Protocols and Algorithms for Collaborative Applications on the Internet

By Dr. Shankar Banik

Department of Mathematics and Computer Science

Computer supported collaborative applications are gaining popularity among Internet users who are geographically dispersed. Examples of this kind of applications include video conferencing, distributed database replication, distributed interactive simulations, online multiplayer games, and virtual world applications. These types of distributed applications call for efficient group communication which entails determining routes that are independent of the underlying network. To meet the demands of these distributed applications, there have been increased research efforts in the development of network protocols that can be executed at the application layer. These protocols are built for virtual networks named as overlay networks. In an overlay network, the nodes are the hosts that participate in the distributed application and the links are paths in the Internet that consist of several routers along the path. My research is focused on the development of algorithms for the construction of overlay networks that meet the demands of the distributed applications. In addition, I design network protocols that can be executed on these overlay networks for a chosen set of collaborative applications. In this seminar I will discuss my research work on collaborative applications. I will also talk about PlanetLab research consortium which connects academic institutions and industrial research labs all over the world in a virtual testbed. The Citadel is a member of this consortium. Researchers use PlanetLab network to test new network services for different distributed applications.