Bay Area Roundtable (BART)

Scaling for the Internet Series, Meeting 1

Internet-Scale Event Observation and Notification
David S. Rosenblum, UC Irvine / IRUS, dsr@ics.uci.edu

There is increasing interest in having software systems execute and interoperate over the Internet. Execution and interoperation at this scale imply a degree of loose coupling and heterogeneity among the components from which such systems will be built. One common architectural style for distributed, loosely-coupled, heterogeneous software systems is a structure based on event generation, observation and notification. The technology to support this approach is well-developed for local area networks, but it is ill-suited to wide-area networks such as the Internet. Because of the challenges posed by Internet scale, a number of companies are producing a new generation of event messaging technologies that are designed specifically for wide-area networks. Examples of such products include TIBnet from TIBCO, Ambrosia from Open Horizon, and push technologies such as Marimba Castanet and PointCast.

In this talk, I will first define the attributes of Internet scale that are important for wide-area event messaging. I will then evaluate some existing technologies as to their suitability for Internet-scale event messaging. Finally, I will present recent work on the design of a general Internet-scale event observation and notification service.

Biography: David S. Rosenblum is on the faculty of the Department of Information and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests are centered on the design and validation of distributed component-based software. He received a Ph.D. in 1988 from Stanford University, and from 1988 to 1996 he was a Research Member of the Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey. He is the author of numerous technical papers on a variety of topics in software engineering. He is a member of the ACM and a senior member of the IEEE.

An Approach to Large-Scale Collection of Application Usage Data Over the Internet
David F. Redmiles, UC Irvine / IRUS, redmiles@ics.uci.edu

Empirical evaluation of software systems in actual usage situations is critical in software engineering. Prototyping, beta testing, and usability testing are widely used to refine system requirements, detect anomalous or unexpected system and user behavior, and to evaluate software usefulness and usability. The World Wide Web enables cheap, rapid, and large-scale distribution of software for evaluation purposes. However, current techniques for collecting usage data have not kept pace with the opportunities presented by Web-based deployment. Some software companies (e.g. Aqueduct Software) are now beginning to exploit the Internet as a means for collecting information about application usage in beta testing situations. This paper presents an approach, based on user interface event monitoring, that makes large-scale, ongoing collection of usage data over the Internet a practical possibility.

Biography: David Redmiles is an assistant professor in the Department of Information and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests lie in the overlap between human-computer interaction and software engineering. His current projects include software design critics, the collection of usability data over the Internet, project awareness, and the study of work activity in software maintenance. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1992.

Directions to meeting are available.

Meeting 2: Friday, March 13, 1998
Topic: Scaling for the Internet Series, Meeting 2
           Internet Document Management
Coordinator: E. James Whitehead, UC Irvine / IRUS, ejw@ics.uci.edu

The Irvine Research Unit in Software wishes to thank its corporate sponsors:

Sustaining:

The Boeing Company * Boeing North American, Inc. * Northrop Grumman Corporation * Raytheon Company * Sun Microsystems Laboratories * TRW

Supporting:

Beckman Instruments * Continuus Software Corporation * FileNet Corporation * Logicon Ultrasystems Space & Engineering Operations * Lockheed Martin * NASA Ames Research Center * Printronix, Inc.

For further information on BART or IRUS,