative federation of clusters to facilitate transparent sharing of resources. To enhance the value delivered by shared clusters, we propose the use of computational economy metaphor in resource management. This project aims to develop (A) computational economy based scheduling policies for allocation of resources and (B) a software infrastructure for creation of cooperative federation of distributed clusters.Read moreRead less
A safe and efficient multi-language component framework based on dynamic compilation. Components are a versatile mechanism for the construction of extendible systems and for improved code reusability. Emerging environments like Microsoft's .NET support the interaction of components written in different programming languages. To date, such systems do not adequately isolate components which therefore must trust each other. This is unacceptable for components loaded across the Internet. We will dev ....A safe and efficient multi-language component framework based on dynamic compilation. Components are a versatile mechanism for the construction of extendible systems and for improved code reusability. Emerging environments like Microsoft's .NET support the interaction of components written in different programming languages. To date, such systems do not adequately isolate components which therefore must trust each other. This is unacceptable for components loaded across the Internet. We will develop a framework for secure execution of component software, based on hardware-enforced protection domains. To minimize the resulting runtime overheads we will provide a component model with lightweight context switching. A novel typed intermediate language and dynamic compilation techniques will offer complementary optimisations.
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Dynamic Load Balancing for Systems under Heavy Traffic Demand and High Task Size Variation. Current computer systems cannot cope with extremely heavy traffic demands. A solution to such a difficult problem is to dynamically balance the load across the system's servers. Several solutions have been proposed and demonstrate advances in certain limited conditions (e.g. uniform distribution). However fundamental research work must be undertaken beyond the current way of dealing with the core issues o ....Dynamic Load Balancing for Systems under Heavy Traffic Demand and High Task Size Variation. Current computer systems cannot cope with extremely heavy traffic demands. A solution to such a difficult problem is to dynamically balance the load across the system's servers. Several solutions have been proposed and demonstrate advances in certain limited conditions (e.g. uniform distribution). However fundamental research work must be undertaken beyond the current way of dealing with the core issues of load balancing. Accounting for realistic conditions is a theoretical and practical challenge. This project aims at developing theoretical and computational models for dynamic task distribution for the studied systems. The benefits include substantial improvement of the system response time.Read moreRead less
Megha: Utility-Oriented Federation of Cloud Computing Environments for Scaling of Application Services. In the next 20 years, service-oriented computing will play an important role in shaping the industry, impacting the way business is conducted and how services are delivered and managed. This paradigm will have major impact on the services economy, which contributes significantly towards Australia's GDP. With the increased demand for delivering services to a large number of users, providers are ....Megha: Utility-Oriented Federation of Cloud Computing Environments for Scaling of Application Services. In the next 20 years, service-oriented computing will play an important role in shaping the industry, impacting the way business is conducted and how services are delivered and managed. This paradigm will have major impact on the services economy, which contributes significantly towards Australia's GDP. With the increased demand for delivering services to a large number of users, providers are looking for novel ways of hosting their application services on Clouds at low cost while meeting users' quality of service expectations. This project develops novel utility-oriented technologies for federation of Clouds to support scaling of application services and thereby, transform the Australian service industry and economy.Read moreRead less
Service Level Agreement (SLA)-oriented Resource Allocation for Data Centers and Cloud Computing Systems. In the next 20 years, service-oriented computing will play an important role in shaping the industry and the way business is conducted and services are delivered and managed. This paradigm will have major impact on service economy, which contributes significantly towards Australia's GDP. The service sector, which includes health, financial, and government services, involves significant intera ....Service Level Agreement (SLA)-oriented Resource Allocation for Data Centers and Cloud Computing Systems. In the next 20 years, service-oriented computing will play an important role in shaping the industry and the way business is conducted and services are delivered and managed. This paradigm will have major impact on service economy, which contributes significantly towards Australia's GDP. The service sector, which includes health, financial, and government services, involves significant interaction between clients and providers. With increasing dependency on ICT technologies in their realization, major advances are required in service-driven allocation of resources to competing applications. This project develops technologies for Service Level Agreement (SLA)-based allocation of Data Center/Cloud computing system resources to applications.Read moreRead less
InterGrid: Peering Architecture and Policies for Internetworking Disparate Grids. Grid computing enables the creation of Cyberinfrastructure for e-Research applications. It is recognised as one of the top five emerging technologies that will have a major impact on the quality of science and society over the next 20 years. Several nations around the world including Australia have developed their own national Grids based on the notion of virtual organisations. These dispersed Grid initiatives have ....InterGrid: Peering Architecture and Policies for Internetworking Disparate Grids. Grid computing enables the creation of Cyberinfrastructure for e-Research applications. It is recognised as one of the top five emerging technologies that will have a major impact on the quality of science and society over the next 20 years. Several nations around the world including Australia have developed their own national Grids based on the notion of virtual organisations. These dispersed Grid initiatives have resulted in Grid islands without any support for peering arrangements between them. This limitation will not allow us to realise full potential of the Grid computing paradigm. This InterGrid project aims to revolutionise Grid computing by developing new technologies for peering of Grids.Read moreRead less
Quality of Service-based Scheduling of e-Research Application Workflows on Global Grids. e-Research has the potential to offer Australia significant economic and social benefits as it enables researchers from different disciplines and organisations to engage in collaborative scientific investigation. In e-Research environments, users need to have secure access to remote resources owned by different organisations. Since these resources are not directly under the control of e-Research applications ....Quality of Service-based Scheduling of e-Research Application Workflows on Global Grids. e-Research has the potential to offer Australia significant economic and social benefits as it enables researchers from different disciplines and organisations to engage in collaborative scientific investigation. In e-Research environments, users need to have secure access to remote resources owned by different organisations. Since these resources are not directly under the control of e-Research applications, they need to negotiate with resource providers for access time, duration, and the level of quality of service expected to make sure that the interlinked operations are performed as required. This project develops information and communications technologies that enable the creation of such e-Research environments.Read moreRead less