Agents and Middleware in the IST
Programme - a Vision and Related Calls
Dr. Max Lemke
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Directorate-General Information Society
Essential Information Society Technologies and Infrastructures
Technologies for information processing and management,
communications and networks
European Commission
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Research versus Market Trends
Research Trends
Market Trends
• active networks &
agents
• component-based
software
• grid technologies
• ...
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advanced telecom services
application service provision
community computing
...
What do these trends lead to ?
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Active Networking
• Today’s networks: reprogrammable only by vendors
• Active Networks: receipt and execution of active packets
• By opening network nodes service providers are freed from:
– vendor independent implementations
– time-consuming standardisation processes
– work-arounds to implement functionality
• Components of Active Networks
– programmable networking infrastructure
– active packets (e.g. mobile agents)
– programming language (e.g. JAVA)
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Agent Technologies
• Agents
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- active information processing
- migration through the network
Platforms differ by
- operating System
- architectural choices
Two main approaches
- FIPA
- MASIF
Standard properties:
autonomous, interacting, re-active, pro-active
Other attributes: intelligent, mobile, multiagents, holonic,
trusted, cognitive capabilities
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Application Service Providers
ASPs manage and deliver application capabilities on
a subscription basis to multiple users across a WAN
• remote access to hosted applications
• flat rate per user business model
• on his own predefined computing platform
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Application Portals:
A possible future scenario ?
Application Portals allowing a user
to select a set of application services
irrespective of the platform or organization
through which the service is provided
Today’s ISPs do not own network resources
==> future APs do not own computer resources
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Potential Roles of Application Portals
• provide all integration technologies
– to front all applications
– to integrate with in-house systems
• ensure confidentiality and integrity
• manage hardware and networking resources
including licensing issues
• take responsibilities for resources consumed
i.e. provide settlements between providers and a single
invoice to the user including secure payments
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Roadmap of Related Calls - WP 2001
Call 6
Open:
Jan. 2001
Close:
April 2001
Call 7
Open:
June 2001
Close:
Oct. 2001
RTD
Action Line IV.2.1
Real-Time
Distributed Systems
Take-up
Action Line IV.2.4
Communication,
Computation,
Networks
 real time distributed
 agent technologies
 middleware for distributed
systems
 knowledge-based
applications
 embedded vision and/or
cognitive vision systems
 distributed control
control systems
systems
 open architectures, technologies, tools for ASP
 open and reusable middleware for deployment of AS
 service management frameworks
Application Service Provision (ASP)
Cross Programme Action Line 12
RTD & Take-up
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“Take-up”
“Aimed at transferring leading-edge as well as
established but insufficiently deployed methodologies
and technologies to industry and other organisations in
order to achieve greater efficiency”
RTD
innovators
Technology Transfer
early adopters
Commercial Phase
early majority
time
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Take-up Types
• Trials (users & suppliers):
– evaluation of promising, yet not fully
established technologies & solutions
– targets early adopters+ early majority
• Best Practice (users):
– promote take-up of well established
technologies & methods
– targets early majority
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TRIAL Characteristics
• Objectives:
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Technology:
Consortium:
Innovation:
Risk:
Work done:
• Beneficiaries:
• Outcome:
adaptation, introduction and evaluation of
technologies in applications
emerging, but NOT established
user(s) - supplier(s) - expert(s)
use of advanced technologies in applications
applicability of technologies / application benefits
user: specification, integration, verification
supplier: adaptation, customization, integration
user: commercial advantage of first use
supplier: establish/broaden his market
advanced prototype
public high quality final report
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Best Practice Characteristics
• Objectives:
• Technology:
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Consortium:
Innovation:
Risk:
Work done:
Beneficiaries:
Outcome:
improve processes or way of operation by use
and evaluation of technologies
well founded, mature and established, but
insufficiently deployed
user(s), eventual subcontractor(s)
use of advanced technologies in applications
applicability and benefits in the application
experiment, evaluate, document
user
public high quality final report
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Adaptation and Introduction of
Mobile and Intelligent Agent Technologies
in new Services and Industrial Applications
Examples:
– service creation:
– information filtering:
– electronic commerce:
– network management:
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Users:
all level service providers,
customers
all levels
businesses trading
electronically
network operators
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Adaptation and Introduction of
Middleware for Management of Process Flow in
Distributed Applications with Shared Resources
to new Services and Industrial Applications
Examples for technologies:
– distributed object broker architectures (CORBA, EJB, …)
– application servers, integration servers , web integration
Examples for Applications:
– Web-based distributed applications
(distributed engineering, data mining, OLTP, network management…
in aerospace, automotive, banking, telecom, new services, …)
– Use of distributed object broker architectures for component-based
integration with legacy systems (on corporate or virtual enterprise level)
– Development environments and tools
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Integrated Vision and Control
• intelligent integration of embedded vision
systems in production environments
• introduction of control systems
• Technical focus:
– networked systems
– off the shelf components
– integrated with production planning tools
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Thematic Clustering
• Multiplier effect in reaching European industry:
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small individual projects - limited reach
obtain critical mass of results per theme / industrial sector
stimulation of further technology transfer and replication
targeted dissemination to industrial audiences
allow efficient technology transfer across Europe
• Increased efficiency of co-ordination:
– experienced principal contractors
– common interface to the EC
– harmonised and simplified procedures for reporting,
monitoring, reviews, cost statements, centralized payment
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Thematic Clusters
EC
Coordinator
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Member
Activity
Principle
Contractor
...
...
Activity
European Commission
Principle
Contractor
...
...
Thematic Cluster <N>
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Existing Clusters
Integrated Machine Vision
European Take-up of Essential
Information Society Technologies Integrated Machine Vision
(EUTIST-IMV)
• Activities:
Medical
European Take-up of Essential
Information Society Technologies Technologies for Medical applications
(EUTIST-M)
• Activities:
KNOT,3D-INLINE,SAFEGLASS, IMBUS,
IMTEX,CV-ADCONTROL,ASPIC-LINUX
SEESAW,SIGPROEL,TOPCAPI
• Principal Contractors:
– CiS-TZM (D) (co-ordinator)
– Satakunta Polytechnic (FIN)
– EPCC (UK)
• EC responsible: Max Lemke
European Commission
CREAM,ISAC,ADAM,IONIC,
DISMEDI,DEAF
• Principal Contractors:
– UPV (E) (co-ordinator)
– ENEA (I)
– CINECA (I)
• EC responsible: Tom Clausen
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EUTIST-IMV: Statistics
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10 experiments
Average funding per experiment: ~ 270 KEURO
Cluster Work Packages: ~ 10% of Funding
3 Principal Contractors, 32 Members
Average 3 - 4 partners per trial
Duration
– Cluster:
30 months
– Experiments: 12 - 24 months
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Eligible Costs in
Trial or Best Practice Measures
No difference between universities and companies
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Personnel
Durable equipment
Consumables
Travel & Subsistence
Computing
Subcontracting
IPR Protection
Other Costs
Overheads
Co-ordination
100%
50%
50%
50%
50% (only 3rd party invoices)
50%
0%
100% (central services, e.g. cluster web-site)
0%
(cluster co-ordinator only, by above categories)
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Contract
Model Contract “Accompanying Measures specific to
Technology Take-up Measures”
– Standard contract prepared by EC, signed by EC and PCs
http://www.cordis.lu/fp5/mod-cont.htm (DE, EN, FR)
– Annex I: Description of Work
– Annex II: General Conditions (standard, provided by EC)
• option 3 (<100% funding, participants own knowledge)
• suboption 2 (use oriented)
• model membership agreement (several members)
– CPF (contract preparation forms) for IST take-up prepared by coordinator with ELECTRA tool: http://www.cordis.lu/ist/cont-prep.htm
with contributions from ALL participants
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Recommendations for Proposers in AL IV.2.4
• Individual proposals per action - no a priori clustering
• Provision of ~10% of requested funding for cluster WPs
• Cluster WPs could be carried out by partners
– who are experienced in technology transfer
– who are neutral related to competing users or suppliers
• Partners for Cluster WPs could be but do not have to be
– included in proposal
– foreseen in proposal as NN partners
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Multinationality Requirements
for Take-up Proposals
• Principal Contractors have to be single or have to
fulfil multinationality requirements for RTD projects
• In case of one Principle Contractor,
no multinationality requirements for Members
• Individual proposals must have a European
Dimension, e.g. results and experiences are of
broader interest and are disseminated across Europe
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Evaluation
Evaluation Criteria
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Scientific/technological quality and innovation
Community added value
Contribution to Community social objectives
Economic development and S&T prospects
Resources, Partnership, and Management
Evaluation Manual for the IST Programme:
• Additional or specific elements per action type
• Scores and Thresholds per action type
• No anonymity requirements for Support Measures
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More information
Infosheet: http://www.cordis.lu/ist/ka4/ipcn/take-up.htm
IST Programme: http://www.cordis.lu/ist
Call Info:
http://www.cordis.lu/fp5/src/calls.htm
Evaluation Manual:
http://www.cordis.lu/fp5/src/evalman.htm
Standard Contracts:
http://www.cordis.lu/fp5/mod-cont.htm
HPCN TTN Network: http://www.hpcn-ttn.org
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Contacts
• For all administrative information
IST Information Desk
Tel. (32-2) 29-68596
Fax (32-2) 29-68388
E-mail:[email protected]
• For discussion of content and ideas
Max Lemke, Tom Clausen (Take-up)
Merce Griera I Fisa (RTD)
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Directorate-General Information Society
Essential Information Society Technologies and Infrastructures
Technologies for information processing and management, communications
and networks (E1)
Tel. (32-2) 29-91575/94942/68591
Fax (32-2) 29-68389
[max.lemke][tom.clausen][merce.griera-i-fisa]@cec.eu.int
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