Keynote Speaker

Abstract

A Goal-Oriented Approach for Telecom BPM
The talk outlines an autonomic approach to business process management in the Telecom domain using goal-oriented principles and autonomous agent technology. We present and show how to use the Goal-Oriented Business Process Modeling Notation (GO-BPMN) to model eTom processes. We also introduce LS/ABPM, an agent-base runtime environment able to execute GO-BPMN processes.

Biography

Dr. Monique Calisti is Head of Innovation of the Telecom Systems Group at Whitestein Technologies AG. She is currently responsible for Whitestein’s participation and technical contribution to various national and international research projects and several other activities, such as business development, consulting, scientific editing, publishing, and students’ supervision. Dr. Calisti is member of the Board of Directors for the Autonomic Communication Forum and she has also been actively involved in the activity of the IEEE FIPA standardisation body.

Abstract

Model Based Reactive Planning and Prediction for Autonomic Systems

Biography

Dr. Peter H. Deussen studied computer science at the Technical University at Berlin and received his PhD on automatic verification of distributed systems in 2001 from the Technical University at Cottbus. After joining the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS) in the same year, he worked on test system validation, policy based management, performance testing and QoS validation for next generation networks, and supervision approaches for autonomic software systems. He currently leads the Autonomic Systems Engineering working group at FOKUS.

Abstract

A Peer-to-Peer Middleware Platform for Highly Scalable and Dependable Services
Extremely scalable systems can support global access from millions of users to thousands services running on a very large number of geographically spread compute nodes. Services can be replicated at many nodes for performance and availability, thereby creating overlapping domains with most nodes being both consumers and producers. Further more, the deployment of services on nodes may be dynamic and dependent upon the relative load incurred upon the nodes. Scalable systems are expected to be autonomous, easy to assemble, grow, and use. Such patterns are motivated by emerging platforms like converged servicers, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), 3D world, the evolution of SOA and Web 2.0. We believe that a peer-to-peer publish/subscribe messaging infrastructure can serve as a foundation for these modern platforms. In this talk we present a blueprint for the future platforms. In this context, we introduce SpiderCast, a distributed protocol for constructing scalable churn-resistant overlay topologies for supporting decentralized topic-based pub/sub communication. SpiderCast is designed to effectively tread the balance between average overlay degree and communication cost of event dissemination. It is unique in maintaining an overlay topology that scales well with the average number of topics a node is subscribed to, assuming the subscriptions are correlated insofar as found in most typical workloads. Furthermore, the degree grows logarithmically in the total number of topics, and slowly decreases as the number of nodes increases.

Biography

Eliezer Dekel is managing the Distributed Middleware group in the IBM Haifa Research Lab. He led the development of the Distribution and Consistency Services (DCS) component for WebSphere. The DCS component is the foundation for WebSphere's High Availability. It is the first virtual synchrony group communication implementation that is part of commercial application server. Another technology developed by the Distributed Middleware group is the RMM a high throughput low latency publish/subscribe messaging technology. RMM is used by Reuters in their RMDS infrastructure. Eliezer Dekel is a University Ambassador to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  Since joining the Haifa Research Lab in 1992, he has been involved in research in the areas of distributed and fault-tolerant computing, service-oriented technology, and software engineering.  He is currently working on technologies for providing Quality of Service, with a focus on dependability, in very large scale multi-tier environment. Eliezer has a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in computer science from the University of Minnesota, and a B.Sc. in mathematics from Ben Gurion University, Israel. Prior to joining the IBM Haifa Research Lab, Eliezer served on the faculty of the University of Texas at Dallas computer science department for over ten years. He is also a subject area editor for the Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing.

Abstract

Distributed Service Framework: an innovative open eco-system for ICT/Telecommunications
In order to fuel new emerging service markets, next generation service delivery framework have to be based on an highly distributed and open architectures adopting innovative technologies capable of enabling features such as robustness, security, stability and scalability. The talk will elaborate on RTD activities and results concerning a Distributed Service Framework (DSF) solution that has been designed as an innovative open eco-system for ICT/Telecommunications services Specifically, the DSF architecture is based on multiple autonomic components that are interacting each other via a self-organising overlay. Particular attention is devoted to the service execution environment of the DSF where scalability and dynamic load balancing are met by self-organization capabilities of the components. The design choices, specifically the autonomic and altruistic local behavior of components and Service Space, enable global features effortlessly, simplifying implementation and management complexities.  

Biography

Corrado Moiso received his M.Sc degree in Computer Science at University of Torino in 1984; in the same year he joined Telecom Italia Lab (formerly CSELT). In 1984-1989, he was involved in the design and implementation of logic and functional languages. In 1990-1994, his activities concerned distributed processing technologies and their application in telecommunication domain. Since 1994, he has been contributing to the introduction of information technologies in the network intelligence solution of Telecom Italia. He is currently investigating the evolution of Service Layer, according to SOA principles and autonomic models. He participated in several co-operation projects founded by European Community and Eurescom. He is author of several papers in international conferences and journals.

Abstract

How Web2.0 will radically transform the communications networks
The Internet community is fueling services innovation, as on the Net   creativity is bound only by the imagination of an ever growing online   community.  The role between consumer and producer is no longer   strictly segregated as consumers increasingly become producers.  This   is witnessed by the success of content services. In addition,   millions of volunteers contribute to the greater good by building   community-based knowledge under form of online encyclopedias or open- source software. There is a paradigm shift towards a a community- centric model. Service and content creation and ingestion are being   taken up by the end-user. Where the telco has in it's historical role positioned itself in the   waist of the hour-glass, controlling its business partners  in   delivering services to the end-users, in Web2.0, through easy-to-use   tools, services can easily be built based on service components owned   by third parties  . In addition, a number of Internet businesses have successfully   introduced a scale-as-you-grow business relying on a distributed   service and content paradigm rather than on the well known   centralized architecture. This architecture progressively finds   adoption in telco service delivery. This talk covers the implications of the paradigm shift from the user   centric services environment to the community centric services model.

Biography

Thierry Pollet (Thierry.Pollet@Alcatel-Lucent.be) received a diploma   degree in electrical engineering from the University of Ghent in   1989. In 1996 he joined the Alcatel Corporate Research Center,   Antwerp. From September 1999, he was work package leader within   Research and Innovation, in charge for the research activities on   metallic access including topics such as ADSL, VDSL, “all digital   loop” and network characterization. In 1999, he received the Alcatel   Hi-Speed award for his contribution to the Alcatel patent portfolio   in the domain of DSL. In 2004, he was in charge for evaluation of   service delivery technology for java based service platforms and   specification of the architecture of the service delivery platforms   for different applications domains (IMS, IPTV, Internet). He   coordinated the evaluation of different technologies (J2EE, JAIN- SLEE, .NET) for application servers and evaluation of platforms for   service delivery. From January 2006 onwards, he is director for   Service Delivery Platforms and OSS/BSS. This project investigates   emerging service architectures, middleware technologies and service   enablers for the service provider that will allow him and his   business partners to create, deploy and operate these services. This   includes adoption of SOA for telco services, WS-technology,   Orchestration and investigation how the IMS (SIP) domain can be   blended with the IPTV domain. He has represented Alcatel in various   standardization bodies (ANSI T1.E1.4, ETSI TM6, ITU-T SG15/Q4, DSL   Forum ). He is a member of the board of the IEEE Benelux Chapter on   Communications and Vehicular Technology. He is member of the Alcatel- Lucent Technical Academy, as Distinguished Member of the Technical   Staff (DMTS).

Abstract

Aggregation Dynamics in Overlay Networks and their Implications for Self-Organised Distributed Applications
In this paper, we investigate the global self-aggregation dynamics arising from local decision-based rewiring of an overlay network, used as an abstraction for an autonomic service-oriented architecture. We show that intuitively similar algorithms can lead to the emergence of substantially different topologies due to the presence of hidden feedback loops. We then measure the ability of a selected set of local rules to foster self-organisation of what is originally a random graph into a structured network. Scalability issues with respect to the key parameters of system size and diversity are extensively discussed. Conflicting goals are introduced, in the form of a population of nodes actively seeking to acquire neighbours of a type different from their own, resulting in decreased local homogeneity. We show that a “secondary” self-organisation process ensues, whereby nodes spontaneously cluster according to their implicit objective. Finally, we introduce dynamic goals by making the preferred neighbour type a function of the local characteristics of a simulated workload. We demonstrate that in this context, an overlay rewiring process based purely on local decisions and interactions can result in efficient load-balancing without central planning. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for the design of future distributed applications, the likely influence of other factors and of extreme parameter values on the ability of the system to self-organise and the potential improvements to our framework.

Biography

Dr. Fabrice Saffre is a Principal Researcher within BT’s Pervasive ICT Research Centre, a Member of the Institute of Physics and a Member of the British Computer Society. He holds a BA and MA in Philosophy of Science and a post-graduate degree in Computer Science from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), a post-graduate degree in Neuroscience from the Université de Nancy I (France) and a Science Ph.D. (Theoretical Biology) from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. His primary areas of expertise are modeling and analyzing complex systems, especially using numerical techniques (Monte Carlo simulations and cellular automata), and the study of emergent collective phenomena. His work in BT involves devising and evaluating nature-inspired solutions to a variety of problems encountered in distributed computing. These include routing, adaptive network security, robustness assessment and decentralized resource management (e.g. in P2P communities). He has authored many publications in Biology of Behavior and Complex Adaptive Systems (natural and artificial) in a variety of international journals and conferences. Since he joined the BT in 2000, his work has generated over 10 patent applications. He is involved in several on-going academic collaborations with U.K. and European universities. He is an industrial collaborator on the EPSRC-funded research project on random graphs and amorphous computing and a work-package leader in the EC-funded CASCADAS integrated project (www.cascadas-project.org).

Abstract

Supporting Situation-Aware Services with Virtual Macro Sensors
Next-generation communication services will be required to adapt their behavior to the specific characteristics of the physical and social environment in which they will be invoked. The technology to acquire contextual information will be increasingly available, e.g., in the form of highly-pervasive sensor networks infrastructure. Indeed, such infrastructure can lead to the production of overwhelming amounts of information, difficult to be managed and interpreted by services. This calls for proper solutions to enable services to extract meaningful general-purpose data from distributed sensors in a compact way. The approach presented in this paper relies on a simple algorithm to let a sensor network self-organize a virtual partitioning in correspondence of spatial regions characterized by similar sensing patterns, and to let distributed aggregation of sensorial data take place on a per-region basis. This makes it possible for services to gather information about the surrounding world as if it was generated by a limited number of virtual macro sensors, independently of the actual structure and density of the underlying sensing infrastructure.

Biography

Franco Zambonelli is a professor of computer science at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. His research interests include distributed and pervasive computing, multiagent systems, and agent-oriented software engineering. He received his PhD in computer science from the University of Bologna. He is a member of the IEEE, the ACM, AIIA, and TABOO.

Abstract

A Framework for Autonomic Networked Auctions
Business companies are showing a growing interest towards the use of the Internet as part of their business. In particular, networked auctions exploit characteristics that are particularly attractive, and are therefore gaining interest as mean for business. This is especially true when the management efforts, to handle such auctions, are reduced by the use of automatic trading agents. The automatic nature of agents, however, does not allow them to account for the non-stationariness of the market, with the result of inevitably limitating optimization of auction economic factors and, finally, the overall utility. We outline a platform where trading agents behave in an autonomic fashion. Agents employ biologically-inspired techniques, to adapt auctioning strategies to present environmental conditions, through exploitation of self-* properties. We put particular emphasis on self-configuration and self-adaptation, presenting results of preliminary experimentations, and showing through simulations how autonomic behaviour is expected to impact current results.

Biography

Antonio obtained his MSc from University of Bologna, Italy, in 2002. From 2001 to 2002 he was IT consultant in the Business Systems Research Group at BTExact Technologies, Ipswich, UK, working on P2P Systems, Policy-based management of large networks and XML-metadata policy specifications languages. From 2002 to early 2006 he was Research Associate in the Distributed Systems Research Group of the School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK, where he completed his PhD, doing research in the area of Middleware Business Systems with particular focus on QoS-Supportive Group Communication Protocols. He joined the Intelligent Systems and Networks group at Imperial College London, UK, in May 2006 and is conducting research in the area of Autonomic Computing.