Quicksilver: Middleware for Scalable Self-Regenerative Systems

Abstract : Our project was motivated by scalability and robustness gaps identified in the GIG/NCES COTS technology base. Concerns included the instability and poor performance of publish-subscribe technology in large deployments and the challenges of building scalable cluster-hosted technologies for data centers under intensive time-critical stress. Our solutions include the Ricochet real-time multicast, Cayuga message filter, a new scalable services architecture, the Quicksilver scalable multicast, Chunkyspread and Fireflies. Several of these are now being distributed for use by our partners in the military and elsewhere and will also be used by Cornell for follow-on projects. In addition to software solutions, our group participated in government workshops and worked closely with the Air Force on a transitioning path to move our solutions into their hands, and is likely to receive some continuing funding to pursue that path. Moreover, we identified promising applications for Ricochet in the context of the Navy DD (X) program. Finally, we explored some tangential applications of SRS concepts in the context of mobility. This ultimately led to a successful proposal under the DARPA ACERT program, managed by Dr. Jonathan Smith (IFTO).