Neptune: Middleware Support for Cluster-based Network Services

There has been explosive deployment of large-scale cluster-based network services in recent years. Examples of such services include Internet search engines, discussion groups, and various other online services. High availability, incremental scalability, and ease-of-management are just some of the challenges faced by designers of these services. The main goal of this project, we call Neptune, is the design and implementation of a scalable software infrastructure to shield clustering complexities from service designers. With the assistance of the proposed software infrastructure, service designers can focus their attention on developing service-specific components without worrying about various clustering complexities. In particular, this project has been focusing on the construction of three specific components:

1. a scalable clustering architecture with load-balancing support that works well for fine-grain services;
2. an integrated resource management framework that combines the "response time"-conscious service quality, the overall system resource utilization efficiency, and service differentiation support;
3. a service replication framework that provides flexible replica consistency support with strong emphasis on performance scalability and fail-over support.

Deployment and evaluation:

Publications:

• Lingkun Chu, Kai Shen, Hong Tang, Tao Yang, and Jingyu Zhou, "Dependency Isolation for Thread-based Multi-tier Internet Services". In Proc. of the IEEE INFOCOM, Miami FL, March 2005. Abstract. Postscript version. PDF version.
  
  
• Kai Shen, Lingkun Chu, and Tao Yang, "Supporting Cluster-based Network Services on Functionally Symmetric Software Architecture". In Proc. of SC2004: High Performance Computing, Networking and Storage Conference, Pittsburgh PA, November 2004. Abstract. Postscript version. PDF version.
  
  
• Kai Shen, Tao Yang, and Lingkun Chu, "Clustering Support and Replication Management for Scalable Network Services". In the IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems - Special Issue on Middleware, Volume 14, Number 11, Pages 1168-1179, November 2003. Abstract. Postscript version. PDF version.
  
  
• Lingkun Chu, Hong Tang, Tao Yang, and Kai Shen, "Optimizing Data Aggregation for Cluster-based Internet Services". In Proc. of the 9th ACM Symposium on Principles and Practice of Parallel Programming (PPoPP'03), Pages 119-130, San Diego CA, June 2003. Abstract. Postscript version. PDF version.
  
  
• Kai Shen, Hong Tang, Tao Yang, and Lingkun Chu, "Integrated Resource Management for Cluster-based Internet Services". In Proc. of the 5th USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI'02), Pages 225-238, Boston MA, December 2002. Abstract. Postscript version. PDF version. HTML version. Conference talk slides in Powerpoint.
  
  
• Kai Shen, "Clustering, Resource Management, and Replication Support for Scalable Network Services". PhD dissertation, Dept. of Computer Science, University of California at Santa Barbara, July 2002. Abstract. Postscript version.
  
  
• Kai Shen, Tao Yang, and Lingkun Chu, "Cluster Load Balancing for Fine-grain Network Services". In Proc. of International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS'02), Fort Lauderdale FL, April 2002. Abstract. Postscript version. PDF version. A longer version appears as UCSB-TRCS-2002-02. Postscript version. Conference talk slides in Powerpoint.
  
  
• Kai Shen, Tao Yang, Lingkun Chu, JoAnne L. Holliday, Douglas A. Kuschner, and Huican Zhu, "Neptune: Scalable Replica Management and Programming Support for Cluster-based Network Services". In Proc. of the 3rd USENIX Symposium on Internet Technologies and Systems (USITS'01), Pages 197-208, San Francisco CA, March 2001. Abstract. Postscript version. PDF version. Conference talk slides in Powerpoint.
  
  

Project Contact:

Support:

Note:

The mirror project site at University of California, Santa Barbara.