Active Networks: Applications, Routing And Implementation

Lecture Announcement

	Organizer: IEEE Communications Society/IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Society Joint-Sponsored Lecture
	Title: Active Networks: Applications, Routing And Implementation
	Speaker: Mr. Kazem Najafi, Ph.D. President, Omid Technologies Inc.

Abstract:
Active networks deregulate the Internet by allowing the end-users to program the routers of the network. The processing power offered by active routers can also be employed to distribute the delivery tasks throughout the network. Offloading these tasks from the servers allows for very large scalable many-to-many sessions.
Our research focuses on three different aspects of Active networking: Applications, Routing & Placement and Implementation.
Applications: We have proposed a new architecture for delivering video over the Internet that augments video data with programs and uses the active networks for transport. In this approach, the network routers participate in customizing, multicasting, caching and monitoring of the session, leading to a far more scalable architecture than that of the centralized servers of today. This architecture is called Active Video for short.
Routing and Placement: When an active session is launched, intermediate active routers of the network should run the programs injected by the end-user. The choice of router, however, has a significant impact in the end-to-end cost of the session. If place incorrectly, the active programs (or agents) can lead to even larger end-to-end costs than that of the passive case. We have proposed and implemented a new algorithm that quantifies these trade-offs by using a novel cost model for active networks.
Implementation: Although limited deployment of active networks has already started, they are far from ubiquitous. We have researched ways of providing active services today without having to wait for full deployment of active networks. Our proposed solution is a Java based solution that does not require any new software or hardware installations. This solution transforms any Java-enabled web browser into an active node. We have implemented several active services using this solution.

Biography:
Kazem Najafi received his B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from Tehran University, the University of Calgary and University of Toronto in 1990, 1995 and 2001 respectively. During his M.Sc. program, he researched various video signal processing and compression schemes and standards. In 1995 he joined Leitch Technology Inc., North York, ON, Canada, where he implemented the first 4:2:2 profile real-time MPEG-2 video encoder. His Ph.D. research focused on modeling and routing in Active Networks and their applications in networked multimedia delivery. He is currently the president of Omid Technologies Inc., a research and development company with a focus on networked multimedia.

Time and Location:
Wednesday, November 14th, 2001, at 6:30 p.m.
Refreshments at 6:00 p.m.
Galbraith Building, Room 244
Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering
University of Toronto, 35 St. George St.

For more information contact :
        IEEE Communications Society:
        Steve Hranilovic, M.A.Sc., Ph.D. Candidate
        University of Toronto, Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering
        (416)978-6454
        E-mail: steve@comm.utoronto.ca

        IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Society:
        Dennis Cecic, P. Eng., Field Applications Engineer
        bbd Electronics Inc.
        Ph. (905)286 2055,
        E-mail: dcecic@bbd.ca

NOTES:        All are welcome for this event.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Toronto Section
E-mail sec.toronto@ieee.org

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