Completed Projects
This page lists completed projects.
Short projects
Price based Internet gateway
Many schemes have been proposed for price-based management of network traffic, where price is used as a signal to the user (or rather the user's application software) regarding the current load on network resources. This ideally allows the user application to adapt to network conditions in a way that optimises user satisfaction. In this project, a group of host machines will be connected to the Internet via a gateway, and all requests for remote server connection will be submitted via a pre-processor at the gateway. The gateway pre-processor and a special client on the host will negotiate regarding permission to connect. If the host agree to the current gateway conditions then the connection will be made to the remote server. The client software on the user's host machine is to provide an interface that allows the user to specify parameters that reflect the user's connection policy. The client then uses these parameters to negotiate each connection on behalf of the user.
Server failure detection and response
Assume you have a farm of N machines networked together on a common IP network (e.g. N < 20 and the machines are FreeBSD servers). Develop a distributed application that monitors the N machines and sends a pager or SMS message to one or more nominated phone numbers when a machine dies or is disconnected from the network. The monitoring mechanism must be self-contained within the set of N machines (no extra machine is available to run the monitoring program). The monitoring function must be robust against any machine failing. Each time a machine fails, the application adapts and continues operation across the remaining (N-1) machines. If a failed machine restarts, the application adapts again to resume monitoring the newly restarted machine.
Graceful shutdown of UPS-protected unix server farm
Assume a farm of N (N <=10) FreeBSD machines, and a single UPS that can be remotely monitored by one of the machines. All machines are powered through the UPS, but to save money we purchased a UPS that is only capable of supporting all N machines for five (5) minutes, or one primary machine for one (1) hour. Each machine is connected to a small, common IP network, also powered by the UPS. Develop a solution where the nominated primary machine monitors the UPS (e.g. over a dedicated RS232 link), and automatically initiates graceful shutdowns of the other (N-1) machines if mains power is lost. The solution should be configurable in terms of which machines make up the group, and allow for a hierarchy of shutdowns (e.g. some set of machines shutdown if power is gone for 2 minutes, another set of machines is shut down only if power outage lasts for 10 minutes, etc...)
Long projects
Latency and jitter sensitivity in First Person Shooter (FPS) games
For businesses planning on supporting fast-paced multiplayer games over the Internet the pool of potential customers depends on how tolerant players are to latency. Previous work with QuakeIII Arena suggests that players prefer servers less than 180-200ms away - i.e. paying customers will primarily come from the population within 180ms radius of any given server. This analysis was done using fairly crude estimates of 'ping' times between server and players (tens of samples per minute, using the server's uncalibrated timers). Develop a method for accurately sampling and estimating latency between client and server, build tools capable of monitoring at least two types of FPS (such as Half Life, CounterStrike, etc) , run public servers for a few months, then re-evaluate the validity of the "180ms radius" result. Comment on the possible impact of jitter, hop count, and game type on your results.
The war against Internet spam
The Internet is being flooded with unsolicited spam emails. It seems that until now there has not been an effective spam-stopping technique. This project aims to review anti-Spam state of the art methods. It will study existing/ proposed anti-spam mechanisms, and compare and evaluate their effectiveness. Its scope may be extended to a study of spam email traffic characterisation and an investigation of a spam email detection technique, that is capable of detecting spam traffic solely from the dynamic characteristics the traffic imposes on the network.
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