DYNAMIC GROUP MULTICASTING USING MOBILE JAVA POLICIES

Dr. Simon J.E. Taylor
Centre for Applied Simulation Modelling
Brunel University
England

GRIDS   is a  runtime     system supporting  large-scale   distributed
simulation.  GRIDS supports a  wide range of simulation architectures,
ranging  from discrete   event  based systems  through  to  real-time,
interactive simulations.   A messaging service,  offering a variety of
addressing   modes,  provides  inter-process  communications.   A user
process  can    publish a set  of   attributes  which  are distributed
throughout the simulation. Attributes can  be queried, and are used as
the basis of the GRIDS  dynamic group model for multicasting.  Dynamic
groups implement  filtering  mechanisms in the   form of  mobile  Java
interest management policies.  Group  policies have  continuous state,
and autonomously update group membership based on non-trivial code.

This presentation describes the context, architecture and operation of
GRIDS. An overview   of  relevance filtering techniques is   included,
together with an  explanation  of the  GRIDS  dynamic group model  for
multicasting.    Some   performance  figures   are   presented.    The
presentation will conclude with a summary  of our future plans in this
area.



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Dr. Simon J.E. Taylor,
Senior Tutor and International Officer (DISC)
Dept. of Information Systems and Computing
Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middx, England.
Tel:  +44-1895-203389  (answerphone)
Fax:  +44-1895-251686
Email: simon.taylor@brunel.ac.uk
WWW: http://www.brunel.ac.uk/~csstsjt