Michael Hobbs

A remote process creation and execution facility supporting parallel execution on distributed systems

The parallel execution of processes over a distributed system is an objective, that, if realised, will provide access to a wealth of computational resources currently underutilised in many network environments. What is lacking from current distributed systems is a flexible and user friendly facility for the creation of processes across a network of workstations in a transparent and easily controlled manner. The paper presents an original architecture of a remote process creation and execution facility designed and developed as part of a microkernel and client-server based distributed operating system. The most important feature of this facility is that it coordinates the cooperation of other kernel servers to create (locally or remotely) a process. It was demonstrated that this facility is very fast and, thus can be used efficiently to support parallel execution on a network of workstations.

GENESIS: an efficient, transparent and easy to use cluster operating system

Present operating systems are not built to support parallel computing--they do not provide services to manage parallelism, i.e., to globally manage parallel processes and computational resources. The cluster operating environments that are used to assist the execution of parallel applications do not provide support for both programming paradigms, message passing (MP) or distributed shared memory (DSM)--they are mainly offered as separate components implemented at the user level as library and independent server processes. Due to poor operating systems users must deal with clusters as a set of independent computers rather than to see this cluster as a single powerful computer. A single system image (SSI) of the cluster is not offered to users. There is a need for an operating system for clusters. We claim and demonstrate in this paper that it is possible to develop a cluster operating system that is able to efficiently manage parallelism; use cluster resources efficiently; support MP in the form of standard MP and PVM, and DSM; offer SSI; and make it easy to use. We show that to achieve these aims this operating system should inherit many features of a distributed operating system and provide new services which address the needs of parallel processes, clusters resources, and application developers. In order to substantiate the claim the first version of a cluster operating system managing parallelism and offering SSI, called GENESIS:, has been developed.

A Cluster Operating System Supporting Parallel Computing

The single factor limiting the harnessing of the enormous computing power of clusters for parallel computing is the lack of appropriate software. Present cluster operating systems are not built to support parallel computing – they do not provide services to manage parallelism. The cluster operating environments that are used to assist the execution of parallel applications do not provide support for both Message Passing (MP) or Distributed Shared Memory (DSM) paradigms. They are only offered as separate components implemented at the user level as library and independent servers. Due to poor operating systems users must deal with computers of a cluster rather than to see this cluster as a single powerful computer. A Single System Image of the cluster is not offered to users. There is a need for an operating system for clusters. We claim and demonstrate that it is possible to develop a cluster operating system that is able to efficiently manage parallelism, support Message Passing and DSM and offer the Single System Image. In order to substantiate the claim the first version of a cluster operating system, called GENESIS, that manages parallelism and offers the Single System Image has been developed.

Taxonomy and Survey of Location Management Systems

In wireless mobile computing, location management is introduced whenever users move from one place to another. In order to track a mobile user, the system must store information about their current location and report new locations to a home base station. Numerous techniques have been proposed to optimally manage the location of mobile hosts in mobile networks. This paper attempts to present a more structured and comprehensive analysis of the current location management techniques architectures and their technology enablers. We discuss some of the principal issues involved in location management and present a taxonomy and survey of location management strategies that have been proposed in the literature over the years for mobile computing systems.

Performance comparison of process migration with remote process creation mechanisms in RHODOS

We claim that both remote process creation and process migration are efficient mechanisms to be used in the improvement or development of high performance computer systems. In particular we demonstrate that the claims made by some researchers that process migration is too heavy to be used to support dynamic load balancing are unsubstantiated. We support our claim by presenting these two mechanisms available in the RHODOS distributed operating system, comparing and contrasting these mechanisms and reporting on their performance.

Using feature selection for intrusion detection system

A good intrusion system gives an accurate and efficient classification results. This ability is an essential functionality to build an intrusion detection system. In this paper, we focused on using various training functions with feature selection to achieve high accurate results. The data we used in our experiments are NSL-KDD. However, the training and testing time to build the model is very high. To address this, we proposed feature selection based on information gain, which can contribute to detect several attack types with high accurate result and low false rate. Moreover, we performed experiments to classify each of the five classes (normal, probe, denial of service (DoS), user to super-user (U2R), and remote to local (R2L). Our proposed outperform other state-of-art methods.

Implementation and performance of the interprocess communications facility in RHODOS

The paper examines the implementation and performance of the RHODOS interprocess communications facility. This examination includes; the Local IPC module provided by the microkernel and the primitives and mechanisms that it supports, the Interprocess Communications Manager, (IPCM), and the Network Manager, in particular the remote and local interprocess communications performance. Furthermore we discuss the role of the message buffers in the interprocess communications facility and their effect on communications throughput.

Using response action with intelligent intrusion detection and prevention system against web application malware

– The purpose of this paper is to mitigate vulnerabilities in web applications, security detection and prevention are the most important mechanisms for security. However, most existing research focuses on how to prevent an attack at the web application layer, with less work dedicated to setting up a response action if a possible attack happened. , – A combination of a Signature-based Intrusion Detection System (SIDS) and an Anomaly-based Intrusion Detection System (AIDS), namely, the Intelligent Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IIDPS). , – After evaluating the new system, a better result was generated in line with detection efficiency and the false alarm rate. This demonstrates the value of direct response action in an intrusion detection system. , – Data limitation. , – The contributions of this paper are to first address the problem of web application vulnerabilities. Second, to propose a combination of an SIDS and an AIDS, namely, the IIDPS. Third, this paper presents a novel approach by connecting the IIDPS with a response action using fuzzy logic. Fourth, use the risk assessment to determine an appropriate response action against each attack event. Combining the system provides a better performance for the Intrusion Detection System, and makes the detection and prevention more effective.

Remote and Concurrent Process Duplication for SPMD Based Parallel Processing on COWs

The increasing popularity of a Cluster of Workstations (COW) for the execution of parallel applications can be attributed to its impressive price to performance ratio. Unfortunately, currently available software to manage the execution of parallel applications on COWs do not provide satisfactory levels of performance, nor do they provide the application developer with a friendly programming environment. This final problem can be attributed to the lack of transparency provided by these systems when managing distributed resources such as parallel processes, processors and memory. This paper presents a unique process instantiation approach that addresses the shortfalls in currently available SPMD parallelism management systems for COWs by employing a combination of process duplication, process migration and group communication services; all built on and supported by a distributed operating system.

The GENESIS parallelism management system employing concurrent process-creation services

Abstract Clusters (of PCs or Workstations) are increasingly being chosen as platforms for the execution of parallel applications over traditional supercomputers owing to the excellent price-to-performance ratio held by clusters and the widespread availability of relatively inexpensive PCs/workstations and high-speed networks. Unfortunately, current operating systems and run-time environments do not provide satisfactory levels of support for parallel processing on clusters, forcing programmers to use third-party software that operates on top of existing network operating systems, which increases overheads and reduces flexibility. Creation of parallel processes suffers from poor performance because these processes are created in a sequential manner. This paper shows an original concurrent local and remote process-creation mechanism, a part of the GENESIS operating system that manages parallelism on clusters and, in particular, provides execution transparency and reduces the time required to initiate child processes of single program and multiple data (SPMD) parallel applications.