I am a Reader in the Distributed & Scientific Computing in the School of Computer Science and Informatics. Concurrently, I consult independently at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC, where I have worked on computer networking research projects over the past 13 years.

I have written one professional book called From P2P to Web Services and Grids: Peers in a Client/Server World: Peers in a Client / Server World , which has successfully made it to its second edition, now called From P2P and Grids to Services on the Web and edited another called Workflows for e-Science: Scientific Workflows for Grids, which provided the state-of-the-art of most major workflow projects in the world. I have also been guest editor for the Journal of Grid Computing on workflow and co-chair for the OGF Workflow Management Research Group (WFM-RG).

Distributed and Cloud Computing

For The Distributed Systems Slides from the Course, please Click here.

I have published over 70 scientific papers and has managed a number academic projects (UK and EU) over the past 10 years. I wrote the initial version of the Triana workflow engine and thereafter have run a number of projects, applying it to Grids, SOA and P2P computing. I have numerous research interests in application domains ranging from distributed audio (DART, EDGeS, EDGI), astrophysics (Gridlab, GridOneD) to Healthcare (Sintero Server, TRIACS). I am also a member of management oversight committee for DPAC project (£10M, STFC) providing data analysis for the ESA GAIA mission to create the most precise 3D one billion star chart of our Galaxy.

At NRL, I have worked on a number of research projects focusing on service discovery and communication in MANET networks. I wrote a Java Virtual Machine for Ns-2 called AgentJ, which executes unmodified Java code within the ns2 environment; developed different profiles (proactive, reactive and opportunistic caching) to improve service discovery within the Bonjour/mDNS compatible Independent Network Discovery Interface (INDI) discovery system; and I have worked on the adaptation of TCP transport-oriented client-server XMPP messaging to many-to-many peer-to-peer networking environments using GUMP.

In my spare time, I also write and record music at home under the band name Acrium and do some part time technology work for Skydesks Inc.

And now a quote from Bill Gates ...