Networked and Distributed Systems
Key researchers: Professor Gordon Blair, Professor Geoff Coulson, Professor David Hutchison, Professor Steve Pink
Lancaster University is a leading international player in networked and distributed systems and home of one of the largest research groups of its type in the world. The emphasis is on Internet and Web with multimedia and Quality of Service (QoS) as recurrent research themes. Researchers have been pioneers in various areas including multimedia content delivery across networks, mechanisms to assure QoS in networked systems, mobile IPv6 systems, advanced middleware, programmable networking, and applications in the tourism and health areas that make novel use of advanced networking technologies. Lancaster's research groups are also central participants in the EU/IST funded E-NEXT Network of Excellence in Emerging Network Technologies and Experiments.
InfoLab21 researchers also have many years of experience in the area of middleware, having contributed significantly to key developments such as the emergence of distributed object technology and component-based approaches. The research group is particularly recognised for its work on advanced solutions that go well beyond commercial technologies in particular. The group has also worked on augmenting middleware platforms with support for multimedia, real-time, asynchronous mobile communication and peer-to-peer communication for ad-hoc environments. Most recently, the group pioneered reflective middleware as a principled means of supporting both customisation and dynamic re-configuration of middleware platforms and associated services.
In the ongoing research agenda, the group is also very interested in combining its strengths in networking and reflective middleware to produce novel systems platforms with both high-level programming models supporting the rapid development of distributed applications and also intimate access to key underlying networking functionality. In this work, the group is also investigating the application of self-healing properties at all levels of such a modern distributed architecture. These are areas that can contribute in the longer-term to the success of initiatives such as the next generation Internet and also the Grid and e-Science.
Network Research and Special Projects
The Network Research and Special Projects Unit (NRSP) is a collaborative venture between InfoLab21's Computing Department and Information Systems Services (ISS), responsible for establishing innovative research projects and partnerships and conducting high quality research that is enhancing Lancaster's international reputation as a centre of excellence in networking.
Through ongoing work by ISS to build an extensive network infrastructure across the Northwest of England, Lancaster University became the only UK University to hold a telecom licence. NRSP is tasked with gaining commercial advantage for this unique facility, raising awareness of the world class network related research carried out in InfoLab21 and gaining new sources for academic research.
The group's latest project is setting up Broadband in a rural village. Wray, in rural Lancashire, now benefits from being on-line and at the same time provides a live test bed for computing, telecommunication and management science research.
Case Study
Mobile IPv6 Testbed
One of InfoLab21's most prominent activities is the Mobile IPv6 Systems Research Lab (MSRL), a research collaboration between Cisco Systems, Microsoft Research, Orange and Lancaster University involving the deployment of a unique and fully operational Mobile IPv6 network environment supporting real user communities throughout the campus, the city and the surrounding area, and also featuring a range of novel applications. This technology is crucial for the development of the next generation of Internet technology, allowing, for example, users to access the Internet while on the move. Based on this work, researchers have received a prestigious Microsoft Windows Embedded Academic Excellence Award for invaluable development contributions to the Windows CE.NET platform. In particular, experimental code for the IPv6 protocol is now included in Windows CE.NET, version 4.1 - Microsoft's real-time embedded operating system for building the next generation of mobile and small foot-print devices. It is a rare example of Microsoft relying directly on university-produced code.
