Robbert van Renesse

Robbert van Renesse
Senior Research Associate
PhD Vrije University, Amsterdam, 1989

I am working with Ken Birman and the Isis group on Horus, a redesign and implementation of the Isis system. Based on object-oriented ideas, Horus is very flexible. It allows us to develop new and efficient protocols for group membership and communication. Horus has been used to implement fault-tolerant web servers and distributed editing and whiteboard systems. We are currently looking into developing distributed multimedia services.

I am also involved in the TACOMA project, with Fred Schneider and Dag Johansen (Tromsö University, Norway). This project investigates a paradigm called "agents", which are mobile computations. Agents have almost human characteristics, as they travel through the network, interact with each other, and pay for services using digital cash. We have implemented several prototype systems to investigate the issues and are currently focusing on fault-tolerance.

Professional Activities

Program Committee of the Fifth Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems (HotOS-V), May 4-5, 1995, Orcas Island, Washington

Lectures

New applications for group computing. Theory and Practice in Distributed Systems Workshop, Dagstuhl, Germany, September 1994.
___. Tromsø University, Norway, September 1994.
The Horus system. Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September 1994.
___. Tromsø University, Norway, September 1994.
___. Naval Research Labs, Washington, D.C., March 8, 1995.
___. University of Washington, Seattle, May 2, 1995.

Publications

Operating system support for mobile agents. Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems (HotOS-V), May 4-5, 1995, Orcas Island, Washington (with Dag Johansen and Fred B. Schneider).

Distributed Software

Horus system
TACOMA 1.0 system

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