Self management for large-scale distributed systems : An overview of the SELFMAN project

• As Internet applications become larger and more complex, the task of managing them becomes overwhelming. "Abnormal" events such as software updates, failures, attacks, and hotspots become frequent. The SELFMAN project is tackling this problem by combining two technologies, namely structured overlay networks and advanced component models, to make the system self managing. Structured overlay networks (SONs) developed out of peer-to-peer systems and provide robustness, scalability, communication guarantees, and efficiency. Component models provide the framework to extend the self-managing properties of SONs over the whole system. SELFMAN is building a self-managing transactional storage and using it for two application demonstrators: a distributed Wiki and an on-demand media streaming service. This paper provides an introduction and motivation for the ideas underlying SELFMAN and a snapshot of its contributions midway through the project. We explain our methodology for building self-managing systems as networks of interacting feedback loops. We then summarize the work we have done to make SONs a practical basis for our architecture: using an advanced component model, handling network partitions, handling failure suspicions, and doing range queries with load balancing. Finally, we show the design of a self-managing transactional storage on a SON.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Programvaruteknik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Software Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Component models

Feed-back loops

Hot-spots

Internet applications

Large-scale distributed systems

Load-balancing

Network partitions

On-demand medias

Peer-to-Peer Systems

Range queries

Self managements

Self-managing

Self-managing systems

Software updates

Structured overlay networks

Whole systems

Client server computer systems

Distributed computer systems

Formal methods

Internet

Overlay networks

Telecommunication networks

Structural design

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)