Mobile agent system for ubiquitous computing; new way to cope with the wide-area, large-scale ubiquitous computing environment of near future. Allows access to personal and collaborative computing services anywhere, via varied desktop and mobile computing devices.

"Agent-based communication paradigms have shown enormous potential for operating in unpredictable, metamorphic environments, such as mobile computing networks." Published in Crossroads, the ACM student magazine.

Modular object-oriented application to index files across networks. Has plug-in type data retrieval system, webserver, peer-to-peer connections for network-wide information gathering, retrieval; has features of OSs, database management systems, distributed networking. Open Source, GPL.

A distributed operating system based on the concepts of object replication, component model support and persistence. It consists of a L4 microkernel and a set of distributed objects acting at the user level. [Open source]

Global Layer Unix; technology trends in high-speed, low-latency LANs suggest convergence of hardware in Massively Parallel Processors, MPPs, and Networks of Workstations, NOWs. Relative to many MPPs, NOWs offer more cost-effectiveness and scalability, and less hardware and software development time. Soon, the main difference between NOWs and MPPs will be OS software.

Distributed Unix operating system for Stanford FLASH multiprocessor; survives hardware and software faults, performance near commercial Unix. Arranged as internal system of independent kernels (cells) for reliability, scalability.

hierarchically clustered OS implemented on Hector multiprocessor; manages system resources in clusters, using tight coupling within clusters, loose coupling across clusters. Succeeded by Tornado.

Researches distributed and realtime operating systems, communication, software engineering. Part of Department of Computer Science, Otto-von-Guericke-University of Magdeburg, Germany. English, Deutsch.

This group's focus is to build and investigate software systems for parallel and distributed environments. They have conducted research in operating systems, networking, mobile computing, language design, compiler design, and architecture, taking a pragmatic approach: "we build high-performance, reliable, and working systems."

Software package to enhance Unix kernels (7 so far) and Linux with cluster computing abilities. Lets any size cluster of x86-based workstations and servers work cooperatively as if part of one system. [Open Source, GPL]

Details active project to illustrate use of MOSIX to create clusters of surplus machines that can be used to provide network services, application resources.

An operating system that lets applications be built simpler. The system selects and combines resources from the network semi-automatically.

Simple, yet efficient distributed shared memory (DSM) system; a user-level library plus header files supports DSM on groups of Unix workstations. Runs on 4.3BSD/M68k, HP-UX/PA-RISC, IRIX 5.2/MIPS, SunOS 4.1/SPARC. [Open Source, public domain]

SUpport for Multimedia in Operating systems, Lancaster University: microkernel OS with facilities to support distributed realtime and multimedia applications and ODP-based multimedia distributed application platforms.

Distributed OS gives one system image to/over a networked cluster of workstations, research project, Berkeley, John Outerhoust group; high file system performance via client and server caching, process migration to use idle machines; testbed for research in file systems (log-structured, striped, RAID), crash recovery.

Brief, simple layman's treatment of Carnegie Mellon University Odyssey project; IBM Research's Autonomic Computing initiative; Microsoft Farsite project. [CNN.com]

Object-oriented operating system for large-scale shared-memory multiprocessors. Minimizes data sharing via careful design: often eliminates data sharing even when sharing appears natural. Successor to Hurricane.

Growing article, with links to many related topics. Wikipedia.

To be AJAX-based, distributed web desktop; forms a shared online windowing environment to promote collaboration and simplify content management. Forum based site.

Gives distributed OS services needed to build applications that are wide-area, highly available, incrementally scalable, dynamically reconfiguring, with mechanisms for: resource discovery, global namespace, remote process execution, resource management, authentication, security.

Distributed operating system, to be fully object-oriented, preemptively multithreaded/tasked, event/message-driven. Little code yet, but design documents and links are interesting, useful reading.

Allows running diverse programs in web browser, integrated program development and management, based on HTML and JavaScript. Descriptions, FAQ, weblog, forum, developer support, tutorial, policy, contacts. Open source.