Balancing Zero-Admin and Incremental Integration in Real-World Ubicomp Environments

1. Balancing Zero-Adminand Incremental Integrationin Real-World Ubicomp Environments Andy Szybalski Adviser: Armando Fox 25 May 2004

2. Stanford iRoom • Conference room augmented with: • 3 SmartBoard displays • wireless input andoutput devices • custom software infrastructureand applications (iROS) • Facilitates collaborative work

3. OpenURL(www.stanford.edu) OpenURL(www.stanford.edu) iROS • Incremental integration: applications communicate indirectly through Event Heap • Minimizes effort of integration associated with adding new applications to the environment • Difficult to recover from hardware and software failures X MultiBrowseSender MultiBrowseRec’ver MultiBrowseSender MultiBrowseRec’ver PointRight for Mac Event Heapserver PointRight for Win

4. Zero-Admin • recoverability from transient hardware and software failures • configuration minimal and centralized • installation can be done quickly and easily to integrated new machines into the environment • boundaries of interaction clearly defined • All applications on a machine connected or disconnected • One Event Heap per room without increasing effort of integration

5. iROS Manager • iROS Manager is a daemon that controls starting, monitoring, and stopping of applications in a ubicomp environment • Must be flexible enough to accommodate arbitrary applications • takes advantage of universal mechanisms Macapp Javaapp Event Heapserver Winapp Javaapp iROS Manager iROS Manager iROS Manager

6. PingEvent() Recoverability Event Heapserver Javaapplication default monitor Event Heap monitor iROS Manager • Restartability: if an application stops functioning, iROS Manager kills its process and restarts it. • Monitoring: how to tell if an application is functioning properly • default: process alive • custom Event Heap monitor: ping • Uses universal mechanisms, but: • applications must be restartable

7. Configuration • Global settings across all applications • In addition, each application must be accompanied by a config.ini file specifying how it should be run: APPLICATION = java MultiBrowseService ${MACHINE_NAME} ${EHEAP_SERVER} • Someone must write these config.ini files

8. Zero-Admin • recoverability from transient hardware and software failures • configuration minimal and centralized • installation can be done quickly and easily to integrated new machines into the environment • boundaries of interaction clearly defined • All applications on a machine connected or disconnected • One Event Heap per room mostly without increasing effort of integration

9. Success Story: TeamSpace • Model for a public zero-admin interactive workspace • Deployed in Meyer Library • TeamSpace client installation with iROS Manager, PointRight, MultiBrowse • Simple GUI foriROS Manager

10. TeamSpace GUI • Event Heap server preset to teamspace.stanford.edu • Connected to Event Heap iff application is open • Very few code modifications needed: • Integrated MultiBrowse sender functionality into GUI • Made PointRight non-configurable • Nomenclature

11. Conclusions • Future work • restartability using dependencies • global configuration across multiple machines • It is possible to create a unified, zero-admin environment from a heterogeneous set of software • Balance between zero-admin and incremental integration Andy Szybalski andys@cs.stanford.edu

12. Menu GUI

13. Launcher GUI

14. Installer

15. Patch Panel