9224493 Birman This award will support collaborative research between Kenneth Birman and Keith Marzullo, Cornell University, and Paulo Verissimo, Technical University of Lisbon. Professor Verissimo is associated with INESC, the Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, and its Navigators Group, whose research focuses on robustness of distributed systems. Professor Birman is associated with the Isis Project at Cornell; its central idea is to encourage programmers to develop distributed software using a collection of routines that presents a simple network execution model, virtual synchrony. At present, the two teams hold state-of-the-art knowledge which is in some points complementary. Both groups have concluded that by integrating independently developed technologies, a substantial advance in the ease of use and power of the next generation of distributed computing systems could result. The investigators propose to collaborate on an effort that will integrate a diverse collection of high reliability distributed computing technologies under the general framework of a new system for group-oriented computing. The collaboration will deal with three subjects: an object-oriented methodology for integration of varied technologies into a group computing environment; a focus on system architecture issues drawing on the microkernel architectures that are gaining in importance within the operating systems community; and such protocol and algorithmic enhancements as are needed to realize that vision. ***
