Middleware is everywhere. Ever since the advent of sockets and other virtu- circuit abstractions, researchers have been looking for ways to incorporate high- value concepts into distributed systems platforms. Most distributed applications, especially Internet applications, are now programmed using such middleware platforms. Prior to 1998, there were several major conferences and workshops at which research into middleware was reported, including ICODP (International C- ference on Open Distributed Processing), ICDP (International Conference on Distributed Platforms) and SDNE (Services in Distributed and Networked - vironments). Middleware’98was a synthesis of these three conferences. Middleware 2000 continued the excellent tradition of Middleware’98. It p- vided a single venue for reporting state-of-the-art results in the provision of distributed systems platforms. The focus of Middleware 2000 was the design, implementation, deployment, and evaluation of distributed systems platforms and architectures for future networked environments. Among the 70 initial submissions to Middleware 2000, 21 papers were - lected for inclusion in the technical program of the conference. Every paper was reviewed by four members of the program committee. The papers were judged - cording to their originality, presentation quality, and relevance to the conference topics. The accepted papers cover various subjects such as caching, re?ection, quality of service, and transactions.

A state-of-the-art guide to middleware technologies, and their pivotal role in communications networks. Middleware is about integration and interoperability of applications and services running on heterogeneous computing and communications devices. The services it provides - including identification, authentication, authorization, soft-switching, certification and security - are used in a vast range of global appliances and systems, from smart cards and wireless devices to mobile services and e-Commerce. Qusay H. Mahmoud has created an invaluable reference tool that explores the origins and current uses of middleware (highlighting the importance of such technologies as CORBA, J2EE and JMS) and has thus compiled the roadmap to future research in this area. Middleware for Communications: discusses the emerging fields of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and grid middleware detailing middleware platforms such as JXTA and the Globus middleware toolkit. shows how Middleware will play a significant role in mobile computing. presents a Platform Supporting Mobile Applications (PLASMA) - a middleware platform that consists of components for location, event, and profile handling of Location-Based Services. introduces middleware security focusing on the appropriate aspects of CORBA, J2EE, and .NET and demonstrates how to realize complex security capabilities such as role-based access control (RBAC) and mandatory access control (MAC). discusses how Quality of Service (QoS) component middleware can be combined with Model Driven Architecture (MDA) technologies to rapidly develop, generate, assemble and deploy flexible communications applications. This incomparable overview of middleware for communications is suitable for graduate students and researchers in communications and computing departments. It is also an authoritative guide for engineers and developers working on distributed systems, mobile computing and networked appliances.

The first International Workshop on Interactive Distributed Multimedia Systems and Telecommunication Services (IDMS) was organized by Prof. K. Rothermel and Prof. W. Effelsberg, and took place in Stuttgart in 1992. It had the form of a national forum for discussion on multimedia issues related to communications. The succeeding event was "attached" as a workshop to the German Computer Science Conference (GI Jahrestagung) in 1994 in Hamburg, organized by Prof. W. Lamersdorf. The chairs of the third IDMS, E. Moeller and B. Butscher, enhanced the event to become a very successful international meeting in Berlin in March 1996. This short overview on the first three IDMS events is taken from the preface of the IDMS’97 proceedings (published by Springer as Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 1309), written by Ralf Steinmetz and Lars Wolf. Both, Ralf Steinmetz as general chair and Lars Wolf as program chair of IDMS’97, organized an excellent international IDMS in Darmstadt. Since 1998, IDMS has moved from Germany to other European cities to emphasize the international character it had gained in the previous years. IDMS’98 was organized in Oslo by Vera Goebel and Thomas Plagemann at UniK – Center for Technology at Kjeller, University of Oslo. Michel Diaz, Phillipe Owezarski, and Patrick Sénac successfully organized the sixth IDMS event, again outside Germany. IDMS'99 took place in Toulouse at ENSICA. IDMS 2000 continued the tradition and was hosted in Enschede, the Netherlands.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the IFIP/ACM International Conference on Distributed Systems Platforms, Middleware 2001, held in Heidelberg, Germany, in November 2001. The 20 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 116 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on Java, mobility, distributed abstractions, reliability, home and office, scalability, and quality of service.

This book focuses on the topic of improving software quality using adaptive control approaches. As software systems grow in complexity, some of the central challenges include their ability to self-manage and adapt at run time, responding to changing user needs and environments, faults, and vulnerabilities. Control theory approaches presented in the book provide some of the answers to these challenges. The book weaves together diverse research topics (such as requirements engineering, software development processes, pervasive and autonomic computing, service-oriented architectures, on-line adaptation of software behavior, testing and QoS control) into a coherent whole. Written by world-renowned experts, this book is truly a noteworthy and authoritative reference for students, researchers and practitioners to better understand how the adaptive control approach can be applied to improve the quality of software systems. Book chapters also outline future theoretical and experimental challenges for researchers in this area.

New object-oriented technologies have been conceived and implemented over the past decade in order to manage complexity inherent in information systems development. Research has spanned from information systems modelling languages (UML and OML) to databases (ODMG), from programming languages (Java) to middleware technology (CORBA). A more widespread use of the Internet has led to the emergence and integration of various other technologies, such as XML and database connectivity tools, allowing businesses to access and exchange information over the Internet. The main theme of OOIS 2000 was "Object-Technology and New Business Opportunities" and focused on research conducted in the area of effective information systems development for the promotion of e-commerce. Papers were invited from academics and practitioners. The thirty-nine papers accepted for oms 2000 are included in these proceedings. It is nice to see this year that the shift from centralised to distributed systems and the widespread access and use of the Internet has allowed the advent of new opportunities for businesses to exploit, in the form of e-commerce.

This volume presents two regular revised papers, a guest editors' introduction, and six papers in a special section that have been through a careful peer reviewing process by the journal's Editorial Board. Besides a wide range of topics from software design to implementation of aspect-oriented languages, the six papers of the special section concentrate on AOP systems, software and middleware.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International IFIP/GI Working Conference on Trends Towards a Universal Service Market, USM 2000, held in Munich, Germany in September 2000. The 28 revised full papers presented together with three invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on electronic auctions and trading, Internet-based service markets, quality of service, mobile and distributed services, middleware architectures, service management, mobile agents and applications, and trends in data- and telecommunications.