IEEE Computer Society Technical
Committee on Computer Communications
TCCC
March 2005
Welcome from the Chair – Joe Bumblis
Welcome to the first TCCC newsletter of 2005. There are many exciting events to share with you - the TCCC membership. First, Sanjay Jha submitted a conference report detailing the November 2004 Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN - http://www.ieeelcn.org). The text-only version is included in this newsletter for your review. An HTML version is now available on the TCCC web page (http://tab.computer.org/tccc).
Second, there are several conferences sponsored by the TCCC that are either in their “Call for Papers” phase, or in their “Call for Participation” phase. These conferences and their call dates are included below.
I invite all of you to visit the TCCC web page and review the information currently available. As we progress through 2005, many additional offerings will appear for your educational and enlightenment activities.
Local Computer Network (LCN) Conference
Report
The 29th IEEE Local Computer
Networks (LCN) conference was held in
In addition to the LCN conference, three focused workshops were also organized one day prior to the main conference. The First IEEE Workshop on Embedded Networked Sensors (EmNetS-I) was a big success. The EmNetS-I workshop specifically promoted community-wide discussion of how practical considerations, novel applications and real-world experience should shape the design of sensor networks. Professor Daniela Rus provided a thought provoking keynote speech. EmNetS-I topics of interest included:
• Validation or new architectural approaches for sensor networks
• Tradeoffs between application specific, and modular approaches based on prototyping and implementation
• Software and architectures for sensor network programmability
• Approaches to ease deployment and improve manageability of embedded and sensor networks
• Experimental and measurement tools for sensor networks
• Reliability and fault-tolerance, debugging and troubleshooting for sensor networks
• Novel applications for embedded and sensor networks
• Sensor network security, vulnerabilities and defenses
• Algorithms, protocols and systems for communication, coordination, data dissemination and storage, sensor tasking and control/actuation
• Operational experiences from deployed sensor networks and prototypes
The 4th International Workshop on Wireless Local Networks (WLN) continued this year with very good quality papers. Prof. Dr. Elizabeth M. Belding-Royer from UC Santa Barbara gave a keynote presentation at WLN 2004 in the area of "wireless ad hoc networks". WLN Topics of interest included:
• Wireless LAN and PAN media access techniques and protocols
• Energy efficiency in protocol and systems design
• Mobility management in wireless networks
• User mobility models and workloads
• Wireless environment simulation modeling
• Location dependant/personalized wireless applications
• Security issues in WLANs/WPANs
• Ad hoc networking
• Ad hoc routing protocols and algorithms
• Transport protocols for ad hoc networks
• Self configuration for ad hoc networks
• Mobile ad hoc computing platforms and test beds
• Wireless ad-hoc network simulation techniques
• Interoperability issues between wireless standards/protocols and the Internet
• Performance of Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11 networks
• Multiple wireless protocol coexistence issues
• Quality of Service issues in local wireless networks
• Wireless multimedia network architectures and protocols
• Resource allocation in wireless LANs
The third annual
meeting of the IEEE Workshop on High-Speed Local Networks (HSLN) in
• High-speed LANs (e.g. Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet)
• System-area networks (e.g. InfiniBand, Myrinet, SCI)
• Storage-area networks (e.g. Fibre Channel) and I/O interconnects
• High-speed networks in embedded systems (e.g. avionics, space systems)
• Protocols, services, and topologies for high-speed local networks
• Routing and switch architectures for high-speed local networks
• Quality of Service (QoS) in high-speed local networks
• Performance analysis of high-speed local networks and systems
• Modeling and simulation of high-speed local networks
• Middleware for high-speed local network communication
• Applications for high-speed local networks (e.g. video on demand)
The LCN 2004 and workshops
received generous support from our industrial and academic supporters, namely
IEEE Workshop on Wireless Local
Networks (WLN) will be held in conjunction with LCN 2005 in
Plan ahead for LCN 2005 in
More information about the LCN 2005 conference can be obtained from:
Dr. Sanjay Jha
Associate Professor and Head of Network Group
University of
NSW 2052,
Phone: +61 2 9385 6471
Fax: +61 2 9385 5770
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~sjha
Conference/Workshop Update
Upcoming Conferences/Workshops Sponsored
by the TCCC
IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom)
Sheraton Kauai Resort, Kauai, Hawaii
March 8-12, 2005
Advance Program and Call for Participation (http://www.percom.org)
[Co-sponsored with TCCC (50%) and TCPP (50%)]
IEEE PerCom 2005 will be the third annual conference on the emerging area of pervasive computing and communications aimed at providing an exciting platform and paradigm for all the time, everywhere services. PerCom 2005 will provide a high profile, leading edge forum for researchers and engineers alike to present their latest research in the field of pervasive computing and communications.
24th IEEE International Performance Computing and Communications Conference (IPCCC)
IPCCC
2005 -
Call for Participation (http://www.ipccc.org/)
[Co-sponsored with TCI (50%) and TCCC (50%)]
The International Performance, Computing, and Communications Conference (IPCCC) is the premier IEEE conference presenting research in the performance of computer and communication systems. For the last two decades, IPCCC has been a research forum for academic, industrial, and government researchers. The lively interactions among the researchers from these emerging new fields provide a stimulating environment rich with new ideas.
The Second IEEE Workshop On Embedded Networked Sensors (EmNetS-II)
Call for Participation (http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~emnet/)
[Co-sponsored
with the University of New South Wale, National ICT
The Second IEEE Workshop on Embedded Networked Sensors (EmNetS-II) will bring together researchers working in the broad area of embedded, networked sensors. The goal of the workshop is to promote community-wide discussion of ideas that will influence and foster continued research in the field. The workshop will provide a venue for researchers to present new ideas that have the potential to significantly impact the community in the long term, especially those exploring how practical considerations or novel application scenarios and requirements shape the design of these embedded and sensor networks.
Third Annual Conference on Communication Networks and Services Research (CNSR2005)
Call for Participation (http://www.cnsr.info/Events/CNSR2005/ and E-mail: cnsr2005@dal.ca)
[Sponsorship of this conference is through the Government of Canada in cooperation with the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency's (ACOA) Atlantic Innovation Fund (AIF)]
The Third Annual Conference on
Communication Networks and Services Research (CNSR2005) will be held in
The proceedings from CNSR2004 have been archived in the IEEE Xplore® Digital Library. CNSR2005 is sponsored in cooperation with the IEEE Computer Society's Technical Committee on Computer Communications (TCCC).
The IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN) — 30th Anniversary —
Call for Papers (http://www.ieeelcn.org)
[100% sponsorship by TCCC]
For the past 30 years, the IEEE LCN conference has been the premier conference on the leading edge of practical computer networking. LCN is a highly interactive conference that enables an effective interchange of results and ideas among researchers, users, and product developers. Over the years, LCN has tracked many developments from the local network to the global Internet and the World Wide Web. In 2005, we are targeting embedded networks, wireless networks, ubiquitous computing, heterogeneous networks, and security as well as management aspects surrounding them. We encourage you to submit original papers describing research results or practical solutions. Paper topics include, but are not limited to:
Local Area Networks Network Management
Personal/Wearable Networks Mobility Management
Embedded Networks Location-dependent Services
Wireless Networks Networks Ad-hoc Environments
Home/SOHO Networks Network Traffic Characterizations
Network to the Home Performance Evaluation/Measurements
High-Speed Networks Quality-of-Service
Optical Networks Congestion Control/Behavior Control
Storage-Area Networks Network Reliability
Peer-to-Peer Networks Network Security
Overlay Networks Adaptive Applications
‘From Around the TCCC ExCom’
From time to time I would like to include activities from TCCC ExCom members that may be of interest to the TCCC membership. Attached below is a technology brief offered by Howard Salwen of Audeon Networks, Inc. Howard currently serves on the Board of Directors of a company engaged in on-line gaming products, and is a Member-at-Large of the TCCC ExCom.
MMORPG
By: Howard Salwen
Massive Multiplayer On line Role Playing (MMORPG) games could not exist without the Internet infrastructure coupled with powerful computer graphics.
Here’s how a typical MMORPG works. At the outset, each player selects a role - male, female, fantasy character, warrior, craftsman and so forth and proceeds on to a virtual world. The players can interact with each other in this virtual world because all the players are connected to each other via the Internet. Successful games have 10’s of thousands of players playing simultaneously! Examples of these games are Asheron’s Call, Star Wars Galaxy and World of Warcraft.
The game business is huge. In terms of revenue, the game business, of which MMORPG is a part, is comparable to the movie business and it is growing. Unfortunately, it is not easy to create a successful MMORPG game. A great deal of time is require and a broad spectrum of talents. The team must have authors who write the story line and graphic artists who create the visual images. Of course, there is quite a bit of programming to done. Successful games have incredible graphics. For example, the grass in a scene will ripple authentically with the wind and the sound of the wind blowing will be in proportion to what is seen on the monitor!
The Internet presents its problems too. Given that people all over the world are interacting with each other in the virtual world of the game, network latency becomes a major issue. In this case, the story writers, artists and network experts collaborate to disguise and hide the latency effects so that action seems natural. The team also includes administrative staff to do the billing and to help players with questions. This part of the game company organization looks a lot like the teams that run ISP’s.
As you play, it is hard to remember that Computer Communications is at the heart of the game.
Please do not hesitate to contact me or any of the ExCom members if you have any questions or concerns regarding TCCC activities. In particular, we would love to have your feedback on what you would like to see in future newsletters, and the online publications area of the TCCC web page with suggestions ranging from tutorial-style articles on emerging technical areas by experts to original research articles to reports on ongoing TCCC-related activities in different IEEE regions. Your feedback will enable us to serve our common interests in a more productive way.
Thank you,
Joe Bumblis
Chair, TCCC