Advanced Server Technologies Program

The Advanced Server Technology (AST) Program concentrated on the development of applications to manage large information repositories in business systems and intranet/internet information services. Research focused on the implementation of distributed object spaces, persistent programming stores, and operating systems on multicomputers. Research also focused on designing practical techniques for security and safety on mobile code applets.

Given the complexity of this field — researchers had to tackle issues of heterogeneity, scalability, stability, efficiency, and portability — the program was divided into a number of specialised projects to facilitate outcomes:

• Utilising Persistence and Scalability for Information Management in Distributed Environments (UPSIDE)

• Hierarchical Retrieval of Objects in Distributed Store (HEROD)

• Piston++ Operator Networks (PIPPON)

• Multicomputer Persistent Java (MCPJ)

• Java Applets with Safety (JAWS)

• Parallel IO for Multicomputer Systems (PIOUS)
  

Over time some projects terminated or were incorporated into other projects, keeping in tune with technical progressions, commercial reviews, and the integration of research functions.

Program Highlights

The development of three prototypes of high performance Orthogonally Persistent Java (OPJ). These are tools that help to breakdown the complexity of large scale object management systems. The OPJs have been developed on top of several PSI-compliant storage platforms, have transparent object versioning, and utilise the Semantic Extension Framework.

The development of a highly scalable, single-image transactional storage system (ANU Store). Initial non-tuned tests have shown it to perform better than the PJama non-transactional object store, have similar performance to the Shore object store, and perform much better than a well known commercial object relational database.

Collaboration with the Australian Bureau of Statistics to design an OPJ-based solution for their ‘Business Register’ application. The OPJ must be portable and scalable, and addresses the application’s special transactional and object versioning requirements. The prototype developed through this collaboration demonstrates OPJ’s effectiveness in a large-scale business context.

Commercialisation of intellectual property developed in the MCPJ and PIPPON projects has been taken up by Fujitsu. Fujitsu also has software exchange and distribution rights for the Linux AP Series port and MPP implementation developed in the MCPJ Project.

Porting of Linux to the Fujitsu AP1000+ to add appropriate multi-processor extensions to support parallel programs.

Delivery of the Fujitsu AP3000 parallel computer system.

Defence Science and Technology Organisation has taken up a research licence for software developed in the JAWS Project.

Development of a national centre of expertise in Java-based multiprocessor distributed stores and distributed applications. One researcher, Steve Blackburn, was awarded The John Lions Prize for most significant PhD thesis in open source computing.