Ninja and the Post-PC Era David Culler U.C. Berkeley Mar 12, 1999

Ninja and the Post-PC Era

David Culler

U.C. Berkeley

Mar 12, 1999

http://ninja.cs.berkeley.eduhttp://postPC.cs.berkeley.edu

3/12/99 Lucent visit

Natural Tides of Innovation

Time

Integration

Innovation

Log R

Mainframe

Minicomputer

Personal ComputerWorkstationServer

2/99


Exciting components


Historical Perspective

• New eras of computing start when the previous era is so strong it is hard to imagine that things could ever be different

– mainframe -> mini

– mini -> workstation -> PC

– PC -> ???

• It is always smaller than what came before.

• Most think of the new technology as “just a toy”

• The new dominant use was almost completely absent before.

• Technology spread increases

• So where are we headed in the post-PC era?


Away from the “average device”

• Powerful, personal capabilities from specialized devices– small, highly mobile or embedded in the environment

• Intelligence + immense storage and processing in the infrastructure

• Everything connected

Laptops, Desktops

Devices


Imagine

• You walk into a room

You have complete, secure, optimized access to local devices and your private resources

• Your PDA connects to the local infrastructure and asks it to build a custom GUI

• Next, your PDA asks the infrastructure for a path out to your personal information space, where agents are processing your e-mail, v-mail, faxes, and pages


• Bases– highly available– persistent state (safe)– databases, agents– “home” base per user– service programming environment

Structured Architecture

• Active Proxies– not packet routers – soft-state– well-connected– localization (any to any)

• Units– sensors / actuators– PDAs / smartphones / PCs– heterogeneous– Minimal functionality: “Smart Clients”

Wide-Area Path


Service request

service threads

OperatorsCaches

PersistentStorage

Managed RMI++

Physicalprocessor

Service Execution Environment

• parallel application framework on Bases– RMI++ hides complexity of scalability and availability

– Dynamic customization and composition

• apSpace is limited execution environment for AR

operatorupload


Base Execution Environment

• Ninja RMI– Sun RMI compatible serialization and thread management

– ninja remote object

+ TCP or UDP or Multicast UDP (Active Msg soon)

+ Authenticated public key

• iS-box– customizable service VM

• Redirector

= iSpace


iS-box

JVM

iS-L

oad

er

Tru

sted

-Ser

vice

s

Security MGR

• Loader Extends JVM to support services

– LoadService (URL, name, args)

– ListServices

– GetService(name) -> svc obj

– KillService

• Trusted services loaded at startup

• Security MGR interposes on method calls

– loaded as a trusted service


Push Services into the Infrastructure

• GetService returns service object

• Programming Model for Service Methods?

JVM

iS-L

oad

er

Tru

sted

-Ser

vice

s

Security MGR

Newservice

RMIstubs

Generated by RMIcompiler

ServiceMethods


Scalable iSpace

• Multi-Space services across group of iS-boxes

• List, Get, or Load Service from any

• Get returns redirector stub

System Area Network

NodeiS-box

NodeiS-box

NodeiS-box

NodeiS-box

Multi-Space

JVM

iS-L

oad

er

Mu

lti-

Sp

ace

Lo

ader

Security MGR

Mu

lti-

Sp

ace

SV

C


Redirector Stub

• Uses almost same RMI dynamic code generation

• Produces RMI stub that manages load balancing and fail-over across iS-boxes in iSpace

• Allows full spectrum of smart-client, front-end, flat cluster

RMIstubs

Generated by RMIcompiler

Load Balance /Fail-over Policy

Distributed Objects - not just remote


Existing Applications

• Ninja "NOW Jukebox"– Harnesses Berkeley Network of Workstations

– Plays real-time MPEG-3 audio served from 110+ CD's worth of music

• Voice-enabled room control– Speech-to-text Operators control room services (camera, lights,

microphone)

– Eventual integration with GSM cell phones and PDA-based UI

• Stock Trading Service– Accesses real-time stock data from Internet

– Programmatic interface to buy/sell/trade stocks through online brokerage

• NinjaFAX– Programmable remotely-accessed FAX machine service

– Send/receive FAXes; authentication used for access control

• Keiretsu: The Ninja Pager Service– Provides instant messaging service via Web, 1/2-way pagers, WorkPads,

etc.


Future Applications

• Universal Inbox– e-mail, FAX, pager, voicemail accessible anywhere

• Universal Remote– multiple-UI control of household/room devices

– automatic UI generation

• Ecash Mint– Authenticated service to act as digital secure cash mint


Complements industry PostPC efforts

• Get maximum number of applications first– 1990 PC capality in handheld device

– microkernel port of Unix or Windows

– emulate vast API

• Turn devices into appliances

• Mobile extension of dedicated PC– take short excursion and synch

• Success of the Palm Pilot with primitive OS and split application model is significant

– it’s the approach, not the technical superiority

• Need to develop foundations for next generation


Seeds sewn in many projects

• Devices - Infopad, IRAM

• Scalable Servers - NOW, Millennium

• Storage - Tertiary Disk, Istore, Aetherstore

• Sensors and Actuators - BSAC

• Connectivity - BWRC

• Transcoding Services - Wingman, Mediaboard

• Platform Architecture - Ninja

• Computing/Telephony Integration - Iceberg

• Programming Enviornments and Tools

• User interfaces - Notepals


Building the Bazaar

• What we need is not just a new research project, but a new “computing culture”

=> Build a department-wide, universal wireless PDA infrastructure and a community to take it forward

• Initial Seed Fall 98 with IBM– 150+ IBM workpads + lots of cradles + IR + ???

• Initial community– Ninja, ICEBERG, MASH grad students

– Senior UI Class (CS 160)

– All interested 1st year CS grads (CS 252, 261, 262 projects)

– Fill out based on interest, talent and availability

=> “ask a good question and get yours” seminar


Fall’98 Project Excerpts

• E-Commerce and Security– Pay-Per-Use Services on the Palm Computing Platform (Mike Chen, Andrew Geweke)

– Secure Email Infrastructure for PDAs (Hoon Kang, Rob von Behren)

– SyncAnywhere - Secure Network HotSync (Mike Chen, Helen Wang)

• Groupware– Kiretsu - Ninja Instant Messaging Service (Matt Welsh, Steve Gribble)

– The MASH MediaPad - Shared Electronic Whiteboard for the PalmPilot (Yatin Chawathe)

– NotePals - Lightweight Meeting Support Using PDAs (Richard Davis)

– OSKI - Open Shared Kalendaring Infrastructure (Jason Hong, Brad Morrey, Mark Newman)

• OS and Communications– PalmRouter - Networking Sporadically Connected Devices (Andras Ferencz, Robert

Szewczyk)

• Numerous Architecture Studies

• Excellent UI Projects– Ink Chat, Nutrition/Excercise Tracker, Rendezvous - Meeting Scheduler


Some Lessons

• Communication is enabling– low-power wireless needs to be like IP

• Virtual Environment is important– Devices connect “into the infrastructure”

» Network HotSync, groupware, centralized e-mail

=> Need lean, clean communication substrate

• “User Service” is fundamental– not just profile and customization info

– routing point for security

• Much room for improvement in devices– trade BW for compute or storage

• Development effort is the limiting factor– OSKI: 1 person for infrastructure, 2 for WorkPad

=> need complete distributed system debugging and simulation environment


Momentum Building

• Deploy postPC infrastructure throughout building

• Millennium provides large-scale testbed

• Ninja architecture allows developers to “Push Services into the Infrastructure”

Gigabit Ethernet

PDAs Cell PhonesFuture Devices

WirelessInfrastructure

DesktopPCs

Servers

Clusters

Massive Cluster


Oceanic Vision: fluid software

• devices everywhere

• backed by massive, fluid data storage and composible services

• operating systems for vastly diverse devices– down to sensors and actuators

• streaming data management– data derived from sensors and activities, not key entry

– incremental query

• automated negotiation architecture

• derive organization from activities– social networking

– computational economies


Roles, Collaboration, and Environment

• Bold, Rich PostPC Agenda Emerging

• New balance of expertise and technology between industry and university

– devices, components, networks, applications, users

• New roles and relationships in collaboration– how do we share space, environment, culture, not just

technology

• Fundamentally new demands on the research space

– ability to deploy smart spaces on a large scale

– experimental wireless networking

– new modes of human interaction

• It’s not just what we build, but how we use it

Documents

Ninja and the Post-PC Era David Culler U.C. Berkeley Mar 12, 1999