MIDDLEWARE'98, The Lake District, England, 15-18 September 1998

Call for Papers

IFIP International Conference on Distributed Systems
Platforms and Open Distributed Processing

September 15-18 1998, The Lake District, England

Middleware'98 will be the premier conference on distributed systems platforms and open distributed processing in 1998. The conference is a synthesis of the major conferences and workshops in this area into a single international event and representatives of ICODP (International Conference on Open Distributed Processing), ICDP (International Conference on Distributed Platforms), DAIS (Distributed Applications and Interoperable Systems) and SDNE (Services in Distributed and Networked Environments) are included on the programme committee.

Highlights of the conference will include a high-quality technical programme, full and half-day tutorials, invited speakers, demonstrations and poster presentations all held in one of Britain's areas of outstanding natural beauty.

The focus of Middleware'98 is on the design, implementation, deployment and evaluation of distributed systems platforms and architectures for future networked environments. Of particular interest is the application of both new and existing architectures and platforms (such as RM-ODP, CORBA and DCOM) in environments which may include public and private networks, overlayed wired and wireless technologies, IPv6 and IP multicast, multimedia and real-time information and an increasing volume of WWW and Java traffic.

The Lake District:

The Lake District is unquestionably one of England's most beautiful regions. A national park of over 800 square miles, it encompasses stunning scenery including imposing mountains, sweeping valleys and tranquil lakes. The area has provided the inspiration for countless poets, artists and writers with its evocative landscape. The Lakes are also a haven for outdoor sports including hiking, climbing, mountain biking, sailing and water skiing. The conference venue is situated in the centre of the National Park with stunning views across Lake Windermere to the Langdale Pikes and has its own water sports centre. Many hiking trails begin nearby and guides will be available to allow everyone to enjoy this unique setting.

Key Topics:

The conference seeks original, unpublished papers on all aspects of systems support for distributed applications including case studies on the use of such technologies and examples of advanced distributed applications. The following topics have been identified by the programme committee as being of special relevance to the conference:

integration of middleware platforms with web and Java technologies.

real-time middleware platforms including real-time ORBs.

provision of multimedia support in middleware platforms.

applications of, and support for, QoS in middleware platforms.

event based and asynchronous platforms.

novel paradigms and APIs for distributed systems platforms.

open architectures for adaptive systems.

applications of middleware technologies including telematics and commerce.

extensions and refinements to RM-ODP, DCE, CORBA, DCOM etc.

the impact of emerging Internet technologies on middleware platforms.

distributed systems management and interactive configuration and development tools.

issues of scalability within existing and new distributed systems platforms.

engineering distributed systems in heterogeneous and mobile networks.

Submission Guidelines:

Middleware'98 seeks submissions in the following forms:

Full technical papers. These should describe original, unpublished research and be no longer than 7000 words.

Work-in-progress papers. These should describe on-going work and interim results. Submissions should be no longer than 2500 words.

Posters. Posters can be used to publicise current research initiatives. A 500 word summary of the poster's contents should be submitted.

Tutorial proposals. Middleware'98 aims to include a number of high-quality tutorials in areas relevant to the conference themes. Tutorial proposals should be no-longer than 1000 words and should include the intended audience, duration (full or half day) and speaker biographies for the tutorial.

All submissions will be reviewed by the programme committee. Full papers accepted for presentation at Middleware'98 will be included in the proceedings published by Chapman and Hall and selected papers will be included in a special issue of the Distributed Systems Engineering journal.

Work in progress and poster submissions will be made available to conference delegates but will not appear in the published proceedings.

Electronic submission in PostScript is strongly encouraged. Please ensure the first page of your submission includes an abstract and the address, telephone, FAX and email of the primary contact person and that the nature of your submission (full paper, work-in-progress paper etc.) is clearly identified.

In the case of hard-copy submissions please send FOUR copies to:

Further information may be obtained from either of the programme chairs or the tutorial chair by emailing middleware98@comp.lancs.ac.uk. If your paper is accepted you will be required to produce your paper in camera ready format according to Chapman and Hall style guidelines. Further information is available from:

http://www.it-ch.com/chaphall/itch/authors/authors.html

Important dates:

Organisation:

General Chair:

Gordon Blair, Lancaster University, UK.

Programme Chairs:

Tutorials Chair:

Richard Sinnott, GMD-Fokus, Germany.

Publicity Chair:

John Bates, Cambridge University, UK.

Local Arrangements Chair:

Geoff Coulson, Lancaster University, UK.

Steering Committee:

Programme Committee:

Middleware 98 | Conference report | Proceedings