Hi All,
Here comes the news w.r.t. low latency systems!

Ittiam today unveils its complete software systems for latency sensitive applications ranging from conferencing to surveillance.
These can deliver an end-to-end latency as low as 60 ms for high definition video. Designed to cater to a wide range of real-time communication and fast response interactive video applications, these systems deliver full frame rate, high quality video at very low latencies.

This suite of low-latency systems are available on multiple TI platforms including TMS320DM646x, TMS320DM36x, TMS320DM644x and OMAP35x and support multiple compression formats. They can be customized for deployment in WiFi, cellular or best-effort networks and can also be easily scaled and integrated into highly custom and specialized applications.

Want to know more? Then have a look at the full PR from the PRNewswire website or on the Ittiam news webpage.

Please go ahead with any question or comments on low latency embedded systems!

A new camera and software system, currently in its final testing phase, would record the exact location of the ball and every player on the field, giving precise measurements of such factors as arm strength, speed and fielding range.

Source:
http://www.nbcchicago.com/sports/basketball/New-Stats-Measure-Intangibles.html

1.Introduction

Intelligent agents have become fashionable again in the late nineties, not only within the artificial intelligence community and in the popular press but also in traditional computer science communities. Whereas current commercial solutions for distributed processing are mostly centered on the client-server concept, with remote procedure calls as the standard way of interaction, script languages have emerged that explicitly support agent-oriented programming. Especially in telecommunication applications, where the instant provision of new services and the customization of existing services become critical issues, agents will become to an increasing degree an essential aspect in the design of new networks to handle the ever-increasing complexity.

This paper will focus on the “mobility” attribute of intelligent agents and thus uses the term mobile agent to denote an autonomous mobile object to which a user delegates some or all of her decision-making in the respective problem domain, and that is able to move around an electronic network, communicating with other such active objects by means of message passing. First the evolution of TNMS is described followed by the roles of manager and agent. The next section discusses the security issues of the agent-based systems followed by problems and possible attacks in such systems. These sections also discuss the possible solutions offered and the loopholes existing in these techniques leading to a conclusion that it won’t be a wise step to fully open Telecommunications networks for agents at this point.

1.1 Telecommunications Systems

For today’s communication needs, a Telecommunications networks consisting of just wires and mechanical switches, cannot be sufficient.

Today’s systems carry out quite complex functions that are implemented mostly in the form of software. Thus, TNMs are becoming more and more confronted with the challenge of managing a software-based, distributed system of growing complexity.

On the top of it, today’s communication applications are expected to have the following characteristics:

· Highly distributed and heterogeneous: since Telecommunications networks work worldwide, a large number of operators have to interact; many of them use different equipment and transmission techniques (standard cable, fiber optics, radio communication, satellites, etc.).

· Safety critical: since our society depends on the proper functioning of these networks. The most efficient way to paralyze an industrial country is probably to interrupt its information infrastructure. Even short-time breakdowns can be disastrous, for instance when failing to process an emergency call.

· Continuously running: since Telecommunications networks cannot be halted for examination, debugging, or rebooting.

· Fault-tolerant: since faults and malfunctions within the system or at the customer’s site will always happen; such events, however, must not cause the whole network to crash.

· Meets real-time requirements: because setting up a (world-wide) call cannot take arbitrarily long.

Setting up and running such a network is a true technical challenge; it actually is getting harder and harder, since the complexity of services is constantly growing: more and more, mostly software-based features and services are being added—in parallel, the problems involved with running those systems increase. This led to the evolution of networks in the direction of large, high-speed networks, consisting of diverse equipment and supporting mobility. The capability to dynamically place control and management software processes at the most appropriate location will have significant impact on the architecture and the related (signaling) protocols of telecommunication systems. So developed the agent-manager concept, a paradigm leading to TNMS. TNMS makes agent and manager as two separate modules. The ability of agents to handle heterogeneous environments, the potentially adjustable (small) footprint of an agent, and the potential to dispatch and activate agents as necessary during problem resolution are properties useful for network management. Telecom companies, and in particular France Telecom, are building infrastructures to allow software agents to provide more and more sophisticated services to multiple users. This strong interest resulted also into an activity to standardize agent systems: the Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA).

1.2 Functions Of Manager And Agent

The TNMS concept of agent-manager relation is similar to Client/Server, but with few clients, and many servers (where the agent acts as a server and the manager acts as a client). It can be viewed as a Manager/Employee relationship in the real world.

The Manager:

· Makes decisions about what the agents are suppose to do.

· Gives orders to the various agents in order to make the network function smoothly.

· Must monitor agents, and administer relational tasks between agents.

Agents are employed in

· The construction of “smart” networks

· Routing or filtering messages sent to a user

· Seeking information or services on the user’s behalf.

All agent-based systems, impressive as their potential benefits may rightly seem, may, however, be jeopardized in a commercial world by the lack of appropriate security mechanisms. Indeed, most agent systems do not address error recovery and auditing, privacy, and various aspects of trust among the participants.

2. Security Issues Of Agent-Based Systems

Network safety, security, and reliability are crucial issues for a Telecomm Network

Manager (TNM). Mobile agents are certainly a potential security threat. TNMs must therefore critically evaluate agent-based scenarios before actually thinking about introducing them for commercial applications. Although many promoters of mobile agent technology acknowledge that security represents a key factor for the successful employment, they tend to ignore it in their work:

Security against mobile agents is a very big issue or a red herring

depending on what one is trying to do (Virdhagriswaran, 1997).

Whereas a first generation of mobile agents has been written in languages such as Telescript and Safe Tcl/Tk, the omni-presence of Java, mainly due to its platform-independent executables fetchable from the network, makes it a prime platform for the implementation of agent systems. Aglets (IBM) (Lange & Oshima, 1998), Concordia (Mitsubishi) (Castillo et al., 1998), Odyssey (General Magic), and Voyager (Open Space), all developed within industry, are examples of recent Java-based agent languages/environments. This means that on the one hand agents have potential access to all Java class files on the host; on the other hand they rely on the security of the Java interpreter for their proper execution. Thus, agent security and Java security go hand in hand. All the security concerns raised about Java also affect the safe execution of agents. A small, local bug in the implementation of the hosting Java interpreter will affect the security of the entire agent system. Even more problematic is the fact that there are also threats that originate in malicious hosts. For example, if there is no mechanism to prevent attacks, a host can implant its own tasks into an agent or modify the agent’s state. This

can lead in turn to theft of the agent’s resources if it has to pay for the execution of tasks or to loss of the agent’s reputation if its state changes from one host to another in ways that alter its behavior in negative ways. Taking together, the problems that arise in an agent-scenario can be divided into three categories:

· Protecting hosts in a network.

· Protecting the agents.

· Protecting the network itself.

The next sections describe and suggest solutions to these three categories of problems.

2.1 Attacks On Hosts By The Visiting Agents

The most important law of system security reads Never, ever run code from un-trusted sources. In most companies this means that employees are not allowed to use software that did not come through the standard channels. A number of new technologies are already contradicting to this principle, for instance Java and ActiveX. The only control such technologies leave over incoming code is that they have to be actively downloaded, but agents can even move by themselves. An agent-based scenario must therefore provide a very convincing solution to the problem of protecting itself from malicious agents.

The suggested remedy for such a problem, currently the most popular one, is the Sandbox Approach. The idea is rather simple: an agent cannot control a machine, if it runs in a “sandbox” that blocks access to the outside (i.e.: the real machine): the sandbox offers as much functionality to a program running inside as one wants to grant. Several approaches like Java, Tele-script or follow this idea, all in somewhat different technical details.

Sandbox approaches aim at protecting a host from foreign code by setting up a restricted execution environment for the incoming code. Although this always trades functionality for security, it is a good approach in principle. It is important that such a sandbox comes with a clear security model and a security policy. This is indispensable for actually judging the risk that is involved with providing the sandbox. The most popular approach today is the Java virtual machine. Thus the efficiency of this approach invariably depends on JVM’s efficiency. While this might be acceptable for settings where the potential damage by abuse is low, for use within a Telecommunications network extra care has to be taken.

2.2 Attacks On Agents By The Hosts They Visit

A point that is often overlooked in the literature is the need for protecting an agent from the host it visits. Assume one sends out an agent searching a particular product for a best bid with some upper limit. It would, in principle, be possible that some host where the agent comes along reads this information out and manipulates the agent such that it not looks further and reports back that there is only one vendor, namely the one controlling the manipulating site. This vendor could then offer the product for just a little bit below the limit. Such a possibility is certainly not acceptable. Even worse scenarios are possible if agents had themselves some authority, for instance by being able to spend money.

Protecting agents is also closely connected to protecting network hosts to be visited by agents: if such host is supposed to run an agent, it will want to make sure that the mobile code has not been manipulated to try to abuse the host – unless the host has a foolproof runtime system for agents.

Cryptographic methods like digital signatures, authentication, and encryption schemes, particularly those based on public keys, seem like what is needed for protecting agents against manipulation. Unfortunately, such techniques sort of contradict to the spirit of agents. The source of the problem is that an agent must instruct the current host to perform any operations, rather than being able to act on it. Thus an agent cannot carry any secrets on its journey because of two reasons:

- the agent must be readable to the host

- for using such a secret it had to be passed to the run time environment of

a visited host.

There is only one possible solution separating an agent into a program part and a data part and use cryptographic techniques to sign the program part. This can be useful only in those scenarios where the data part doesn’t carry any important information.

2.3 Attacks On The Network Itself

It is already very difficult to safely design distributed systems with interacting, concurrent processes; agents make the situation even worse, since processes will also move within the network. As observed by a researcher, as a system becomes more complex and more interconnected, it is more likely to exhibit large-scale behaviors that we would not predict from knowledge of the individual elements. Especially when the elements have a life of their own and the environment is highly real-time like Telecomm we can hardly impart a thorough security. It can be expected that agents running in a large distributed system will cause new problems; little experience in this respect has been gained so far. There is a clear need for basic research in this direction; results from software engineering and formal methods are desperately needed.

3. Conclusion

Agent-based software systems are very problematic with respect to security, since the principle of mobile code brings new problems for system security, reliability, and safety. Not very long ago, there was a widespread belief that an interpreted program is already a safe program. However, over time, mobile agent people became concerned about security and regard it today to be one of the biggest obstacles that have prevented wider employment of mobile agents. There are three basic problems in agent-based systems: firstly, the hosts must be protected from potentially harmful agents, second, the roaming agents must be protected against manipulation from the visited hosts, and third the overall behavior of an agent-based system must be controlled. Although, in principle, it is possible to secure a host against mobile agents, the price might be very high: hardware-based protection, reduced flexibility, and high cost. It is fundamentally impossible to protect an agent against a malicious host if no trusted hardware is available. There is a need for security profiles for agent execution environments to make informed judgments about tradeoffs between security and other desired features. The current state-of-the-art still fails to deliver an acceptable approach to cope with these problems: available technology (like sandbox-approaches, cryptography) can cover only certain aspects, and even fails to solve these aspects sufficiently. A sound overall concept to cope with the problems seems not yet in sight. Mobile agents constitute an active research field and security of mobile code is (still) an area for further research. It seems therefore prohibitive to fully opening Telecommunications networks for agents at this point. Even running only proprietary agents within controlled and isolated networks seems risky, since there is in practice no way to rigorously control a network beyond a certain size. It is not sufficient to come up with attractive applications based on mobile agents. What is also needed is an applicable concept for coping with the inherent security problems. Such an overall concept must meet very strong requirements, otherwise it will not be accepted where real money comes into play.

Clearly, no running system can be 100% secure, and one has to compromise. In companies, however, compromises are governed by economic considerations: the potential earning must (at least in the long run) outweigh the costs, and the risk involved must be assessable. Thus, from a TNM’s perspective, the future of commercial applications of mobile agents is hardly predictable; what is predictable, however, is a promising future for security experts.

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The company I work for in the centre of Oxford is Oxford Computer Consultants (OCC). The company was founded in 1989 by its existing co-directors, Dr John Boyle and Kaz Librowski and employs 55 IT professionals. I’ve been working there for 5 years as Communications Manager and really enjoy it. It’s a great company and the people there are fantastic!

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درود بسیار بر یکایک دوستان
توی این مقاله دست و پا زدم تا مفهوم سیستم رو با یه زبون ساده بیان کنم.

سیستم
برای فراگیری مهندسی نرم‌افزار لازم است با مفاهیمی که شالوده کار ما را میسازند آشنا شویم. یکی از این مفاهیم «سیستم» و دیگری «مدل» است. فراگیری UML و RUP و … تا زمانی که به این مفاهیم مسلط نباشم ما را یاری نمیکند. کسی که درک مبهمی از سیستم و مدل دارد نمیتواند آنگونه که سزاوار است از زبان مدلسازی UML استفاده کند یا فرایندهای نرم‌افزاری را بکار ببندد. از سوی دیگر سر و کله زدن با اینگونه نکات «فلسفی» در کار نرم‌افزار، دهن ما را هوشیارتر می‌کند و باعث میشود تا کار خود را هوشمندانه انجام دهیم.

سیستم دقیقا چست؟ خوشبختانه پاسخش بسیار ساده است: سیستم(System) مجوعه ای از اجزاء (Components) است که با هم در ارتباطند (Relation) و هدف مشخصی را دنبال می‌کنند (Objective). هر ترکیبی از چیزها (یا همان موجودیت ها – Entities) که برای رسیدن به یک هدف همکاری (Colaboration) کنند، یک سیستم میسازند. این اجزاء می‌توانند هر چیزی باشند. از انسان‌ها گرفته تا قطعاتی چون پیچ‌ و مهره. هدف سیستم میتواند از اجرای یک نمایشنامه تا تولید نیروی محرکه در اتوموبیل تغییر کند. سیستم می‌تواند فیزیکی (اجزای قابل لمس) یا منطقی (اجزای منطقی) یا ترکیبی از هر دو باشد.برخی سیستم ها ساده (Simple) و برخی نیز پیچیده (Complex) هستند. برخی کوچک (Small) (اجزاء اندک) و برخی بزرگ (Large) (اجزاء بسیار) هستند. سیستم ساده سیستمی است که درک آن ساده و ارتباط اجزایش زیاد پیچیده نباشد. سیستمهای ساده معولا کوچک‌ اند و اهداف ساده ای را دنبال می‌کنند. نقطه مقابل آنها سیستمهای یچیده هستند که چندین هدف را دنبال می‌کنند و اغلب اجزای بسیار با روابط دشوار دارند.

زیر سیستم
گاهی جزئی از سیستم خودش از اجزایی کوچک تر ساخته شده که از دید سیستم بزرگتر کار واحدی را انجام می‌دهند. برخی اوقات هم ساده‌تر (و درست تر) است که یک زیر مجموعه از اجزاء را از بقیه سیستم جدا کنیم و به آنها به چشم یک سیستم کوچکتر در دل سستم بزرگتر نگاه کنیم. یک چنین زیر مجوعه‌ای از سیستم را یک «زیر‌سیستم» (Sub-system) می‌گویند. یک زیر سیستم خودش یک سیستم کامل است ومیتواند مستقل از سیستم بزرگتر بررسی شود. از دید سیستم بزرگتر، زیر سیستم یک جزء است که کار خاصی را در ارتباط با بقیه سیستم انجام می‌دهد. برای نمونه اگر خودرو را یک سیستم در نظر بگیریم، موتور یک جزء آن است که نیروی محرکه تولید می‌کند و در ارتباط با اجزای دیگر همچون دلکو، کویل، میل‌لنگ، بدنه و … هدفی واحد را دنبال می‌کند و آن حرکت دادن کل خودرو است. از سوی دیگر موتور قطعه‌ای بسیار پیچیده است و می‌تواند مستقل از خودرو بررسی شود بنابراین موتور (نسیبت به خودرو) یک زیرسیستم هم هست زیرا تمام ویژگیهای یک سیستم را دارد و خودش جزئی از یک سیستم بزرگتر است. در واقع اتوموبیل را می‌توان از دیدگاه‌های گوناگون به تعداد بسیاری زیرسیتم تجزیه کرد. آیا موتور و صندلی راننده با هم یک زیر سیستم میسازند؟ به نظر نمیاد که ارتباطی با هم داشته باشند یا از ترکیب آنها هدف خاصی که در خدمت سیستم بزرگتر باشد (یا کار ما را در بررسی سیستم ساده‌تر کند) حاصل شود، بنابراین آنها تنها یک مجموعه میسازند نه یک زیرسیستم. برخی اوقات تعدادی از اجزاء بقدری به هم‌پیوسته و تنگاتنگ کار می‌کنند که به طور طبیعی آنها را زیرسیستم در نظر میگیریم؛ همچون سیستم گردش‌ خون در بدن انسان یا سیستم انتقال قدرت در اتوموبیل. چنین زیر سیستمهایی هدفی آشکار را دنبال می‌کنند و ارتباط اجزای آنها با هم چنان است که اگر کل مجموعه را یک واحد منطقی (زیر سیستم) در نظر بگیریم، کار درستی کرده‌ایم.‌ دلایل بسیار دیگری هست که زیرمجموعه‌ای خاص از اجزاء یک سیستم را یک زیرسیستم در نظر بگیریم. یک جزء می‌تواند همزمان در چندین زیرسیستم باشد و یا اینکه در هیچکدام نباشد؛ بستگی به این دارد که آیا این تقسیم‌بندی به ما کمکی می‌کند یا خیر.

سیستم‌های نرم‌افزاری
آیا متوان نرم‌افزار را سیستم دانست؟ بیایید آنرا بررسی کنیم! یک نرم‌افزار هر چقدر هم که ساده باشد (در حد یک برنامه Hello World) هنوز از اجزاء ساده‌تری ساخته شده (تابع هاُ، بلوک‌هاُ و …). این اجزاء با هم ارتباط ویژه‌ای دارند (منطق برنامه) که در مجموع کاری را انجام می‌دهند (خروجی). در واقع نرم‌افزار چیزی نیست جز ترکیبی منطقی از اجزای نرم‌افزاری کوچکتر؛ بنابراین نرم‌افزار حقیقتا یک سیستم است. برخی محصولات نرم‌افزاری سیستمهای بسیار پیچیده‌ای هستند که خود از چندین زیر سیستم دیگر (که خودشان پیچیدگی بسیار دارند) ساخته شده‌اند. برای نمونه نرم‌افزار اتوکد محصول شرکت اتودسک یا سیستم عامل ویندوز محصول مایکروسافت را در نظر بگیرید. یک بررسی ساده نشان می‌دهد که هر یک از این محصولات براستی یک سیستم پیچیده است. یک چنین سیستمی را که اجزایش نرم‌افزاری هستند یک «سیستم نرم‌افزاری» (Software System) می‌خوانند. سیستم نرم‌افزاری همه ویژگی‌های سیستم های دیگر را دارد با این تفاوت که اجزایش نرم‌افزاری هستند و جسم فیزیکی ندارند؛ به همین خاطر نرم‌افزار در واقع یک سیستم «منطقی» است. در مقابل آن سیستمهای سخت‌افزاری هستند که اجزایش فیزیکی هستند و یک سیستم «الکترونیکی – مکانیکی» را می‌سازند. آنگاه که یک سیستم نرم‌افزاری یک سیستم سخت‌افزاری را تحت کنترل دارد، مجموعه آنها را «سیستم کامپیوتری» مینامند. شناخت و درک ماهیت سیستمی نرم‌افزار و زیر سیستمهای سازنده آنها و منطق ارتباط آنها با یکدیگر بخش اساسی و جدانشدنی مهندسی نرم‌افزار است. در حقیقت مهندسی نرم‌افزار با مهندسی سیستم آغاز میشود و هدف از آن بررسی نرم‌افزار از دید سیستمی است.

برای اینکه مقاله کامل شده باشد، برخی مفاهیم و مهارتهای سیستمی را در ارتباط با نرم‌افزار مرور می‌کنیم:

تحلیل سیستم (System analysis) یا همان تحلیل (Analysis): هدف از تحلیل نرم‌افزار (سیستم) شناخت و درک سیستم و اجزای آن و روابط بین آنهاست. «تحلیل گر سیستم» (System Analyst) می‌کوشد تا سیستم را بشناسد؛ به معنی که اهدافش را درک کند و مشخصاتش را تشخیص دهد، زیر سیستمهای مهم را بیابد و دید درستی از منطق سیستم (ارتباط اجزا و زیر سیستمها با یکدیگر) بدست بیاورد. برای این منظور او برخی اوقات سیستم را می‌شکند و اجزایش را میشکافد (تجزیه و تحلیل – Analysis) وبرخی اوقات اجزا را ترکیب می‌کند و زیر سیستم میسازد (ترکیب – Synthesis). هر کاری که به شناخت بهتر سیستم بیانجامد به نوعی تحلیل شمرده می‌شود. واژگانی همچون «تحلیل‌گر سیستم»، «تحلیل‌گر نرم‌افزار» و «تحلیل‌گر» همه همان معنی را دارند. برخی اوقات اصولا هنوز سیستمی ساخته نشده است که بخواهد تحلیل شود و در واقع هدف این است که سیستمی نو ساخته شود. در این صورت کار تحلیل گر بسیار مهم و تا اندازه‌ای متفاوت است. او باید سیستم آینده را بشناسد و در حقیقت او خواهد گفت که این سیستم چه خواهد بود. نتیجه کار تحلیل، مشخصات و ویژگی‌های سیستمی است که باید ساخته شود (System Specifications) . اهداف سیستم و محدودیتهای آن به همراه قالب ورودی و خروجی سیستم ار بخشهای مهم مشخصات سیستم هستند. تحلیلگر به جزپیات کار طراحی و ساخت سیستم کاری ندارد. او میگوید که «چه چیزی» قرار است ساخته و این «چه» همان «مشخصات سیستم» است.

طراحی سیستم (System Design) یا همان طراحی (Design): طراح سیستم (System Designer) می‌کوشد تا سیستمی را طراحی کند که «مشخصات» خواسته شده را داشته باشد. طراح باید درک درستی از اهداف و ویژگی‌های سیستم داشته باشد تا بتواند کار خود را آغاز کند بنابراین تحلیل پیش از طراحی آغاز می‌شود. طراح می‌گوید که سیستم چه اجزایی داشته باشد و این اجزا چگونه با هم کار کنند (منطق سیستم) تا سیستم بتواند به هدف خود برسد. طراح زیر سیستمهای لازم برای برپایی سیستم را شناسایی کرده و انها را به هم متصل میکند و به این ترتیب نقشه سیستم نهایی را می‌سازد. نتیجه فرایند طراحی، نقشه سیستمی است که قرار است ساخته شود؛ این نقشه را «طرح سیستم» میگویند. توجه کنید که طراح، سیستم را نمیسازد بلکه نقشه سیستم را می‌کشد. افرادی دیگر با در دست داشتن این نقشه، شروع به ساخت سیستم می‌کنند. طراح می‌گوید که «چطور» سیستم را بسازیم تا مشخصات خواسته شده را دارا باشد. این «چطور» همان نقشه یا طرح سیستم است.

تحلیل کافی و طراحی درست نکات کلیدی موفقیت سیستمی هستند که قرار است ساخته شود. اگر سیستم به اندازه کافی تحلیل نشود، ممکن است جنبه‌های مهمی از سیستم از دید طراح پوشیده بمانند و درنتیجه طرح سیستم دچار کاستی شود. این کاستی‌ها بعدها خود را به صورت اشکالات ریز و درشت در سیستم نشان می‌دهند. تحلیل سیستم مقدم بر همه فرآیندهای دیگر است و تا زمانی که مشخص نشود به دنبال «چه» هستیم، نمی‌توانیم آنرا بسازیم. «مشخصات» درست و کامل به طراح کمک می‌کند تا انچه را که باید ساخته شود طراحی کند. اگر طراح کار خود را بدرستی انجام ندهد، سیستم نمیتواند آنگونه که شایسته است اهداف خود را برآورده کند و مشخصات خواسته شده را دارا نخواهد بود و در نتیجه موفقیت آن کوتاه است. بیشتر اوقات کار تحلیل و طراحی با یکدیگر هم‌پوشانی می‌کنند و همزمان کار طراحی و هم تحلیل پیش میروند. تمامی آنچه گفتیم بدون تغییر و بطور مستقمیم در سیستمهای نرم‌افزاری کاربرد دارد. مهندس نرم‌افزار خوب هم به تحلیل و هم به طراحی سیستم مسلط است. او باید بتواند سیستم را درک کرده و آنرا طراحی کند.« ساخت» سیستمی که طراحی شده خود کار دیگری است که البته جزو مهارتهای مهندسی نرم‌افزار است و به آن خواهیم پرداخت.