Mobility: Processes, Computers, and Agents - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0201379287 ISBN 13: 9780201379280

Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional, 1999

Synopsis

The future of computing ever-increasingly lies in ever-increasing mobility
in which computers continue their network operations while physically
changing their location, and code moves from system to system
performing its designated tasks throughout a network.

This book brings together in one single resource the leading edge of
research and practice in three areas of mobility: process migration,
mobile computing, and mobile agents. Presented chronologically, the
papers in this book--each written by leading experts in that particular
area--track the development of critical technologies that have influenced
mobility. Introductions by the editors and original afterwords by many of
the papers' authors provide information on implementation and practical
application, technological context, and updates on the most recent
advances.

The book highlights many common challenges and solutions inherent in
various aspects of mobility: infrastructure, scalability, security, standards,
robustness, naming and locating mobile entities, and more. Individual
papers describe specific research and development in each of the three
major areas, covering such topics as:

An analysis of process migration from the earliest work to contemporary commercial systems
Barriers to effective mobile connectivity, mobile IP, and ubiquitous computing
Descriptions of various mobile agent systems, such as Telescript, Aglets, Agent TCL, and the mobile agent system standard (MASIF)

This selection of influential papers illustrates the evolution of mobile
technology as well as the state of the art of one of the most significant
trends in computing.

About this title

About the Author

Dejan Mil^jicic is a senior scientist at HP Labs, where he leads the kernel internals development of the multi-computer systems group. He has worked on process migration and subsequently on mobile agents in the past 10 years. He is the program chair of the Agent Systems and Applications Symposium (ASA'99), on the editorial board of IEEE Concurrency, and on the executive committee of the IEEE Task Force on Internetworking.

Frederick Douglis is the head of the Distributed Systems Research Department at AT&T Labs--Research. He has worked in the areas of process migration and mobile computing for over a decade. He is the chair of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on the Internet and the past chair of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Operating Systems and Application Environments, and he has chaired numerous conferences including the 1998 USENIX Technical Conference. He is on the editorial boards of World Wide Web and IEEE Internet Computing.

Richard Wheeler is a principal design engineer at EMC Corporation, where he leads an operating systems research group. His process migration experience includes taking part in the development of the MOSIX system, authoring several articles on migration, and co-authoring a book on MOSIX. He has been a senior member of the operating systems team at Thinking Machines Corporation and a Principal Research Engineer at The Open Group's Research Institute.

0201379287AB04062001

From the Back Cover

The future of computing ever-increasingly lies in ever-increasing mobility in which computers continue their network operations while physically changing their location, and code moves from system to system performing its designated tasks throughout a network.

This book brings together in one single resource the leading edge of research and practice in three areas of mobility: process migration, mobile computing, and mobile agents. Presented chronologically, the papers in this book--each written by leading experts in that particular area--track the development of critical technologies that have influenced mobility. Introductions by the editors and original afterwords by many of the papers' authors provide information on implementation and practical application, technological context, and updates on the most recent advances.

The book highlights many common challenges and solutions inherent in various aspects of mobility: infrastructure, scalability, security, standards, robustness, naming and locating mobile entities, and more. Individual papers describe specific research and development in each of the three major areas, covering such topics as:

• An analysis of process migration from the earliest work to contemporary commercial systems
• Barriers to effective mobile connectivity, mobile IP, and ubiquitous computing
• Descriptions of various mobile agent systems, such as Telescript, Aglets, Agent TCL, and the mobile agent system standard (MASIF)

This selection of influential papers illustrates the evolution of mobile technology as well as the state of the art of one of the most significant trends in computing.

0201379287B04062001

From the Inside Flap

History and Goals

This book grew out of a survey paper on process migration. After spending considerable time and effort collecting and sorting several hundred references for that work, we realized that we had almost enough material for a book. Since then, the scope of the book expanded to encompass broader issues in mobility. Mobile agents descend in many ways from earlier work in process migration, both representing a form of logical mobility, while mobile computing is physical mobility. We were struck by some of the similarities and benefits in these seemingly different areas. To the best of our knowledge, these topics are not presented in this combination elsewhere, and this book represents a unique perspective on the literature in this field.

After more than a year of selecting papers, and contacting contributing authors and publishers, we settled on the current selection. Each of the editors brings a different perspective: one has long been active in the development of parallel and distributed operating systems, one worked for several years in mobile computing research, and the third is and has been active in the mobile agents research community.

The goals of this book are threefold. First, we provide a distinguished set of papers related to the three types of mobility, focusing on systems and practical experience. In addition, several of the original authors present afterwords that update and reflect on their original work. Papers and afterwords are presented in Parts II, III, and IV. Second, we hope to transfer our experience in using and building mobile systems to a broad audience. This experience is summarized in the Introduction (Part I) of the book, as well as in the individual introductions to Parts II, III, and IV. Finally, we want to analyze mobility in these forms by exploring the similarities and differences between these approaches as presented in the Summary (Part V). Who Should Read This Book

This book is intended for three sets of readers. The first set includes software architects and practitioners who can draw from the experiences reflected in this book to guide their own projects. The second set includes computer science professors and graduate students for whom the selection of relevant papers could contribute to an advanced course in operating systems or mobile computing. Our final targeted set of readers includes researchers in any of these three areas who can hopefully motivate their own work by an increased exposure to the work of others in these fields.

We organized the book in historical order. First, we present process migration, then mobile computing, and finally mobile agents. Not coincidentally, this parallels the editors' own careers, which began with process migration and then dealt with the other areas. Clearly, different readers can take different approaches when reading this book. Those interested in only one form of mobility can focus on their selected part of the book, but we believe that all readers will benefit from reading papers in each of the fields. Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the work of many people who helped this project. First and foremost, without the support of the authors of the contributed papers included in this collection this book would not exist. We thank those authors for providing their material, and offer particular thanks to those who contributed afterwords with additional commentary.

Our editors at Addison Wesley Longman, Karen Gettman and Mary Hart, were a continuous source of help and encouragement. David Ruddock and Charles Perkins reviewed our original book proposals and gave us and the publishers encouragement to proceed with this project. AWL enlisted several reviewers, Anurag Acharya, Bob Gray, Mor Harchol-Balter, Danny Lange, Bob Pemberton, M. Satyanarayanan, and Jim White, who provided many useful suggestions related to the technical contents and the organization of the book. We are also indebted to our own set of reviewers which includes Philippe Bernadat, Dan Duchamp, Laura Feeney, Mitsuru Oshima, and Jan Vitek. ACM, Baltzer, IEEE, Springer Verlag, USENIX, and Wiley each allowed us to reprint papers that appeared in their own publications. We would like to thank our employers, AT&T and The Open Group Research Institute, who supported our project. Finally, we would like to acknowledge the patience and support of our families, to whom we dedicate this book.

Dejan S. Milojicic, Acton, Massachusetts,
Frederick Douglis, Florham Park, New Jersey, and
Richard Wheeler, Belmont, Massachusetts.
August, 1998

0201379287P04062001

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Preface

History and Goals

This book grew out of a survey paper on process migration. After
spending considerable time and effort collecting and sorting several
hundred references for that work, we realized that we had almost enough
material for a book. Since then, the scope of the book expanded to
encompass broader issues in mobility. Mobile agents descend in many
ways from earlier work in process migration, both representing a form of
logical mobility, while mobile computing is physical mobility. We were
struck by some of the similarities and benefits in these seemingly
different areas. To the best of our knowledge, these topics are not
presented in this combination elsewhere, and this book represents a
unique perspective on the literature in this field.

After more than a year of selecting papers, and contacting contributing
authors and publishers, we settled on the current selection. Each of the
editors brings a different perspective: one has long been active in the
development of parallel and distributed operating systems, one worked
for several years in mobile computing research, and the third is and has
been active in the mobile agents research community.

The goals of this book are threefold. First, we provide a distinguished set
of papers related to the three types of mobility, focusing on systems and
practical experience. In addition, several of the original authors present
afterwords that update and reflect on their original work. Papers and
afterwords are presented in Parts II, III, and IV. Second, we hope to
transfer our experience in using and building mobile systems to a broad
audience. This experience is summarized in the Introduction (Part I) of
the book, as well as in the individual introductions to Parts II, III, and IV.
Finally, we want to analyze mobility in these forms by exploring the
similarities and differences between these approaches as presented in the
Summary (Part V).

Who Should Read This Book

This book is intended for three sets of readers. The first set includes
software architects and practitioners who can draw from the experiences
reflected in this book to guide their own projects. The second set includes
computer science professors and graduate students for whom the
selection of relevant papers could contribute to an advanced course in
operating systems or mobile computing. Our final targeted set of readers
includes researchers in any of these three areas who can hopefully
motivate their own work by an increased exposure to the work of others
in these fields.

We organized the book in historical order. First, we present process
migration, then mobile computing, and finally mobile agents. Not
coincidentally, this parallels the editors' own careers, which began with
process migration and then dealt with the other areas. Clearly, different
readers can take different approaches when reading this book. Those
interested in only one form of mobility can focus on their selected part of
the book, but we believe that all readers will benefit from reading papers
in each of the fields.

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the work of many people who helped this
project. First and foremost, without the support of the authors of the
contributed papers included in this collection this book would not exist.
We thank those authors for providing their material, and offer particular
thanks to those who contributed afterwords with additional commentary.

Our editors at Addison Wesley Longman, Karen Gettman and Mary
Hart, were a continuous source of help and encouragement. David
Ruddock and Charles Perkins reviewed our original book proposals and
gave us and the publishers encouragement to proceed with this project.
AWL enlisted several reviewers, Anurag Acharya, Bob Gray, Mor
Harchol-Balter, Danny Lange, Bob Pemberton, M. Satyanarayanan, and
Jim White, who provided many useful suggestions related to the technical
contents and the organization of the book. We are also indebted to our
own set of reviewers which includes Philippe Bernadat, Dan Duchamp,
Laura Feeney, Mitsuru Oshima, and Jan Vitek. ACM, Baltzer, IEEE,
Springer Verlag, USENIX, and Wiley each allowed us to reprint papers
that appeared in their own publications. We would like to thank our
employers, AT&T and The Open Group Research Institute, who
supported our project. Finally, we would like to acknowledge the patience
and support of our families, to whom we dedicate this book.

Dejan S. Milojicic, Acton, Massachusetts,
Frederick Douglis, Florham Park, New Jersey, and
Richard Wheeler, Belmont, Massachusetts.
August, 1998

Edition details

• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0201379287
• ISBN 13: 9780201379280
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 682
• Editor: Milojicic Dejan S., Douglass Frederick, Wheeler Richard