CS 239-NC: Term Project Topics
Spring, 2000
- You are required to submit a short description of your project to me by April 28th. This should be at most one page containing a 1-2 paragraph description of the proposed topic with 3-5 references that you plan to use. The references that you eventually use may of course be different.
- Presentations on the term projects will be scheduled during the 10th week of class.
- Final versions of the papers will be due the day of the scheduled final exam for the course.
- You are welcome to propose group projects (no more than 2 people in a group).
- The following are some possible topics. You are of course more than welcome to come up with your own topics!
- Programming paradigms for wide area computer systems: Several research efforts are prototyping software systems that aim to simplify the development of wide-area applications. These include middleware that provide key operating system and runtime services such as WebOS, and Legion, and programming environments such as Globe and GrADS. Dicussion of the strengths and weaknesses of multiple systems; simulate partial functionality of some system using an available programming language.
- Emerging applications for heterogeneous distributed systems: IP-telephony , distance learning, tele-medicine, are some examples that are becoming available over a wired infrastructure and will become increasingly common. Can you envision novel applications that will be able to exploit the mobile wireless computing paradigm? What services will be needed to support these applications? Develop a prototype implementation of a novel application using any of the middleware architetcures that have been discussed in class.
- Alternative nomadic architectures: Compare and contrast the appropriateness of proposed architectures (e.g. iMASH, BARWAN, Odyssey, Jini, Mobile CORBA, etc.) for a specific nomadic application. Unlike the previous topic, the applictaion itself need not be novel; the focus here is on comparing alternative middleware architectures.
- Location tracking: It is posisble to use a transport-layer solution to track mobile devices (Mobile IP) or a higher application or middleware level capability for this purpose. Qualitatively and quantitatively compare these two alternatives for a variety of scenarios that include network topology, traffic density, mobility patterns, etc.
- QoS based protocols and their evaluation: Many of the emerging applications for wide area computing systems require guaranteed Quality of Service rather than the best-effort service curently supported by the Internet. A review of current tecniques to provide this capability (e.g., MPLS, DiffServ) together with a quantitative comparison of alternatives. Of particular relevanc eis provisioning of QoS in wireless and mixed (wired/wireless/satellite) networks.
- Multicast-based distributed system design: The use of multicast communictaions as a basic paradigm for application development as adopted by many systems that use push technology: e.g., The Information Bus (TIB) by Tibco Software.
- Handoff in multi-hop networks: Most existing solutions to handoff have been developed for cellular networks. Extend any existing solution to the handoff problem to work in a network where the mobile host is connected to the mobile gateway via a multi-hop path.
- Caching, replication, & consistency: Many nomadic architectures use caching to improve response times. Evaluate alternative caching or replication policies with respect to the consistency model that is supported. Prototype or simulate one or more mechanisms and illustrate their utility under diverse connectivity or mobility scenarios.
- Security: Ensuring secure and authenticated communictaions in a mobile, wireless network has emerged as one of the most challenging problems. Investigate the extent to which the techniques that have been developed to solve this problem for wired networks will work in the mobile, wireless context. Identify the unique security concerns that arise in such networks.
- Programming paradigms for wide area computer systems: Several research efforts are prototyping software systems that aim to simplify the development of wide-area applications. These include middleware that provide key operating system and runtime services such as WebOS, and Legion, and programming environments such as Globe and GrADS. Dicussion of the strengths and weaknesses of multiple systems; simulate partial functionality of some system using an available programming language.
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Last updated Monday, 24-Apr-2000 10:31:52 PDT