Paul Donachy

A high level FPGA-based abstract machine for processing

Image processing requires high computational power, plus the ability to experiment with algorithms. Recently, reconfigurable hardware devices in the form of field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) have been proposed as a way of obtaining high performance at an economical price. At present, however, users must program FPGAs at a very low level and have a detailed knowledge of the architecture of the device being used. They do not therefore facilitate easy development of, or experimentation with, image processing algorithms. To try to reconcile the dual requirements of high performance and ease of development, this paper reports on the design and realisation of an FPGA based image processing machine and its associated high level programming model. This abstract programming model allows an application developer to concentrate on the image processing algorithm in hand rather than on its hardware implementation. The abstract machine is based on a PC host system with a PCI-bus add-on card containing Xilinx XC6200 series FPGA(s). The machines high level instruction set is based on the operators of image algebra. XC6200 series FPGA configurations have been developed to implement each high level instruction.

An environment for generating FPGA architectures for image algebra-based algorithms

FPGA technology offers the potential for low cost, high performance for certain applications, including image processing. However, the programming model which FPGAs typically present to application developers is prohibitively low level. This paper presents a software environment and architecture description approach which enable the dynamic generation of FPGA architectures for high level image processing operations based on image algebra. Scaleable, parameterised architectures can be described using a small set of Prolog constructors which specify an architecture as a parameterised composition of base level building blocks. The environment includes a rule-based generator which produces EDIF netlist files for each high level operation, targeted to Xilinx XC6200 series FPGAs.

Gridcast: a grid and Web service broadcast infrastructure

The Gridcast project is pioneering the use of grid and Web technologies to prototype the next generation of broadcast media infrastructure. The project has a physical network infrastructure that connects BBC Northern Ireland, BBC R&D in London, the Belfast e-Science Centre and the emerging UK grid infrastructure. This physical network infrastructure is being used to test grid and Web services that manage a television broadcast infrastructure; that is, an infrastructure that manages a collection of broadcast schedules to be transmitted to viewers and that contains a mix of live and recorded video. Broadcasting is a highly demanding industry with high levels of reactivity and robustness required in its infrastructure - it is a significant test of current grid and Web technologies. The project has implemented schedule-based transport of recorded video between broadcast locations that assumes a highly reactive broadcasting environment, the remote, secure use of technical resources and the automation of broadcast and production workflows.

GeneGrid: Architecture, Implementation and Application

The emergence of Grid computing technology has opened up an unprecedented opportunity for biologists to share and access data, resources and tools in an integrated environment leading to a greater chance of knowledge discovery. GeneGrid is a Grid computing framework that seamlessly integrates a myriad of heterogeneous resources spanning multiple administrative domains and locations. It provides scientists an integrated environment for the streamlined access of a number of bioinformatics programs and databases through a simple and intuitive interface. It acts as a virtual bioinformatics laboratory by allowing scientists to create, execute and manage workflows that represent bioinformatics experiments. A number of cooperating Grid services interact in an orchestrated manner to provide this functionality. This paper gives insight into the details of the architecture, components and implementation of GeneGrid.

Finance Sector: Requirements for High Assurance within Spatial SOA Based Grid Infrastructures

Businesses are increasingly reliant upon their IT infrastructure. A companys IT infrastructure often supports both a means of interacting with customers and of supporting basic day-to-day business operations. Recently, SOA based Grid infrastructure has emerged as a viable commercial alternatives to expensive dedicated high assurance IT systems, especially within the Finance sector. This paper presents from a commercial perspective a critical assessment of the limitations of todays SOA based approaches to high assurance. A use case from the Finance Sector is presented, which has deep implications in terms of high availability, security and spatial awareness in a SOA environment. Finally the requirements for a high assurance framework to manage the lifecycle of applications and services deployed within such SOA based Grid infrastructures is presented.The use of property classifications and patterns, i.e., high-level abstractions that describe common behavior, have been shown to assist practitioners in generating formal specifications that can be used in formal verification techniques. The specification pattern system (SPS) provides descriptions of a collection of patterns. The extent of program execution over which a pattern must hold is described by the notion of scope. SPS provides a manual technique for obtaining formal specifications from a pattern and a scope. The property specification tool (Prospec) extends SPS by introducing composite propositions (CPs), a classification for defining sequential and concurrent behavior to represent pattern and scope parameters, and provides a tool to support users. This work provides general templates for generating formal specifications in linear temporal logic (LTL) for all pattern, scope, and CP combinations. In addition, the work explains the methodology for the verification of the correctness of these templates.

Grid service configuration and lifecycle management

This paper presents a domain configuration grid service which provides a service configuration and lifecycle management mechanism for a grid infrastructure employing a service oriented architecture (SOA). A SOA grid infrastructure is typically composed of numerous domains, which in turn are typically composed of numerous services. A grid usually exists to achieve a set of pre-defined goals; therefore services must interoperate possibly across independent domains to meet the objective(s). This paper details a discussion of the reasons why service configuration and lifecycle management is required in a loosely coupled distributed system, in particular a grid SOA system named Gridcast. In order to avail of the benefits offered by a loosely coupled system it is important to maintain an efficient grid, this paper presents a number of service configuration and lifecycle management strategies which aim to achieve that goal

Improving Business Opportunities of Financial Service Providers through Service Level Agreements

The calculation of the Implied Volatility of stock options is a computationally expensive process which in general exceeds the resources available at a customer’s site. Financial service providers therefore offer the required Implied Volatility services, adapting dynamically their own resource consumption to the customer’s demands. The success of such a business model relies on carefully negotiated and observed Service Level Agreements between the different parties involved. The NextGRID project, driven by the adaption of several business scenarios to next generation Grid technologies, has designed and implemented an Implied Volatility framework which applies dynamic negotiation of Service Level Agreements to improve the existing solution. In this paper we describe the business scenario and the different core components which we integrated to realise the Implied Volatility framework.

Self managing middleware for dynamic grids

As grid infrastructures become more dynamic in order to cope with the uncertainty of demand, they are becoming extremely difficult to manage. At the Belfast e-Science Centre, we are attempting to address this issue by developing Self Managing Grid Middleware. This paper gives an overview of the middleware and focuses on the design, implementation and evaluation of a Resource Manager. Also in this paper we will see how our approach, which is based on federated UDDI registries, has enabled us to implement some of the desired features of next generation grid software.