Aula Ercolani 1 - Mura Anteo Zamboni, 2b - 7th october 2009 at 5 pm

Prof. Maarten van Steen - VU University Amsterdam

Title:
"Extreme wireless distributed systems"


Abstract

In the not so far away future, we will be looking at distributed systems that are built on top of very large wireless networks of small devices, such as large-scale wireless sensor networks. We are thus facing challenges in developing distributed systems that are extreme in the sense that they consist of many nodes, and extreme because those nodes may be severely resource constrained.

In this talk I will take a look at some problems, solutions, and applications of such extreme wireless distributed systems. In particular, I will concentrate on the application of gossip-based algorithms for disseminating information and report on initial results from experimenting with systems consisting of 50-100 wireless devices.

BIO

Maarten van Steen is full professor at VU University Amsterdam, where he leads a group of 12-15 researchers on large-scale distributed systems. His work encompasses wired systems, but is increasingly taking large-scale hybrid and pure wireless systems into account. Since a few years, gossip-based solutions form an important part of his work.