一种针对可信计算平台的分布式可信验证机制

可信计算技术在提高系统安全性的同时,也给用户使用计算机带来了诸多限制。为了解决自由软件等未授权程序的可信验证问题,提出了一种基于可信计算的分布式可信验证机制（DTVMTC）。该机制以庞大的Internet用户群为基础,通过网络数据统计的方法,实现对应用程序的可信验证,从而解决了对无可信来源但实际可信的应用程序进行可信验证的问题,保障了用户使用可信计算平台的自由。在Windows平台实现了DTVMTC的原型,实验结果表明DTVMTC能够实现预定目标且具有良好的性能。     

Automatic verification of distributed systems: The process algebra approach

A survey of tools for the analysis of distributed systems represented through process algebras is presented. The tools are compared with respect to a set of qualitative parameters. From this analysis, the properties which are desirable for concurrency tools are investigated. Criteria to evaluate the suitability of a tool with respect to a particular user are proposed.     

基于星球机器人分布计算系统的原子组播协议

针对星球机器人分布计算系统容错的可靠组播通信,提出了一种基于向量时间的原子组组播协议.协议从星球机器人分布计算系统及通信模型的特点出发,使用向量时间和令牌进程来标识和保证全局投递顺序,通过令牌进程对不稳定消息的转发和两阶段提交来保证投递原子性和虚同步.模拟实验表明,协议提供了一个代价较小的可靠组播方法,具有快速和轻量的优点.     

Scheduling in distributed systems: A cloud computing perspective

Scheduling is essentially a decision-making process that enables resource sharing among a number of activities by determining their execution order on the set of available resources. The emergence of distributed systems brought new challenges on scheduling in computer systems, including clusters, grids, and more recently clouds. On the other hand, the plethora of research makes it hard for both newcomers researchers to understand the relationship among different scheduling problems and strategies proposed in the literature, which hampers the identification of new and relevant research avenues. In this paper we introduce a classification of the scheduling problem in distributed systems by presenting a taxonomy that incorporates recent developments, especially those in cloud computing. We review the scheduling literature to corroborate the taxonomy and analyze the interest in different branches of the proposed taxonomy. Finally, we identify relevant future directions in scheduling for distributed systems.     

Robust scalable stabilisability conditions for large-scale heterogeneous multi-agent systems with uncertain nonlinear interactions: towards a distributed computing architecture

Large-scale dynamic systems are becoming highly pervasive in their occurrence with applications ranging from system biology, environment monitoring, sensor networks, and power systems. They are characterised by high dimensionality, complexity, and uncertainty in the node dynamic/interactions that require more and more computational demanding methods for their analysis and control design, as well as the network size and node system/interaction complexity increase. Therefore, it is a challenging problem to find scalable computational method for distributed control design of large-scale networks. In this paper, we investigate the robust distributed stabilisation problem of large-scale nonlinear multi-agent systems (briefly MASs) composed of non-identical (heterogeneous) linear dynamical systems coupled by uncertain nonlinear time-varying interconnections. By employing Lyapunov stability theory and linear matrix inequality (LMI) technique, new conditions are given for the distributed control design of large-scale MASs that can be easily solved by the toolbox of MATLAB. The stabilisability of each node dynamic is a sufficient assumption to design a global stabilising distributed control. The proposed approach improves some of the existing LMI-based results on MAS by both overcoming their computational limits and extending the applicative scenario to large-scale nonlinear heterogeneous MASs. Additionally, the proposed LMI conditions are further reduced in terms of computational requirement in the case of weakly heterogeneous MASs, which is a common scenario in real application where the network nodes and links are affected by parameter uncertainties. One of the main advantages of the proposed approach is to allow to move from a centralised towards a distributed computing architecture so that the expensive computation workload spent to solve LMIs may be shared among processors located at the networked nodes, thus increasing the scalability of the approach than the network size. Finally, a numerical example shows the applicability of the proposed method and its advantage in terms of computational complexity when compared with the existing approaches.     

On principles in engineering of distributed computing systems

Engineering of distributed computing systems requires understanding of principles of complex systems, which have not been yet identified. To address the situation we use a concept of structural complexity and present results of computational experiments suggesting the possibility of a general optimality condition of complex systems. The optimality condition introduces the structural complexity of a system as a key to its optimization.     

Reliability-aware scheduling strategy for heterogeneous distributed computing systems

Heterogeneous computing systems are promising computing platforms, since single parallel architecture based systems may not be sufficient to exploit the available parallelism with the running applications. In some cases, heterogeneous distributed computing (HDC) systems can achieve higher performance with lower cost than single-machine supersystems. However, in HDC systems, processors and networks are not failure free and any kind of failure may be critical to the running applications. One way of dealing with such failures is to employ a reliable scheduling algorithm. Unfortunately, most existing scheduling algorithms for precedence constrained tasks in HDC systems do not adequately consider reliability requirements of inter-dependent tasks. In this paper, we design a reliability-driven scheduling architecture that can effectively measure system reliability, based on an optimal reliability communication path search algorithm, and then we introduce reliability priority rank (RRank) to estimate the task’s priority by considering reliability overheads. Furthermore, based on directed acyclic graph (DAG) we propose a reliability-aware scheduling algorithm for precedence constrained tasks, which can achieve high quality of reliability for applications. The comparison studies, based on both randomly generated graphs and the graphs of some real applications, show that our scheduling algorithm outperforms the existing scheduling algorithms in terms of makespan, scheduling length ratio, and reliability. At the same time, the improvement gained by our algorithm increases as the data communication among tasks increases.     

MidHDC: Advanced topics on middleware services for heterogeneous distributed computing. Part 2

Currently distributes systems support different computing paradigms like Cluster Computing, Grid Computing, Peer-to-Peer Computing, and Cloud Computing all involving elements of heterogeneity. These computing distributed systems are often characterized by a variety of resources that may or may not be coupled with specific platforms or environments. All these topics challenge today researchers, due to the strong dynamic behavior of the user communities and of resource collections they use.The second part of this special issue presents advances in allocation algorithms, service selection, VM consolidation and mobility policies, scheduling multiple virtual environments and scientific workflows, optimization in scheduling process, energy-aware scheduling models, failure Recovery in shared Big Data processing systems, distributed transaction processing middleware, data storage, trust evaluation, information diffusion, mobile systems, integration of robots in Cloud systems.     

A uniform approach for programming distributed heterogeneous computing systems

Large-scale compute clusters of heterogeneous nodes equipped with multi-core CPUs and GPUs are getting increasingly popular in the scientific community. However, such systems require a combination of different programming paradigms making application development very challenging.In this article we introduce libWater, a library-based extension of the OpenCL programming model that simplifies the development of heterogeneous distributed applications. libWater consists of a simple interface, which is a transparent abstraction of the underlying distributed architecture, offering advanced features such as inter-context and inter-node device synchronization. It provides a runtime system which tracks dependency information enforced by event synchronization to dynamically build a DAG of commands, on which we automatically apply two optimizations: collective communication pattern detection and device-host-device copy removal.We assess libWater’s performance in three compute clusters available from the Vienna Scientific Cluster, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and the University of Innsbruck, demonstrating improved performance and scaling with different test applications and configurations.     

A taxonomy and survey of grid resource management systems for distributed computing

The resource management system is the central component of distributed network computing systems. There have been many projects focused on network computing that have designed and implemented resource management systems with a variety of architectures and services. In this paper, an abstract model and a comprehensive taxonomy for describing resource management architectures is developed. The taxonomy is used to identify approaches followed in the implementation of existing resource management systems for very large‐scale network computing systems known as Grids. The taxonomy and the survey results are used to identify architectural approaches and issues that have not been fully explored in the research. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Esperanto Broker: a communication platform for nomadic computing systems

There is an increasing demand for middleware for nomadic computing applications. Owing to the inherent characteristics of such environments, these platforms have to address two fundamental issues: (i) device disconnections and the limitations of wireless networks may force users to experience short periods of service unavailability; and (ii) the complexity to design and develop next‐generation mobile computing applications. This paper proposes the Esperanto Broker (EB), a communication platform that addresses mobility issues via an integrated approach, i.e. at data‐link, network, and middleware levels. Decoupling interactions are achieved via a tuple‐space underlying infrastructure. To support developers with advanced services, the EB enhances the distributed objects computing model providing the abstraction for the communication paradigms standardized by the W3C. Esperanto applications can be modeled as sets of objects that are distributed over mobile devices, which communicate via remote method invocations (RMIs). RMIs natively implement pull and push models, in both one‐to‐one and one‐to‐many multiplicity. The paper focuses on the EB design issues, essential aspects of the implementation, and performance evaluations of the implemented prototype. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于Agent的分布式模型形式化语义描述

为解决分布式系统构建过程中系统组合和语义验证等方面的问题,基于范畴理论和进程代数,为基于Agent的分布式系统模型提出了一种形式化的语义描述框架。范畴图表用于描述整个系统的结构模型,态射用来表示系统各组成部分之间的交互和协作机制。在此基础上,对Agent规范的描述、组合、精化以及迁移过程中的语义保持问题进行了探讨。应用研究表明,该框架适用于分布式系统模型的描述和构建,有助于分析系统分解和组合的正确性。     

Modular abstractions for verifying real-time distributed systems

In this work we present a verification methodology for real-time distributed systems, based on their modular decomposition into processes. Given a distributed system, each of its components is reduced by abstracting away from details that are irrelevant for the required specification. The abstract components are then composed to form an abstract system to which a model checking procedure is applied. The abstraction relation and the specification language guarantee that if the abstract system satisfies a specification, then the original system satisfies it as well.The specification languageRTL is a branching-time version of the real-time temporal logicTPTL presented in Alur and Henzinger [1]. Its model checking is linear in the size of the system and exponential in the size of the formula. Two notions of abstraction for real-time systems are introduced, each preserving a sublanguage ofRTL.     

Markov-chain based reliability analysis for distributed systems

In a typical distributed computing system (DCS), nodes consist of processing elements, memory units, shared resources, data files, and programs. For a distributed application, programs and data files are distributed among many processing elements that may exchange data and control information via communication link. The reliability of DCS can be expressed by the analysis of distributed program reliability (DPR) and distributed system reliability (DSR). In this paper, two reliability measures are introduced which are Markov-chain distributed program reliability (MDPR) and Markov-chain distributed system reliability (MDSR) to accurately model the reliability of DCS. A discrete time Markov chain with one absorbing state is constructed for this problem. The transition probability matrix is employed to represent the transition probability from one state to another state in a unit of time. In addition to mathematical method to evaluate the MDPR and MDSR, a simulation result is also presented to prove its correction.     

A Dynamic Load Balancing Mechanism for Distributed Systems

It is desirable in a distributed system to have the system load balanced evenly among the nodes so that the mean job response time is minimized.In this paper,we present a dynamic load balancing mechanism(DLB).It adopts a cntralized approach and is network topology independent.The DLB mechanism employs a set of threscholds which are automatically adjusted as the system load changes.It also provides a simple mechanism for the system to switch between periodic and instantaneous load balancing policies with ease.The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated by intensive simulations for various parameters.Te simulation results show that the mean job response time in a system implementing DLB algorithm is significantly lower than the same system without load balancings.Furthermore,compared with a previously proposed algorithm,DLB algorithm demonstrates improved performance,especially when the system is heavily loaded and the load is unevenly distributed.     

A framework of auto-adapting distributed object for mobile computing

The low bandwidth hinders the development of mobile computing.Besides providing relatively higher bandwidth on communication layer,constructing adaptable upper application is important.In this paper,a framework of autoadapting distributed object is proposed,and evaluating methods of object performance are given as well.Bistributed objects can abjust their behaviors automatically in the framework and keep in relatively good performance to serve requests of remote applications.It is an efficient way to implement the performance transparency for mobile clients.     

基于进程通信的电力系统分布式计算模型

当前,在电力系统分布式计算领域,缺乏一种通用的计算模型以满足各种电力系统分布式计算的基础需求。基于此,分析了电力系统分布式计算的特点,从软件设计的角度出发,抽象出其中的节点行为模型,并针对此提出了一种可广泛适用于电力系统分布式计算的,基于进程通信的计算模型。实际应用表明,该模型可以有效地应用于电力系统的分布式计算中。     

An energy-aware virtual machines consolidation method for cloud computing: Simulation and verification

Cloud systems have become an essential part of our daily lives owing to various Internet-based services. Consequently, their energy utilization has also become a necessary concern in cloud computing systems increasingly. Live migration, including several virtual machines (VMs) packed on in minimal physical machines (PMs) as virtual machines consolidation (VMC) technique, is an approach to optimize power consumption. In this article, we have proposed an energy-aware method for the VMC problem, which is called energy-aware virtual machines consolidation (EVMC), to optimize the energy consumption regarding the quality of service guarantee, which comprises: (1) the support vector machine classification method based on the utilization rate of all resource of PMs that is used for PM detection in terms of the amount' load; (2) the modified minimization of migration approach which is used for VM selection; (3) the modified particle swarm optimization which is implemented for VM placement. Also, the evaluation of the functional requirements of the method is presented by the formal method and the non-functional requirements by simulation. Finally, in contrast to the standard greedy algorithms such as modified best fit decreasing, the EVMC decreases the active PMs and migration of VMs, respectively, 30%, 50% on average. Also, it is more efficient for the energy 30% on average, resources and the balance degree 15% on average in the cloud.     

基于树型层次结构的计算资源共享与聚集

提出并描述了一个基于树型层次结构的计算资源共享与聚集系统(tree-based layered sharing and aggregation,TLSA).TLSA系统由对等网络环境下的空闲节点组成,形成一个类似B树的层次结构,使在节点加入和退出的时候可以自动的维持平衡.树型结构的网络拓扑通过自组织的可用性协议来维护,保证了系统的比较低的消息通信量和平衡的处理器负载.通过内部的资源发现协议,节点可以寻找到系统中最近最合适的空闲计算资源来完成大量的子任务.通过模拟测试结果表明对于大规模的子任务,TLSA可以在很短的时间内寻找到空闲资源,而且网络消息通信量不超过O(logmN),具有低消息通信量、非集中性、可扩展性、自组织等特性.     

Automatic verification for a class of distributed systems

Summary. The paper presents a new analysis method for a class of concurrent systems which are formed of several interacting components with the same structure. The model for these systems is composed of a control process and a set of homogeneous user processes. The control and user processes are modeled by finite labeled state transition systems which interact by means of enabling functions and triggering mechanisms. Based on this structure, an analysis method is presented which allows system properties, derived by reachability analysis for a finite number of user processes, to be generalized to an arbitrary number of user processes. A procedure for the automatic verification of properties such as mutual exclusion and absence of deadlocks is presented and is then used to provide for the first time a fully automated verification of the Lamport's fast mutual exclusion algorithm. Received: October 1998/Accepted January 2000