18483923
Network selection and discovery of service information in public WLAN hotspots
In a public WLAN hotspot, a roaming mobile terminal (MT) may be within radio range of more than one access point (AP), each of which may or may not have roaming agreements with the service provider of the user of the MT. In this case, the MT may need to discover some <i>service information</i> before it can make an intelligent <i>network-selection</i> decision. The most critical is <i>roaming information</i>; while other information such as <i>security policies</i>, <i>price</i>, <i>AP workload</i> may also be useful. Currently, roaming information is typically provisioned on the MTs as static <i>roaming tables</i> or <i>roaming lists</i>. However, this approach may not scale well when there are millions of hotspots globally. Addressing this shortcoming, recently several solutions have been proposed by different groups. In this paper, we contrast these solutions, and propose our own solution called <i>Roaming Information Code (RIC)</i>, which can be transported as SSID or a new Information Element of the 802.11 standard. RIC is scalable and can be fully backward compatible with existing APs (if transported as SSID). Furthermore, it does not hinder fast handoffs. In the second half of the paper, we will also discuss two other schemes addressing the other service information: a scheme called <i>RIC-VAP</i> for provider-specific security information; and a scheme that allows an AP to announce price and workload information.
2908844
Operation-based Update Propagation in a Mobile File System
In this paper we describe a technique called operation-based update propagation for efficiently transmitting updates to large files that have been modified on a weakly connected client of a distributed file system. In this technique, modifications are captured above the file-system layer at the client, shipped to a surrogate client that is strongly connected to a server, re-executed at the surrogate, and the resulting files transmitted from the surrogate to the server. If re-execution fails to produce a file identical to the original, the system falls back to shipping the file from the client over the slow network. We have implemented a prototype of this mechanism in the Coda File System on Linux, and demonstrated performance improvements ranging from 40 percents to nearly three orders of magnitude in reduced network traffic and elapsed time. We also found a novel use of forward error correction in this context.
6136966
Operation Shipping for Mobile File Systems
This paper addresses a bottleneck problem in mobile file systems: the propagation of updated large tiles from a weakly-connected client to its servers. It proposes an efficient mechanism called operation shipping or operation-based update propagation. In the new mechanism, the client ships the user operation that updated the large files, rather than the files themselves, across the weak network. (in contrast, existing file systems use value shipping and ship the files.) The user operation is sent to a surrogate client that is strongly connected to the servers. The surrogate replays the user operation, regenerates the files, checks whether they are identical to the originals, and, it so, sends the files to the servers on behalf of the client. Care has been taken such that the new mechanism does not compromise correctness or server scalability. For example, we show how forward error correction (FEC) can restore minor reexecution discrepancies and, thus, make operation shipping work with more applications. Operation shipping can be further classified into two types: application-transparent and application-aware. Their feasibilities and benefits have been demonstrated by the design, implementation, and evaluation of a prototype extension to the Coda File System. In our controlled experiments, operation shipping achieved substantial performance improvements-network traffic reductions from 12 times to nearly 400 times and speedups in the range of 1.4 times to nearly 50 times.
2576924
Integration of 802.11 and third-generation wireless data networks
The third-generation (3G) wide area wireless networks and 802.11 local area wireless networks possess complementary characteristics. 3G networks promise to offer always-on, ubiquitous connectivity with relatively low data rates. 802.11 offers much higher data rates, comparable to wired networks, but can cover only smaller areas, suitable for hot-spot applications in hotels and airports. The performance and flexibility of wireless data services would be dramatically improved if users could seamlessly roam across the two networks. In this paper, we address the problem of integration of these two classes of networks to offer such seamless connectivity. Specifically, we describe two possible integration approaches - namely tight integration and loose integration and advocate the latter as the preferred approach. Our realization of the loose integration approach consists of two components: a new network element called IOTA gateway deployed in 802.11 networks, and a new client software. The IOTA gateway is composed of several software modules, and with cooperation from the client software offers integrated 802.11/3G wireless data services that support seamless intertechnology mobility, Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees and multiprovider roaming agreements. We describe the design and implementation of the IOTA gateway and the client software in detail and present experimental performance results that validate our architectural approach.
10552627
An efficient parallel join algorithm based on hypercube-partitioning
Many parallel join algorithms have been proposed so far but most of which are developed focused on minimizing the disk I/O and CPU costs. The communication cost, however, is also an important factor that can significantly affect the join processing performance in multiprocessor systems. We propose an efficient parallel join algorithm, called Cube-Robust, for hypercube multicomputers. The proposed algorithm is developed based on the observation that the size ratio of two relations to be joined is the dominant factor in the communication cost. We develop the analytic cost model for the proposed join algorithm. The performance comparisons show that the Cube-Robust join algorithm works better than others proposed earlier in a wide range of size ratios.<<ETX>>
591216
The HS File: A New Dynamic Signature File Method for Efficient Information Retrieval
Many works on the signature file methods have been made in the past, but they are mainly for static environments. However, many recent applications in practice require a dynamic information storage structure that effectively supports insertions, deletions and updates. Though there are a few signature file techiniques for dynamic environments, they suffer from serious performance degradation when query signature weights are light. In this paper, we propose a new dynamic signature file organization, called the hierarchical signature(HS) file, that solves the problem of light query signature weights. We perform simulation experiments by using wide range of parameter values. We show through performance comparison based on experiments that the HS file improves performance significantly in both the retrieval time and the storage over-head over the other dynamic signature file methods proposed earlier.
12566781
Web-Based Simulation with Server Application Approach under Distributed Environment
206579905
Improving multistage network performance under uniform and hot-spot traffics
The major performance drawbacks of multistage interconnection networks are due to link contention and message blockage. To remedy this problem, the authors propose a switch design which uses two independent routes between each input port and each output port within a switch. With proper routing control mechanisms, the adverse effect on link conflicts can be greatly reduced. Various simulations are used to illustrate the performance improvement of this new design under both uniform and hot-spot traffic patterns.<<ETX>>
1805893
Secure Localization and Location Verification in Sensor Networks
Evolving networks of wireless sensing nodes have many attractive applications. Localization, that is to determine the locations of sensor nodes, is a key enabler for many applications of sensor networks. As sensor networks move closer to extensive deployments, security becomes a major concern, resulting in a new demand for secure localization and location proving systems. In this paper, we propose a secure localization system based on a secure hop algorithm. A location verification system that allows the base station to verify the locations of sensor nodes is also presented. It prevents a node from falsifying reported location information. The evaluation of the secure localization system shows that the proposed scheme performs well under a range of scenarios tested and is resilient against an attacker creating incorrect location information in other nodes.