NAVF/NAVF.grp6.html

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   3 Informatikk: Research and Teaching in Norway, group 6, Tromsø
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   7 <H1>Informatikk:<Br>
   8 Research and Teaching in Norway<br>
   9 A Critical Evaluation</H1>
  10
  11 <H4>NAVF: The Council for Natural Science Research 1992, ISBN 82-7216-813-0</H4>
  12 (c) The Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities<br>
  13 <hr>
  14 Page 34-35. Copied with the authorization of NAVF, Rune Dyre, by
  15 <A HREF="/~petterr">Petter Reinholdtsen</A> - petterr@stud.cs.uit.no
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  17
  18 <H1>Distributed Operation Systems and Distributed Computations</H1>
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  20 <hr>
  21 <DL>
  22 <DT>Permanent scientific positions<hr>
  23 <DD><UL>
  24 <LI>2 Associate Professors: Anshus, Hartvigsen
  25 <LI>3 Assistant Professors: Fallmyr, Johansen, Larsen
  26 </UL>
  27 <DT>Students<hr>
  28 <DD><UL>
  29 <LI>2   Doctoral students (1 is assisting professor and 1 is
  30 associated professor)
  31 <LI>23  Graduate students:
  32 <UL>
  33 <LI>14 Cand. scient. (4 of these have principal supervisor outside
  34 the department)
  35 <LI> 9 Siv.ing. (1 of these has principal supervisor outside the department)
  36 </UL>
  37 </UL>
  38 <DT>Theses last 5 years (1988-may 1992)<hr>
  39 <DD><UL><LI>13
  40 <UL><LI>6 Cand.scient. theses and
  41 <LI>7 Siv.ing. theses<hr>
  42 </UL>
  43 </UL>
  44 </DL>
  45
  46 <H2>Research activity</H2>
  47
  48 The research of this group concerns distributed operating systems,
  49 both for networks and for parallel processors. The three research
  50 components are: <P>
  51 <UL>
  52 <LI> MacroScope Project,
  53 <LI> Monitoring Project, and
  54 <LI> StormCast Project.
  55 </UL> <P>
  56
  57 The MacroScope Project analyzes abstractions to see how they can
  58 support monitoring and control of large distributed systems. The group
  59 is building a new kernel of an operating system that provides a
  60 shared-memory model using messages-based communication. It can reduce
  61 the information transmitted using a new abstraction for state
  62 vectors. The group is building a file system and a scheduler to
  63 support the shared-memory architecture as well. <P>
  64
  65 The Monitoring Project wants to evaluate the performance of monitors
  66 in distributed systems, specifically by the creation of a distributed
  67 monitor architecture. Their project also develops languages to specify
  68 states and events to be monitored.  <P>
  69
  70 The StormCast Project includes distributed applications and expert
  71 systems. The application currently investigated involves many sensing
  72 devices for a Cray supercomputer that does weather forecasting. The
  73 weather predicted by the Cray is broadcast twice a day to all ships at
  74 sea. As the weather predicted uses a large grid over a region, the
  75 weather at the ship may be very different from the predicted weather
  76 for a region. The expert system takes the predicted weather, the data
  77 from the sensors on that ship, and the information transmitted from
  78 other ships to adjust the local weather prediction. The StormCast
  79 application will be used to evaluate the distributed monitors
  80 mentioned above. <P>
  81
  82 <H2>Observations</H2>
  83
  84 The group is young, enthusiastic and is attacking an important
  85 task. This youth likely explains the lack of appreciation for a sharp
  86 focus to their research. Having an application to drive the system
  87 work is an excellent idea. Each member for the group knows what the
  88 others are doing, and as a result they are trying to use each other's
  89 concepts. <P>
  90
  91 The group has brought in an impressing list of visitors in distributed
  92 operating systems; the primary reason seems to be that they organized
  93 four workshops concerning distributed systems in the last four years
  94 in or near Tromsø. <P>
  95
  96 Perhaps as a result of the workshops, the group seems to be well
  97 informed about the work being done internationally in this
  98 area. However, they are building systems similar to systems being
  99 built by others, and so there is the danger that their work may not
 100 lead to publishable results or to doctoral dissertations. <P>
 101
 102 They have a nice model of developing software to be used in the
 103 field. Prototype software is developed at the university and then
 104 given to the company responsible for the commercial version of the
 105 software that will run on the ships. This allows the group to develop
 106 ideas and to see them used without having the responsibility of
 107 software maintenance. <P>
 108
 109 <H2>Recommendations</H2>
 110
 111 "Storm Cast" is a very ambitious project, but the group is working on
 112 an interesting approach. There is concern that the group did not have
 113 well defined scientific goals at the start of the project. The group
 114 should identify those goals soon.  <P>
 115
 116 There is also concern that in the rush to finish an ambitious project
 117 research objectives will be abandoned, or that results achieved will
 118 not be published. <P>
 119
 120 Publishing has to be an important concern for this project. It will
 121 help to get Ph.D.s for faculty members, which is also a high priority
 122 item recommended to the group. <P>
 123
 124 <A HREF="NAVF.grp7.html">Group 7: Open Distributed Systems (ODS)
 125 </A> <P>
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