ES 596 Information

OBJECTIVES:

This course provides a graduate-level introduction to the wide area in cooperative distributed computing. The course emphasizes both the theoretical and implementation aspects. The theoretical component includes lectures, forum sessions, and technical reaction papers based on reference books and papers. This component will focus on the foundation of cooperative distributed systems engineering and the supporting technologies with a special attention to agent-oriented paradigm, service-oriented computing and grid computing. The implementation component includes a term-project. In addition to the hands-on experience, students will examine how theoretical concepts are actually realized by studying several applications of cooperative distributed systems in various domains.

PREREQUISITES:

Software Systems Design with emphasis on object-oriented paradigm (SE203 or equivalent)

COURSE SCHEDULE:

Lectures 3 hrs/week.

TOPICS

Cooperative Distributed Systems

• Distributed systems perspective and design concepts
• Cooperation models and architectures
• Distributed systems architectures

Technologies

• Agent-Oriented Paradigm
  • Basic concepts
  • Agent communication, coordination, cooperation and teaming (coalition)
  • Multi-agent systems design and architectures
  • Agent building frameworks
• Service-Oriented Computing
  • Basic concepts of Service-oriented computing
  • Service description, discovery, selection and composition
  • Web services
• Grid Computing
  • Resource management
  • Open Grid services architecture
  • Grid infrastructure

Application Areas/Projects

• Enterprise resource management
• Mobile business and eMarketplace
• Healthcare and genomic information systems
• Collaborative engineering design and manufacturing control
• Collaborative autonomous robots

Future Directions for Cooperative Distributed Systems

SPECIFIC LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Upon the completion of the course, students should:

• understand the concepts, principles, and architectures of cooperative distributed systems and application areas.
• review concepts, principles and practice of supporting technologies with a special focus on agent-orientated, service-oriented and Grid Computing.
• gain experience and confidence in understanding new and rapidly evolving technologies and their applications.

REFERENCE TEXTS

• Course notes, papers and supplementary material will be available on the Class Web site: http://instruct.uwo.ca/engin-sc/se695a/
• An Introduction to Multiagent Systems, Michael Wooldridge, John Wiley & Sons (Chichester, England). ISBN 0 47149691X, 2001.
• Service-Oriented Software System Engineering: Challenges And Practices, Z. Stojanovic and A. Dahanayake (Eds.), Idea Group, Inc., 2004
• Service-Oriented Computing, Munindar P. Singh and Michael N. Huhns, Wiley, 2004
• The Grid 2: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure, 2nd Edition, Ian Foster and Carl Kesselmann (Eds), Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2004 ISBN: 1-55860-933-4
• Grid Computing: Software Environment and Tools, Omer F. Rana and Jose C. Cunha (Eds), Springer LNCS, 2004.
• Multi-Agent Systems for Concurrent Intelligent Design and Manufacturing, Weiming Shen, Douglas H. Norrie and Jean-Paul Barthes Published by Taylor & Francis ISBN 0-7484-0882-7

Instructor