1997-1998 Distinguished Lectures

ABSTRACT

Scout is a communication-oriented operating system targeted at network appliances; e.g., network cameras and disks, individual nodes in scalable servers, hand-held and portable devices, and set-top boxes. One of the central ideas in Scout is the {\it path abstraction}, which is essentially the extension of a network connection into the host operating system. Scout makes the path its primary abstraction, with resource allocation, scheduling, optimizations, fault-isolation, and security done on a per-path basis. This talk motivates Scout's design, defines the path abstraction, and reports our experiences using Scout to build a variety of network appliances.

PAUL MOCKAPETRIS

Software.Com
The Evolving Role of Naming and Directory Services

Thursday
January 22
1998

No abstract available

M. SATYANARAYANAN

Carnegie Mellon Univeristy
Mobile Computing: Challenges and Opportunities

DATE: Thursday, Feb. 26, 1998
TIME: 4:30pm - 6:00pm
PLACE: 3400 Boelter Hall
Cookies and coffee served at 4:00pm

ABSTRACT

Wireless networks and powerful portable computers are here today. Soon there will be a proliferation of hand-held and wearable computers of every variety imaginable. How will users of mobile computers access information from shared data repositories? Why is this a difficult task? What is the state of the art in this area? What lies ahead?

This talk will begin by examining the intrinsic constraints of mobile information access. These constraints lead to the inescapable conclusion that adaptation is a critical requirement for mobile systems. I will present a taxonomy of adaptation strategies, and explore their impact on the traditional client-server model. I will then discuss the key concepts underlying Coda and Odyssey, two experimental systems for mobile information access built my research group over the last decade. The experience we have gained with these systems reveals a number of deep conceptual issues that have relevance outside mobile computing. The concluding part of the talk will examine these issues and discuss their implications.

BIOGRAPHY

Professor Satyanarayanan is an experimental computer scientist who has pioneered research in the field of mobile information access. He developed the Coda File System, an application-transparent support for disconnected and weakly-connected operations. These ideas have been incorporated by Microsoft into a forthcoming release of the Windows NT file system.

His research group has been working on application-aware adaptation, the concept of this new platform, Odyssey. Prior to Coda and Odyssey, he was a principal architect and implementor of the Andrew File System, a location-transparent distributed Unix file system that addressed issues of scale and security.

Satyanarayanan is the Carnegie Group Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. He received the PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon, after Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He has been a consultant and advisor to many industrial and governmental organizations.

ROBERT W. BRODERSEN

University of California, Berkeley
A Retrospective of the InfoPad Project - Accomplishments and Challenges

Tuesday
May 5
1998

ABSTRACT

The InfoPad project was started at UC Berkeley in 1992 to investigate the issues involved in providing multimedia information access using a portable, wireless terminal. It quickly became clear that a key design constraint was the energy consumption, which could best be addressed through an integrated system approach. The project was therefore organized to address all design levels, including the applications and user interface, backbone network protocols, software for distributed network support, the wireless link, and the pad itself which used a number of low voltage ASIC designs and a processor running embedded code. Tools were developed when not available (particularly in support of low energy design), as well as an interface to mechanical designers who created a custom injection molded case. The wide scope of the project presented a number of unique challenges for a research environment and the lessons learn will be presented.