一个基于信任管理的分布式访问控制系统的设计与实现

开放协同软件环境下软件系统的安全问题极大地影响了软件系统的开发与应用。信任管理是解决开放协同软件环境下安全问题的一个新思想。本文在分析了开放协同软件系统安全问题的基础上,针对现存信任管理系统的不足,设计并实现了一个适用于开放环境下的基于信任管理的分布式访问控制系统DACBTM。该系统采用信任度量的方法对软件实体间的信任关系进行评估。本文在系统实现的同时给出了一个经过改进与扩充的信任发现算法,该算法对于安全信息不足的情况给出了合理的解决方案。     

A temporal agent based approach for testing open distributed systems

The development of distributed testing frameworks is more complex, where the implementation process must consider the mechanisms and functions required to support interaction as long as the communication and the coordination between distributed testing components. The typical reactions of such systems are the generation of errors‘set: time outs, locks, observability, controllability and synchronization problems. In other side, the distributed testing process must not only check if the output events have been observed, but also the dates when these events have been occurred. In this paper, we show how to cope with these problems by using a distributed testing method including timing constraints. Afterwards, a multi-agent architecture is proposed in the design process to describe the behavior of testing a distributed chat group application on high level of abstraction.     

Controllability and observability in distributed testing

In developing distributed systems, current trends are towards creating open distributed environments supporting interworking, interoperability, and portability, in spite of heterogeneity and autonomy of related systems. Several reference models, architectures and frameworks such as ODP, CORBA, and TINA, have already been designed and proposed. However, even though models, architectures, and frameworks, provide a good basis for developing working open distributed applications, conformance testing approaches are required for gaining confidence in final products and guaranteeing their integration and interoperability within open distributed environment. ODP provides some preliminary statements on conformance assessment in open distributed systems, but considerable work needs to be done before reaching a workable and accepted conformance testing methodology for open distributed processing. Further, ISO, ITU, OMG, and TINA-C, have recently recognized the urgent need for conformance testing. In this paper, we examine ideas gained from our experience with protocol testing, which may contribute to the design of such a framework. Our methodology is essentially guided by two features that have a great influence on all aspects of the testing process: controllability and observability.     

一个面向复杂任务的多机器人分布式协调系统

基于多智能体系统理论, 研究在非结构、不确定环境下面向复杂任务的多机器人分布式协调系统的实现原理、方法和技术. 提出的递阶混合式协调结构、基于网络的通讯模式和基于有限状态机的规划与控制集成方法, 充分考虑了复杂任务和真实自然环境的特点. 通过构建一个全实物的多移动机器人实验平台, 对规划、控制、传感、通讯、协调与合作的各关键技术进行了开发和集成, 使多机器人分布式协调技术的研究直接面向实际应用, 编队和物料搬运的演示实验结果展示了多机器人协调技术的广阔应用前景.     

Constructing checking sequences for distributed testing

The objective of testing is to determine whether an implementation under test conforms to its specification. In distributed test architectures involving multiple remote testers, this objective can be complicated by the fact that testers may encounter coordination problems relating to controllability (synchronization) and observability during the application of tests. Based on a finite state machine (FSM) specification of the externally observable behaviour of a distributed system and a distinguishing sequence, this paper proposes a method for constructing a checking sequence where there is no potential controllability or observability problems, and where the use of external coordination message exchanges among testers is minimized. The proposed method does not assume a reliable reset feature in the implementations of the given FSM to be tested by the resulting checking sequence. phone: 613-562-5800(Extn)6684 Received May 2004 Revised March 2005 Accepted April 2005 by J. Derrick, M. Harman and R. M. Herons     

An educational tool for interactive parallel and distributed processing

In this article we try to describe how the modular interactive tiles system (MITS) can be a valuable tool for introducing students to interactive parallel and distributed processing programming. This is done by providing a handson educational tool that allows a change in the representation of abstract problems related to designing interactive parallel and distributed systems. Indeed, the MITS seems to bring a series of goals into education, such as parallel programming, distributedness, communication protocols, master dependency, software behavioral models, adaptive interactivity, feedback, connectivity, topology, island modeling, and user and multi-user interaction which can rarely be found in other tools. Finally, we introduce the system of modular interactive tiles as a tool for easy, fast, and flexible hands-on exploration of these issues, and through examples we show how to implement interactive parallel and distributed processing with different behavioral software models such as open loop, randomness-based, rule-based, user interaction-based, and AI- and ALife-based software.     

分布式系统可伸缩性研究综述

可伸缩性(Scalabifity)反映了系统可随系统需求和资源变化,持续满足性能需求的能力。在不同的场景下,可伸缩性的基本定义和度量方法能够通过不同的角度进行理解和表达。根据系统需求和运行状态,改变可用资源数量以及任务调度方式,动态调整系统性能,是系统可伸缩性实现的主要途径。分布式资源管理系统可伸缩性设计的关键技术可以从并行任务调度和分布式系统框架两个方面进行分析。可伸缩性测试是检测和评价系统性能的主要依据,并行代码测试以及可伸缩性测试系统设计的主要方法是测试技术的两个重要组成部分。随着软件范型的发展变化,软件的部署和提供逐步向基于开放、共享虚拟化资源管理平台的在线服务方式的转变,可伸缩性已成为云计算背景下软件服务的重要性能指标,进一步探讨可伸缩性在新的软件范型下所面临的挑战性问题是可伸缩性研究的新方向。     

Overcoming controllability problems with fewest channels between testers

When testing a system that has multiple physically distributed ports/interfaces it is normal to place a tester at each port. Each tester observes only the events at its port and it is known that this can lead to additional controllability problems. While such controllability problems can be overcome by the exchange of external coordination messages between the testers, this requires the deployment of an external network and may thus increase the costs of testing. The problem studied in this paper is finding a minimum number of coordination channels to overcome controllability problems in distributed testing. Three instances of this problem are considered. The first problem is to find a minimum number of channels between testers in order to overcome the controllability problems in a given test sequence to be applied in testing. The second problem is finding a minimal set of channels that allow us to overcome controllability problems in any test sequence that may be selected from the specification of the system under test. The last problem is to find a test sequence that achieves a particular test objective and in doing so allows fewest channels to be used.     

Formal Verification of a Distributed Computer System

Modeling distributed computer systems is known to be a challenging enterprise. Typically, distributed systems are comprised of large numbers of components whose coordination may require complex interactions. Modeling such systems more often than not leads to the nominal intractability of the resulting state space. Various formal methods have been proposed to address the modeling of coordination among distributed systems components. For the most part, however, these methods do not support formal verification mechanisms. By way of contrast, the L-automata/L-processes model supports formal verification mechanisms which in many examples can successfully circumvent state space explosion problems, and allow verification proofs to be extended to an arbitrary number of components. After reviewing L-automata/L-processes formalisms, we present here the formal specification of a fault-tolerant algorithm for a distributed computer system. We also expose the L-automata/L-processes verification of the distributed system, demonstrating how various techniques such as homomorphic reduction, induction, and linearization, can be used to overcome various problems which surface as one models large, complex systems.     

分布式通用测试结构的形式化研究

随着分布式系统的不断发展更新,ＣＴＭＦ（ＩＳＯ／ＩＥＣ９４６４）所给出的测试方法不能满足的需要。提出了用于分布式系统的一致性没试互操作测试和性能测试的通用测试结构 ,并建立了用测试结构和形式化模人出了各部件的操作语义,为设计开发具有灵活动态的通信结构的分布测试系统提供了理论基础和依据,分布式系统通用测试结构扩展,当前基于被测系统类型的测试方法,它可以对实际的分布式系统进行整体测试。     

分布式优化的多智能体方法

分布式优化作为分布式协调控制领域中的一个基本而重要的研究课题,近年来,不同领域的众多学者对其产生了广泛的研究兴趣.本文总结归纳了分布式优化的研究现状和近期的研究成果,重点对离线分布式优化和在线分布式优化进行了阐述,并从算法设计和收敛性分析这两个角度进行了剖析.特别地,针对一类混合均衡问题,本文介绍了一类分布式求解算法.最后,阐述了当前尚未解决的问题和未来的研究方向.     

Overcoming controllability problems in distributed testing from an input output transition system

This paper concerns the testing of a system with physically distributed interfaces, called ports, at which it interacts with its environment. We place a tester at each port and the tester at port p observes events at p only. This can lead to controllability problems, where the observations made by the tester at a port p are not sufficient for it to be able to know when to send an input. It is known that there are test objectives, such as executing a particular transition, that cannot be achieved if we restrict attention to test cases that have no controllability problems. This has led to interest in schemes where the testers at the individual ports send coordination messages to one another through an external communications network in order to overcome controllability problems. However, such approaches have largely been studied in the context of testing from a deterministic finite state machine. This paper investigates the use of coordination messages to overcome controllability problems when testing from an input output transition system and gives an algorithm for introducing sufficient messages. It also proves that the problem of minimising the number of coordination messages used is NP-hard.     

一个软件服务协同中的信任管理框架设计

Internet-based Web application systems are gradually built as software service coordination systems. In an open, dynamic and collaborative application environment, traditional methods assumed with closeness, centralization and independence are not able to cope with these security problems efficiently. Trust management is a new method for dealing with security issues of open, distributed network application system. However, the traditional policy-based trust management systems have some shortcomings, i.e. complex in policy making, unable to deal with negative se-curity credentials, etc. So, we design a trust management framework in combination with subjective trust model for software service coordination and security decision in Internet environment. This trust management framework has characteristics of operability, reasonability, and flexibility in policy setting.     

Resource management in open Linda systems

Coordination systems, in particular Linda, have established themselves as important tools for the development of applications to open systems such as the Internet. This paper shows how to tackle a forgotten, but crucial problem in open coordination systems: memory management. As with any system which intends to be of wide use and because memory is a finite resource, coordination systems must address the problems of memory exhaustion. This paper first explores the orthogonality between coordination and computation in order to make it clear that the problem of memory exhaustion in coordination systems cannot be solved using garbage collection schemes implemented at the computation language—a garbage collection scheme must exist in the coordination environment as well. Following the explanation on orthogonality, the paper will focus on describing a garbage collection scheme for the Linda family of coordination systems. It is expected that the solution in Linda can be adapted to other coordination systems as long as they are based on tuple space communication. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Model-based testing of global properties on large-scale distributed systems

ContextLarge-scale distributed systems are becoming commonplace with the large popularity of peer-to-peer and cloud computing. The increasing importance of these systems contrasts with the lack of integrated solutions to build trustworthy software. A key concern of any large-scale distributed system is the validation of global properties, which cannot be evaluated on a single node. Thus, it is necessary to gather data from distributed nodes and to aggregate these data into a global view. This turns out to be very challenging because of the system’s dynamism that imposes very frequent changes in local values that affect global properties. This implies that the global view has to be frequently updated to ensure an accurate validation of global properties.ObjectiveIn this paper, we present a model-based approach to define a dynamic oracle for checking global properties. Our objective is to abstract relevant aspects of such systems into models. These models are updated at runtime, by monitoring the corresponding distributed system.MethodWe conduce real-scale experimental validation to evaluate the ability of our approach to check global properties. In this validation, we apply our approach to test two open-source implementations of distributed hash tables. The experiments are deployed on two clusters of 32 nodes.ResultsThe experiments reveal an important defect on one implementation and show clear performance differences between the two implementations. The defect would not be detected without a global view of the system.ConclusionTesting global properties on distributed software consists of gathering data from different nodes and building a global view of the system, where properties are validated. This process requires a distributed test architecture and tools for representing and validating global properties. Model-based techniques are an expressive mean for building oracles that validate global properties on distributed systems.     

一种分布式异构环境中语义模式匹配通信研究

在分布式系统中,随着不同标准中间件的不断出现,提供了一种新的计算方式,并实现了组件间的通信.由于Web服务在分布式异构环境中解决了应用程序的整合问题,导致基于互联网的中间件技术得到了迅速发展.因此在基于分布式组件开发的应用系统中有必要建立一个组件间协调处理机制.本文中我们设计了一种基于Web的协调服务,这个服务实现了组件间基于语义模式匹配的通信功能.     

Using status messages in the distributed test architecture

If the system under test has multiple interfaces/ports and these are physically distributed then in testing we place a tester at each port. If these testers cannot directly communicate with one another and there is no global clock then we are testing in the distributed test architecture. If the distributed test architecture is used then there may be input sequences that cannot be applied in testing without introducing controllability problems. Additionally, observability problems can allow fault masking. In this paper we consider the situation in which the testers can apply a status message: an input that causes the system under test to identify its current state. We show how such a status message can be used in order to overcome controllability and observability problems.     

Integral: Petri-net approach to distributed software development

As the architecture of modern software systems continues to evolve in a distributed fashion, the development of such systems becomes increasingly complex, which requires the integration of more sophisticated specification techniques, tools, and procedures into the conventional methodology. An essential capability of an integrated software development environment is a formal specification method to capture effectively the system's functional requirements as well as its performance requirements. A validation and verification (V&V) system based on a formal specification method is of paramount importance to the development and maintenance of distributed systems.

There has been recent interest in integrating software techniques and tools at the specification level. It is also noted that an effective way of achieving such integration is by using wide-spectrum specification techniques. In view of these points, an integrated V&V system, called Integral, is presented that provides comprehensive and homogeneous analysis capabilities to both specification and testing phases of the life-cycle of distributed software systems. The underlying software model that supports various V&V activities in Integral is primarily based on Petri nets and is intended to be wide spectrum. The ultimate goal of this research is to demonstrate to the software industry, domestic or foreign, the availability and applicability of a new Petri-net-based software development paradigm. Integral is a prototype V&V system to support such a paradigm.     

Fault-Based Conformance Testing in Practice

Conforming to protocol speci.cations is a critical issue in modern distributed software systems. Nowadays, complex service infrastructures, such as Voice-over-IP systems, are usually built by combining components of di.erent vendors. If the components do not correctly implement the various protocol speci.cations, failures will certainly occur. In the case of emergency calls this may be even life-threatening. Functional black-box conformance testing, where one checks the conformance of the implemented protocol to a speci.cation becomes therefore a major issue. In this work, we report on our experiences and .ndings when applying fault-based conformance testing to an industrial application. Besides a discussion on modeling and simpli.cations we present a technique that prevents an application from implementing particular faults. Faults are modeled at the level of the speci.cation. We show how such a technique can be adapted to speci.cations with large state spaces and present results obtained when applying our technique to the Session Initiation Protocol and to the Conference Protocol. Finally, we compare our results to random and scenario based testing.     

A practical approach for active camera coordination based on a fusion-driven multi-agent system

In this paper, we propose a multi-agent system architecture to manage spatially distributed active (or pan-tilt-zoom) cameras. Traditional video surveillance algorithms are of no use for active cameras, and we have to look at different approaches. Such multi-sensor surveillance systems have to be designed to solve two related problems: data fusion and coordinated sensor-task management. Generally, architectures proposed for the coordinated operation of multiple cameras are based on the centralisation of management decisions at the fusion centre. However, the existence of intelligent sensors capable of decision making brings with it the possibility of conceiving alternative decentralised architectures. This problem is approached by means of a MAS, integrating data fusion as an integral part of the architecture for distributed coordination purposes. This paper presents the MAS architecture and system agents.