The ever increasing mass of information leads to new challenges on analyzing or navigating the large data sets. Combining visual perception and interaction capabilities with the enormous storage and computational power of today's computer systems, especially with the rise of 3D virtual worlds, has great potential in providing deeper immersion and intuitive interactions with large data sets. In this demo, we exploit the potential of navigating large data-sets in a 3D virtual world, by transforming raw data sets into semantically rich, high level interactions and presenting data through rich, real-time visualization. We also explore the use of various digital devices that most users have available to build “distributed interfaces” and provide capabilities that make interactions within the 3D space, and with the data sets presented in the 3D space, more natural and expressive.

Dynamic load balancing holds the potential to scale virtual worlds flexibly by dynamic allocation of hardware to match load. In this paper, we study the benefits and overheads of space based load partitioning, in particular, distributed binary space partitioning (BSP). Our evaluation is based on Open Simulator, a virtual world system compatible with Second Life® viewers. Our work reveals that although simple and effective, distributed BSP has several limitations and suffers from high overhead. We then analyze the fundamental reasons of these limitations. To overcome the limitations, we argue that it is necessary to break away from the simulator-centric architecture used in today's virtual worlds, and present potential new directions.

MILSA (Mobility and Multihoming supporting Identifier Locator Split Architecture) has been proposed to address the naming and addressing challenges for NGI (next generation Internet), we present several design enhancements for MILSA which include a hybrid architectural design that combines "core-edge separation approach" and "split approach", a security-enabled and logically oriented hierarchical identifier system, a three-level identifier resolution system, a new hierarchical code based design for locator structure, cooperative mechanisms among the three planes in MILSA model to assist mapping and routing, and an integrated MILSA service model. The underlying design rationale is also discussed along with the design descriptions. Further analysis addressing the IRTF (Internet Research Task Force) RRG (Routing Research Group) design goals shows that the enhanced MILSA provides comprehensive benefits in routing scalability, traffic engineering, mobility and multihoming, renumbering, security, and deployability.

Naming and addressing are important issues for next generation Internet (NGI). In this paper, we discuss a new mobility and multihoming supporting identifier locator split architecture (MILSA). There are three main contributions of our solution. First, we separate trust relationships (realms) from connectivity (zones). A hierarchical identifier system for the realms and a Realm Zone Bridging Server (RZBS) infrastructure that performs the bridging function is introduced. Second, we separate the signaling and data plane functions to improve the performance and support mobility. Third, to provide transparency to the upper layer applications, identifier locator split happens in network layer. A Hierarchical URI-like Identifier (HUI) is used by the upper layers and is mapped to a locators set by HUI Mapping Sublayer (HMS) through interaction with RZBS infrastructure. Further scenarios description and analysis show the benefits of this scheme for routing scalability, mobility and multihoming.

Virtualization is an essential technology in modern datacenters. Despite advantages such as security isolation, fault isolation, and environment isolation, current virtualization techniques do not provide effective performance isolation between virtual machines (VMs). Specifically, hidden contention for physical resources impacts performance differently in different workload configurations, causing significant variance in observed system throughput. To this end, characterizing workloads that generate performance interference is important in order to maximize overall utility. In this paper, we study the effects of performance interference by looking at system-level workload characteristics. In a physical host, we allocate two VMs, each of which runs a sample application chosen from a wide range of benchmark and real-world workloads. For each combination, we collect performance metrics and runtime characteristics using an instrumented Ken hypervisor. Through subsequent analysis of collected data, we identify clusters of applications that generate certain types of performance interference. Furthermore, we develop mathematical models to predict the performance of a new application from its workload characteristics. Our evaluation shows our techniques were able to predict performance with average error of approximately 5%

The title of this panel alludes to the comment by David DeWitt at VLDB-95 that the database community missed its opportunity to contribute to the Internet revolution. The plan is to discuss if there was the boat to begin with, and if so, can we still jump on it. Consequently, broad questions we will try to address include: If WWW did not exist and we were just designing it now, what would we do differently? In today' s WWW, what are research areas where the database community could contribute?

This paper defines a simple model, called a preference hierarchy, that provides a framework for using the information available to a naming system to compute the object(s) identified by a given name. The preference hierarchy therefore serves as a formal tool for designing and reasoning about naming systems.

Abstract Univers is a generic attribute‐based name server upon which a variety of high‐level naming services can be built. This paper defines Univers' underlying attribute‐based naming model. It also describes several aspects of its implementation and demonstrates how various naming services—including a global white‐pages service, a local yellow‐pages service and a conventional name‐to‐address mapper—can be built on top of Univers.