Gordon Blair is a Distinguished Professor of Distributed Systems in the School of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University. [1] He is also the co-director of the Centre of Excellence in Environmental Data Science (CEEDS). [2]
Gordon Blair is co-author of Distributed systems: concepts and design, a popular textbooks on distributed systems. His research focuses on reflective and adaptive middleware, and model-driven engineering. [1] [3] His research, with over 300 papers published, has been cited over 19,000 times. [4] He is joint Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Internet Services and Applications. [5]
Gordon Blair received a BSc and PhD in Computer Science, in 1980 and 1983, respectively, and both from Strathclyde University. [1]
Internetworking is the practice of interconnecting multiple computer networks, such that any pair of hosts in the connected networks can exchange messages irrespective of their hardware-level networking technology. The resulting system of interconnected networks is called an internetwork, or simply an internet.
Ubiquitous computing is a concept in software engineering, hardware engineering and computer science where computing is made to appear seamlessly anytime and everywhere. In contrast to desktop computing, ubiquitous computing implies use on any device, in any location, and in any format. A user interacts with the computer, which can exist in many different forms, including laptop computers, tablets, smart phones and terminals in everyday objects such as a refrigerator or a pair of glasses. The underlying technologies to support ubiquitous computing include the Internet, advanced middleware, kernels, operating systems, mobile codes, sensors, microprocessors, new I/Os and user interfaces, computer networks, mobile protocols, global navigational systems, and new materials.
Grid computing is the use of widely distributed computer resources to reach a common goal. A computing grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve many files. Grid computing is distinguished from conventional high-performance computing systems such as cluster computing in that grid computers have each node set to perform a different task/application. Grid computers also tend to be more heterogeneous and geographically dispersed than cluster computers. Although a single grid can be dedicated to a particular application, commonly a grid is used for a variety of purposes. Grids are often constructed with general-purpose grid middleware software libraries. Grid sizes can be quite large.
In computer science, inter-process communication (IPC), also spelled interprocess communication, are the mechanisms provided by an operating system for processes to manage shared data. Typically, applications can use IPC, categorized as clients and servers, where the client requests data and the server responds to client requests. Many applications are both clients and servers, as commonly seen in distributed computing.
Theoretical computer science is a subfield of computer science and mathematics that focuses on the abstract and mathematical foundations of computation.
Message-oriented middleware (MOM) is software or hardware infrastructure supporting sending and receiving messages between distributed systems. Message-oriented middleware is in contrast to streaming-oriented middleware where data is communicated as a sequence of bytes with no explicit message boundaries. Note that streaming protocols are almost always built above protocols using discrete messages such as frames (Ethernet), datagrams (UDP), packets (IP), cells (ATM), et al.
In distributed computing, a single system image (SSI) cluster is a cluster of machines that appears to be one single system. The concept is often considered synonymous with that of a distributed operating system, but a single image may be presented for more limited purposes, just job scheduling for instance, which may be achieved by means of an additional layer of software over conventional operating system images running on each node. The interest in SSI clusters is based on the perception that they may be simpler to use and administer than more specialized clusters.
The Free Haven Project was formed in 1999 by a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students with the aim to develop a secure, decentralized system of data storage. The group's work led to a collaboration with the United States Naval Research Laboratory to develop Tor, funded by DARPA.
ChorusOS is a microkernel real-time operating system designed as a message passing computing model. ChorusOS began as the Chorus distributed real-time operating system research project at the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation (INRIA) in 1979. During the 1980s, Chorus was one of two earliest microkernels and was developed commercially by startup company Chorus Systèmes SA. Over time, development effort shifted away from distribution aspects to real-time for embedded systems.
In distributed computing, the bully algorithm is a method for dynamically electing a coordinator or leader from a group of distributed computer processes. The process with the highest process ID number from amongst the non-failed processes is selected as the coordinator.
George F. Coulouris was a British computer scientist and the son of actor George Coulouris. He was an emeritus professor of Queen Mary, University of London and formerly visiting professor in residence at University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. He was co-author of a textbook on distributed systems. He was instrumental in the development of ICL's Content Addressable File Store (CAFS) and he developed em, the Unix editor, which inspired Bill Joy to write vi.
In distributed computing, a stub is a program that acts as a temporary replacement for a remote service or object. It allows the client application to access a service as if it were local, while hiding the details of the underlying network communication. This can simplify the development process, as the client application does not need to be aware of the complexities of distributed computing. Instead, it can rely on the stub to handle the remote communication, while providing a familiar interface for the developer to work with.
Distributed GIS refers to GI Systems that do not have all of the system components in the same physical location. This could be the processing, the database, the rendering or the user interface. It represents a special case of distributed computing, with examples of distributed systems including Internet GIS, Web GIS, and Mobile GIS. Distribution of resources provides corporate and enterprise-based models for GIS. Distributed GIS permits a shared services model, including data fusion based on Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web services. Distributed GIS technology enables modern online mapping systems, Location-based services (LBS), web-based GIS and numerous map-enabled applications. Other applications include transportation, logistics, utilities, farm / agricultural information systems, real-time environmental information systems and the analysis of the movement of people. In terms of data, the concept has been extended to include volunteered geographical information. Distributed processing allows improvements to the performance of spatial analysis through the use of techniques such as parallel processing.
A distributed operating system is system software over a collection of independent software, networked, communicating, and physically separate computational nodes. They handle jobs which are serviced by multiple CPUs. Each individual node holds a specific software subset of the global aggregate operating system. Each subset is a composite of two distinct service provisioners. The first is a ubiquitous minimal kernel, or microkernel, that directly controls that node's hardware. Second is a higher-level collection of system management components that coordinate the node's individual and collaborative activities. These components abstract microkernel functions and support user applications.
Split-brain is a computer term, based on an analogy with the medical split-brain syndrome. It indicates data or availability inconsistencies originating from the maintenance of two separate data sets with overlap in scope, either because of servers in a network design, or a failure condition based on servers not communicating and synchronizing their data to each other. This last case is also commonly referred to as a network partition.
Middleware is a type of computer software program that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue".
Urban informatics refers to the study of people creating, applying and using information and communication technology and data in the context of cities and urban environments. It sits at the conjunction of urban science, geomatics, and informatics, with an ultimate goal of creating more smart and sustainable cities. Various definitions are available, some provided in the Definitions section.
Transition refers to a computer science paradigm in the context of communication systems which describes the change of communication mechanisms, i.e., functions of a communication system, in particular, service and protocol components. In a transition, communication mechanisms within a system are replaced by functionally comparable mechanisms with the aim to ensure the highest possible quality, e.g., as captured by the quality of service.
Jean Dollimore is an English computer scientist that worked at Queen Mary University of London, notable for being co-author of one of the standard distributed computer systems textbooks, Distributed Systems (ISBN 978-0132143011). This textbook alone has been cited over 4,700 times.
Tim Kindberg is a computer scientist, notable for being co-author of one of the standard distributed computer systems textbooks, Distributed Systems (ISBN 978-0132143011). Kindberg has been cited over 10,000 times.
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