Network Systems Colloquium

November 29, 2PM
CS 101

In the last ten years we have seen dramatic improvements in the capabilities of the basic network infrastructure. These improvements have come both in the form of performance increases and of new functionality such as support for network quality of service (QoS). These new capabilities offer the promise of exciting new applications such as high quality ubiquitous video conferencing, virtual reality games, and tele-presence, but so far these applications have not materialized. The reason is that the current network QoS mechanisms do not adequately support the needs of applications and service providers. Important questions such as how application QoS requirements can be mapped onto the low-level network QoS mechanisms, how service providers can manage their network traffic to optimize the efficiency and quality of their electronic services, and how network users can learn about network conditions are left unanswered.

In this talk I will argue that effective network QoS requires a rich two-way interface between applications and the network, and I will use the CMU Darwin and Remos projects to illustrate that point. The Darwin QoS architecture provides a set of three coordinated resource management mechanisms that together support application-specific network QoS. Darwin for example allows users to insert user agents, called delegates, into the network that can safely perform certain traffic management tasks on behalf of the user. The Remos system on the other hand gives applications feedback about the status of the network so they can adapt to network conditions in an intelligent way.

Dr. Peter Steenkiste is associate professor in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. He received the degree of Electrical Engineer from the State University of Ghent in Belgium in 1982, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University. Prof. Steenkiste's research interests are in the areas of computer networking and distributed systems. He has been involved with several projects including Nectar, Credit Net, Darwin and Remos. He has chaired several conferences and workshops including IWQoS and HPDC. More information on his research can be found at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~prs.

The Network Systems Colloquium is sponsored by the Network Systems Lab at Purdue University. For further information, please contact Kihong Park (park@cs.purdue.edu or 765-494-7821).