Middleware 2001

IFIP/ACM INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS PLATFORMS

Middleware is now widely acknowledged to be the premier conference on distributed systems platforms and open distributed processing.  The conference is a synthesis of the major conferences and workshops in this area into a single international event.  Highlights of Middleware 2001 will include a high-quality technical program, full and half-day tutorials, invited speakers, poster presentations and an advanced topic workshop, all held in the beautiful university city of Heidelberg, Germany.

The focus of Middleware 2001 is on the design, implementation, deployment and evaluation of distributed systems platforms and architectures for future networked environments.  Of particular interest is the experience with both new and existing architectures and platforms (such as RM-ODP, CORBA, RMI and DCOM) in environments which may include public, private and mobile networks, overlaid wired and wireless technologies, IPv6 and IP multicast, multimedia and real-time information and an increasing volume of WWW and Java traffic.

The conference seeks original, unpublished research and experience papers on all aspects of systems support for distributed applications including case studies on the use of such technologies and examples of advanced distributed applications.

The following topics have been identified by the program committee as being of special relevance to the conference:

• integration of middleware platforms with web and Java technologies.
• real-time middleware platforms including real-time ORBs.
• reliable middleware platforms including fault-tolerant ORBs.
• provision of multimedia support in middleware platforms.
• applications of, and support for, QoS in middleware platforms.
• event based, publish/subscribe and asynchronous platforms.
• novel paradigms and APIs for distributed systems platforms.
• open architectures for adaptive and reflective systems.
• applications of middleware technologies including telematics and commerce.
• extensions and refinements to RM-ODP, CORBA, DCOM etc.
• the impact of emerging Internet technologies on middleware platforms.
• distributed systems management and interactive configuration and development tools.
• issues of scalability in existing and new distributed systems platforms.
• engineering distributed systems in heterogeneous and mobile networks.

The software infrastructure to support mobile applications is becoming critically important to the next horizon in computing. This one-day workshop is intended as a forum for understanding the issues associated with this emerging area of middleware for mobile computing. We propose to focus the discussion on the following key topics:

We are interested in work-in-progress and visionary papers as well as experimental and systems-related papers. To encourage a working atmosphere, the workshop will invite a limited number of conference participants based on position papers. Position papers should be two to four pages in length and will be reviewed by the workshop program committee.

• Full technical papers. These should describe original, unpublished research or experience and be no longer than 7000 words.
• Work-in-progress papers. These should describe on-going work and interim results. Submissions should be no longer than 2500 words.
• Posters. Posters can be used to publicize current research initiatives. A 500-word summary of the poster's contents should be submitted.
• Tutorial proposals. Middleware 2001 aims to include a number of high-quality tutorials in areas relevant to the conference themes.  Tutorial proposals should be no longer than 1000 words and should include the intended audience, duration (full or half day) and speaker biographies for the tutorial.
• Advanced topic position papers. These should be 2-4 pages in length.

All technical papers will be reviewed by members of the Program Committee; advanced topic position papers will be reviewed by the workshop program committee. Full papers accepted for presentation at Middleware 2001 will be included in the proceedings published by Springer Verlag (LNCS series).

For outstanding full papers and workshop position papers, extended versions of selected research papers will be considered for publication in "IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems" and extended versions of experience papers will be considered for publication in "Software: Practice and Experience".

Work in progress and poster submissions will be made available to conference delegates but will not appear in the published proceedings. Advanced topic position papers will be made available to workshop attendees.

Please ensure the first page of your submission includes the paper title, an abstract and the address, telephone, FAX and email of the primary contact person and that the nature of your submission (full paper, work-in-progress paper etc.) is clearly identified.  Conference information and style guidelines for submissions are available at http://www.labs.agilent.com/middleware2001.

Further information may be obtained from the program chair, the tutorial chair, the works-in-progress chair, or the workshop chair.

Program Chair: Rachid Guerraoui, EPF Lausanne, Switzerland.