Distributed Application Framework

Index:

Abstract
Calendar
Project Development
Findings and Contributions
Links and References
Return to Europa

Abstract:

Many algorithms and applications have subtasks that do not need to be run in sequence, they can be run in parallel. Although multitasking systems give the illusion of concurrency, in the end, the system has a fixed number of processors. If a programmer could specify that parallizable tasks be run on different computers (and therefore different processors), then run time of the overall algorithm will decrease. Ideally, this functionality should be as transparent to the client programmer as possible.

Calendar:

There are no specified meeting times. Groups members are expected to work on the project whenever possible in order to meet the projected completion time of 12-01-03(actually, this might be a little optimistic :-).



05-19-03
• Preliminary design concepts established
• Questions about design details prepared for initial presentation to the Europa group

05-20-03
• Presented to the Europa group. Design issues and suggestions noted
05-31-03
• Very specific design issues addressed
  1. Task format (.dll and .so files)
  2. Data transfer and object serializability (in progress)
  3. Portability (build portability issues into the protocol)
  4. Network messaging formats and order
  5. Client specification of propagatability of tasks
  6. something else I can't remember right now

06-01-03 to 08-05-03
• Aaron worked on the server model and learned how to get .dlls and network programming to work
• Eugene worked on the client model, the client programmer's interface to the distributed network and conceptual issues like load balancing, data identifiers, and other possible problems

08-10-03
• Meeting to rethink the model
  1. Data to be transfered in the form of files now (allows for greater decoupling)
  2. Further specification of what the responsibilities of the client programmer are
  3. Models changed to easily accompany differences in client programmer's programming language, differences in OS between the server and client, and scaling the size of the distributed network
  4. Brainstormed general ideas for plug-ins (e.g. security, network protocols, graphics, etc.)
  5. Server model changed to allow for run-time updates (of the server itself)

08-12-03
• Templatized Function_Table class created for generalized handling of network messages and implementing plug-ins

08-19-03 to 08-29-03
• We mostly worked on coding up the ideas that we agreed on in the meetings.

Project Development:

The introductory presentation to this project is available [PPT].
Function Table

Findings and Contributions:

This project is a lot harder than it sounded at the beginning (i.e. consists of parts that are worthy of being their own projects :-(     )

Links and References:

  Return to Europa